FE Emerging Business Growth Workshop – Jaipur Edition: Apart from being the largest State in India, strategically located between the northern and western growth hubs of the country, Rajasthan has around 98 per cent of its total existing enterprises under the MSME segment. These units are present across sectors such as textiles, handicraft, mining, agro & food processing, metal craft, footwear etc., along with several SME clusters existing in the state such as for gems and jewellery, ball bearing, garments, food products in Jaipur; powerloom, chemicals in Ajmer; and more.
To harness the potential of these MSMEs, the government of Rajasthan had introduced the MSME Policy 2022 in order to establish 20,000 new MSMEs with a cumulative investment of Rs 10,000 crores and 1 lakh jobs. Moreover, with around 14.5 lakh Udyam-registered units, Rajasthan has the 5th highest density of formalised MSMEs in the country. Within Rajasthan, Jaipur is the MSME hub with over 3 lakh units – representing 21 per cent of state MSMEs.
Against this backdrop, the inaugural edition of the multi-city FE Emerging Business Growth Workshops in Jaipur on October 6 at the Pink City Press Club will unite the regional MSME stakeholders to facilitate knowledge sharing, networking of ideas and dissemination of best practices for local MSMEs. This would involve panel discussions, a keynote and a masterclass involving industry leaders, policymakers, technology providers, MSME associations, entrepreneurs, and more.
The Emerging Business Growth Workshops — an initiative by FE Aspire has Adobe as its Presenting Partner. The Jaipur edition involving Tally Solutions as the Associate Partner and Rajasthan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (RCCI) as the Knowledge Partner will begin with the Chief Guest address by Balwant Singh Ligree, Executive Director of Rajasthan Financial Corporation. He will address the larger MSME opportunity available in Rajasthan and the role of Rajasthan Financial Corporation in the promotion of small businesses in the state through financial assistance.
The Chief Guest Address will be followed by the Keynote Address by Vijay Kumar Sharma, Director, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprise Development & Facilitation Office, Jaipur. The institute provides techno-managerial consultancy to existing and prospective entrepreneurs and guides students on starting an enterprise. Moreover, the institute also facilitates an interface between various central & state government departments, institutions and other developmental functionaries for the promotion of MSMEs in Rajasthan.
The event will have two panel discussions, a masterclass and an expert talk to delve into various nuances of running a successful MSME in Rajasthan.
Beginning with the first panel discussion on ‘What entrepreneurs need to scale from micro to small and small to medium’, the panellists Balwant Singh Chauhan, AGM – Product Excellence, Tally Solutions; Ghanshyam Ojha, National President, Laghu Udyog Bharati; KL Jain, President, Rajasthan Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Sheenu Jhawar, Director, Apex Hospitals and President, TiE Rajasthan will discuss among the most critical areas concerning MSMEs in the state such as lack of skilled manpower, awareness around government policies and their execution, challenges to acquire land for factories, the need for a separate segment in the government for micro and small enterprises, adoption of technology which is easy and affordable to use.
The panel will be followed by a masterclass by Adobe to explain how MSMEs can leverage their Document Cloud solution to execute all-digital document workflows in an easy and secure way. The solution includes Adobe Scan, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Sign, and mobile apps, allowing SMEs to turn their manual document processes into digital documents.
The second panel discussion of the programme ‘Solving working capital issue for MSMEs’ involving Ashok Kumar Pandey, General Manager, Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) Jaipur; Birajit Mohanty, Professor, Manipal University; Ravi Modani, Founder & CEO, 121 Finance and Ravi Sharma, Chief Financial Officer, Finova Capital will focus on helping MSMEs address their working capital-related challenges. The panellists will discuss the role of invoice financing or factoring, short-term credit, ways to efficiently manage working capital, access to affordable and quicker finance, the importance of cash flow credit and more.
Lastly, Mahavir Pratap Sharma, Vice Chairman, Rajasthan Export Promotion Council will deliver his ‘Expert Talk’ on how MSMEs can strengthen their export competitiveness. This gains significance as India, which is aiming to hit $2 trillion in exports by 2030, gets around 45 per cent of its export share from MSMEs. At the same time, exports from Rajasthan have scaled up to Rs 77,771 crore in 2022-23 from Rs 46,476 crore in 2017-18.