Sunday, June 29, 2008

SME Sector in India -and random thoughts!

This blog is entirely inspired by my blogging guru Gautam Ghosh's posting trying to list out Small and Medium Management Consulting Firms in India -disregarding that some of them are potential competition to him-catering to the SME (small & medium enterprises) if they aren't already :-)!

Most people do not realise the SMEs account for almost 90% of industrial units in India and 40% of value addition in the manufacturing sector. They contribute 35% to India’s merchandise exports. I recall remember reading that this sector-also employs a huge amount of workforce & rarely gets the visibility of being the most among integral players in India’s economic growth story.

There are more than 350 clusters in India- eg electric fans in Calcutta, sewing machines in Ludhiana, stationery diesel engines in Rajkot ( these come first to my mind, as I was a Shriram group employee before my recruiter avataar!!), Jalandhar sports goods, Coimbatore agricultural pumps, Gurgaon auto courtesy Maruti, Tiruppur for textiles....etc!

Most of these firms-are run by technocrats-and operate from tight financial budgets-that they really do not have the luxury to afford full time HR professionals- and it is here the consulting fraternity can certainly add value.

Indian SME are amongst the most dominant recruiters the BRIC countries- considering the increasing IT spend!

Incidentally, a few months ago, I attended a meeting hosted by ICICI and IBM -to launch a project of IFC (World Bank group) SME Toolkit .The SME Toolkit India offers a wide range of how-to articles, business forms, free business software, online training, self-assessment exercises, quizzes, and resources to help entrepreneurs, business owners, and managers in India to start, finance, formalize, and grow their businesses.

As a recruiter, I am convinced some of the SMEs can tap into innovative ways of hiring
-retired professionals who want to have a more relaxed number of hours. Imagine the wealth of experience-even at say 20hrs a week ?
-temporary or small term projects to design and implement special initiatives-utilising some flexitime employees
-working closely with MBA/Engineering colleges and get interns to handle short-term projects.

In a podcast I recently heard, there are a lot of SMEs in US -who have tapped the opportunity of engaging 'interim' managers ('rightsized' from ironically large corporates-even as they were looking for new employment opportunities -which aren't easy to come by-considering the slow down!)-and it has been a win-win for all concerned.

With increasing attention from banks, MNC rating organisations, and SEBI approved SME exchange SEBI approved stock exchnage, we could be seeing a lot more SME's going global??

Are we consultants..guilty for looking at the low lying fruit-and blissfully unaware of the burgeoning potential of the perhaps the largest SME market in the world ( considering companies in China are largely driven by government??)

GG, cheer up- what we are looking at -is only the tip of the iceberg. The market is simply much bigger than what all of us can probably do justice to!!

By the way, here is another link of SME consultants..though extending beyond HR and placements HR and placements, lol.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Dear Sir,

We welcome you to “World SME Conference 2008” supported by Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.

The Government of India and specifically the Ministry of MSME is supporting the event: Shri Jairam Ramesh - Minister of State for Industries and Commerce; Smt. Sudha Pillai - IAS, Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment; Shri Madhav Lal - Additional Secretary & Development Commissioner – MSME are some of the eminent speakers.
50 speakers and panelists, of whom 20 are international speakers, would debate on a variety of subjects related to SMEs. Some of the star sessions:
Dr. Jagdish Sheth – Self Destructive Habits of Owner Driven and Small Companies : And how to break them
Mr. V.Vaidyanathan – Rocking Boat- Rocking times: Winning in difficult times
Mr. Douglas M Tatum – What to do when your company is too big to be small but too Small to be big
Prof. Anil Gupta – How India can become An innovation superpower and set benchmarks for the World
Ms Sudha Pillai – Get Skilled or Get Killed – Attracting, Acquiring, Developing and Retaining Human Resource
Mr. Guriqbal Singh Jaiya - Intellectual Property Rights and SMEs
Mr. C.N. Madhusudhan – Accelerating Growth with Acquisitions
Four research studies and eight white papers will be released at the conference
MSME Cluster Study - 3000 MSMEs, 11 Clusters, 4 States, Indian Policy Framework: Problems and Recommendations
Government Backed Initiatives and MSME progress in India, MSME Policy Framework: Good Beeps or Good Deeds
Sickness and Rehabilitation of MSMEs in India, Indian MSME Policy Framework: Sick Tricks or a Healthy Trip
Women Entrepreneurs of MSME Cluster in Hyderabad, How Women bettered Men


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