FE Emerging Business Growth Workshops – Bhopal edition: After the successful inaugural workshop in Jaipur earlier this month, the multi-city initiative by FE Aspire held its second workshop in Bhopal on October 27. The half-day event, presented by Adobe, witnessed a packed gathering of MSME entrepreneurs listening to the biggest MSME voices from the state government, industry body Federation of Madhya Pradesh Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FMPCCI), think tank Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis (AIGGPA), educational institutions VIT Bhopal and Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT), Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), and more.
The event kickstarted with the keynote address by P. Narahari, Secretary, Department of MSME & Commissioner MSME and Secretary, Sports & Youth Welfare, Government of Madhya Pradesh. Highlighting the significance of MSMEs over large industries in supporting the economy, Narahari stressed on the efforts undertaken to formalise the sector.
“When we think of industries, it is not the big ones (enterprises) that actually represent them as a whole but it is the MSMEs which are the economic backbone and represent our industries,” he said.
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“We (India) have more than 2 crore registered units and there could be an equal number of unregistered units in India. So, the effort is to bring such enterprises into the fold of Udyam registration (to formalise them) which can help policymakers with the data for instance, sectors they operate in, work they are doing, etc. (to formulate better policies),” Narahari added. Currently, the Udyam registration count is 2.03 crore excluding registrations via the government’s Udyam Assist Platform.
In Madhya Pradesh, Narahari informed that MSMEs contribute around 30 per cent to state GDP, with over 9.5 lakh Udyam registered units, and employment of over 50 lakh people. The focus sectors are agro-based and food processing, pharma, textiles, furniture and toy clusters, plastics & related value chain and automobile & engineering, Narahari informed in his presentation at the event.
The keynote address was followed by a special address by Sanjay Pathak, Former Deputy Director – Industries, Government of Madhya Pradesh who urged MSMEs to focus on lean manufacturing practices to not just reduce their manufacturing costs but also improve profitability.
“It is important for MSMEs to strategise their cost-cutting wherein lean manufacturing is an important thing to understand. The result of lean manufacturing would be that you can improve your profitability while maintaining your costs,” he said.
Apart from raw material cost, according to Pathak, energy cost is another critical area to check in order to keep input costs in manufacturing under control under lean manufacturing. “With this, MSMEs can be a tough competitor to others in the market with improved competitiveness.”
He also cautioned MSMEs who are not willing to embrace change in business due to technology disruption. “Another important thing for MSMEs is to be ready to adopt change. There have been more technological changes today than in past centuries and decades. This means that if we don’t match up to the change, we would certainly be left behind in competition.”
The following masterclass by Adobe highlighted the advantages of adopting the cloud for better management of business documentation. “With Adobe, you can create document workflow and as you grow and needs evolve, Adobe can support you with four growth pillars, — desktop and mobile apps, e-signatures, document services and integrations,” said Ketaki Rastogi, Solutions Consultant – Document Cloud, Adobe.
“The Document Cloud can give you the secure infrastructure to send documents digitally. It adheres to the compliance and your needs when it comes to signing the documents,” she added explaining how MSMEs can replace their manual processes with easier, speedier and more convenient digital processes with Adobe’s solutions including Adobe Scan, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat DC, Adobe Sign, and mobile applications.
The event also had two panel discussions focusing on uncomplicating the path to greater success for MSMEs during India’s Amrit Kaal and the adoption of Industry 4.0 for better and faster growth.
The session Amrit Kaal for MSMEs in Madhya Pradesh — Empowered, Inclusive, Prosperous had panellists Deepak Sharma, Vice President, FMPCCI; Pradeep Karambelkar, Founder, Vision Biz Network; Rahul Choudhari, Principal Advisor, Centre for Economy, Trade & Innovation, AIGGPA; and was moderated by Prasad Begde, Associate Professor and Dean, VITBS, VIT Bhopal University.
Among the challenges, Choudhari said, “The question is not about initiatives taken by the government but policy gaps to be overcome so that benefits can be derived for MSMEs. Earlier MSMEs weren’t used to be in the competition but those days are gone. Today the focus is on cost management so that we become competitive and gain market share. From managing production to managing cost is a big change and this must be considered by entrepreneurs.”
Deepak Sharma in his comments noted that the challenge industries faced earlier doesn’t exist today with respect to credit as access to credit is not a major problem because of government schemes. MSMEs can grow with their own capacity however, there exists a gap in the right training and market linkages.”
The second panel Industry 4.0: Readying MSMEs with Technologies for Smart Growth included speakers Abbas Mehdi, Additional Director, STPI, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology; Yogesh Khakre, COO, B-Nest Incubation Centre; R.K. Dwivedi, Professor & Head, Centre of Excellence in Product Design and Smart Manufacturing, MANIT; and was moderated by Sandeep Soni, Senior Assistant Editor – FE Aspire, Financial Express Digital.
“We are moving towards Industry 5.0. Intelligent machines are here but MSMEs are still grappling with Industry 4.0 challenges,” said Dwivedi while Mehdi called for cloud-based adoption of services for MSMEs which “they can scale up or scale down depending on their needs, by just renting out the services.” Seconding Mehdi, Khakre also urged businesses to embrace technology to “move up faster as affordability, accessibility, and availability of technology is the key (for growth).”
The panel was followed by a highly engaging session on how MSMEs can manage their finances well by CA Samkit Bhandari, senior partner at Bhandari Jain & Co. and Director at management consulting firm JAS Corporate Consulting. He is also the Managing Committee Member, CIRC Indore, ICAI.
“Inventory management and debtor management are two most critical aspects for MSMEs to manage their finance. Inventory management helps companies identify which and how much stock to order at what time. It tracks inventory from purchase to sale of goods. One measurement of good inventory management is inventory turnover ratio,” said Bhandari.
On the other hand, the most common gaps in managing finances are lack of separate financial statements, timely accounting, target-based approach, budget method and positive cash flows, he noted.
The workshop concluded with a felicitation ceremony for emerging MSME entrepreneurs of Madhya Pradesh who were recognised for their resilience in growing their ventures in the post-Covid world along with innovation, risk-taking abilities, value creation, adaptability to change as per market conditions, and market orientation.