Sustain locally & expand globally a major challenge for SMEs: Experts

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Namrata Kath Hazarika | 23 Oct, 2008
Experts think that one of the major challenges for Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs) is to sustain their businesses locally and expand global footprint at the same time, which would help them to enter into new markets and get more customers as well.

Chairman & Managing Director of Quatrro BPO Solutions Pvt. Ltd, Raman Roy told this to SME Times on the sidelines of a conference on "Entrepreneurship Comes of Ages" in New Delhi recently.

When asked about the contribution of SMEs in building entrepreneurship, he said, "SMEs are the basic incubators of what entrepreneurship is all about. SMEs are the base of entrepreneurs. Every hope and expectation comes from this industrial sector."

"If SMEs want to become successful entrepreneurs, they require a good mentor. First, they need to know themselves and then they should disseminate the knowledge to their team members, that is most likely to help others to become successful entrepreneurs." Roy said.

"In fact, the large organizations that exist today were SMEs," he added.

Meanwhile Managing Director & CEO of Sanshadow Consultants Pvt. Ltd, Shaleen Raizada said, "Scopes for SMEs are astronomical in our country."

"If we really see the start-up companies, they have an innovative mind and if their innovations and ideas can be encouraged then India is really going to do well in trading and entrepreneurship development in the future," she said.

"There are potential opportunity in the IT space for the SME sector. SMEs are extremely innovative and very enterprising as far as ideas are concerned. They could capitalize on those ideas and educate their target audiences about their products in the potential market, which will give them a better exposure worldwide. In fact, there might be every possibility of those innovative ideas to get captured world over."

"There is a lot of opportunity coming up in the SME sector in terms of investment, innovation, intellectual properties etc," she added.

She commented that the environment is changing nowadays. "Many financial institutions have been established, so finance is not a big issue at present. The key issue is to exist in a competitive business environment. You need to be unique in your plans and ideas, to become a successful entrepreneur," she said.

"There are many people who might be carrying the same idea that somebody else wants to implement, which means there is a lot of competition in the market. It is better for any wise entrepreneur to execute the idea before any other person implements the same."

"The SME sector is well served by the banks or financial institutions. So, it should not be difficult for the start up entity to get bank finance. Nowadays, many banks are providing loans efficiently to every start-up entrepreneur," she added.

She also said, "For any start-up company in the SME sector, the more vital thing is to build a team rather than generating revenue initially."