The coming together of technology and better financial infrastructure has enabled the right atmosphere for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to thrive and capture a chunk of the global marketplace. 

This was the essential message that emerged from various experts who spoke at the MSME Growth Conclave that was organised here by businessline, to mark MSME Day. 

Setting the tone for the conference, K Ganesh, a serial entrepreneur who set up many businesses, including Big Basket and Protea Medical, observed that the VUCA factor — for ‘Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous’, had actually democratised the world of business, putting MSMEs on the same footing as big giants.

To illustrate, he gave the example of ONDC, a platform set up by the government that is open for anyone to sell or buy products, essentially making ‘e-commerce’ available to MSMEs too.

Financial infra

Speaking in a panel discussion on finance, Sanjay Gupta, Chief General Manager, SIDBI, stressed that the financial infrastructure for MSMEs had become better after the government eased the definition of MSMEs. SIDBI’s own lending to this sector had increased four times to ₹4.5-lakh crore, in the last 3-4 years after the definition change, he said.  

Gupta made this point in response to a question by the session moderator, Aarati Krishnan, Editorial Consultant, businessline, as to why the credit gap of about ₹25-lakh crore was still persisting, for the MSME sector. He said the gap was coming down, but also observed that it would take some more years for it to shrink significantly.

Other speakers, Ashish Jhina, Co-founder and COO, Jumbotail, a company that works with 1.75 lakh kirana stores helping them get digital-ready to access institutional finance and Abhiroop Medhakar, Co-founder and CEO, Velocity, spoke of the palpable shift from asset-based lending to cash-flow based. 

Aid from AI 

Speaking in the session on ‘Leveraging AI to drive growth in MSMEs’, experts underscored the need for MSMEs integrating artificial intelligence into their business.

Siddesh Naik of IBM, said that technology was “not a choice but a matter of survival”. He said that IBM, though a large multinational, was “very aggressively” into providing AI services for MSMEs—in terms of improving customer experience and optimizing costs. “There is no better time for MSMEs to take to technology and compete globally,” he said. 

Agreeing with him, Vidya Vasudevan of Zoho Corporation, said that MSMEs could leave mundane tasks to AI and focus on their core business. Tejas Goenka, Managing Director, Tally Solutions, said that he found MSMEs quite ready to take to technology. All experts agreed that “guardrails” were necessary to ensure that there was no data leak. The session was moderated by Venkatesha Babu, Chief of Bureau, businessline Bengaluru. 

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