Repositioning India at Global Platform

By Faiz Askari, Editor SMEStreet

The entire world is now witnessing the echo of new Indian leadership voice. India – a country with over 1.3 Billion population. The majority of the Indians are living in rural parts of the country, majority of people are barely surviving with regards to their livelihood and the GDP is growing somewhere around 5.5% annually and expected to grow even better. Needless to say, that the country’s economy has a huge potential to grow. But, there are several, infact more than several challenges to tackle. Poverty, unemployment, education, health and hygiene so on and so fore are some big challenges ahead of the policy makers to carefully look into.

Moreover, the business conditions or the business ecosystem are also one of the major hurdles ahead of the Indian economy. The status of small businesses or the SMEs are well known to all. But the good part is that this segment is been well pointed out at the policymaking level. Ministry of MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), Government of India is aggressively working on the area of improving the business conditions for any and every entrepreneur who wish to enter in the game of entrepreneurship. MSME in India are major contributors in the country’s GDP nearly 8 percent of the total GDP comes from this sector. In addition to this, 45 percent of the total Indian manufacturing output and 40 percent of the total Indian exports comes from the MSME sector. This sector is also second largest employer for the country’s total working population after agriculture.

Considering the importance of Indian MSMEs, there are several new initiatives planning and are under execution in the Modi Government which are designed to empower entrepreneurs to do better business.  Make in India is one of the major programs which are under process in this direction. But more importantly, there are some fine lines needed to be sketched.

These fine lines must ensure prosperity of Indian manufacturers, Indian business owners and Indian producers. A lot of emphasis is been given on bringing investments to India from outside. This is a good strategy but there has to be proper vigilance and there has to be a cautious approach towards these foreign investments.

As an industry analyst, I must highlight that Indian manufacturers are already doing a lot of work as contract manufactures. They are producing great quality products for the foreign clients who ask them to do so. Now, even they are struggling to maintain their though leadership at the interactional level. Weather it may sound good or bad, the competitive advantage for Indian manufacturers are majorly focused onto the cost element. Indian policy makers must have to come up with something which the Germans and the Japanese managed to achieve several decades ago. Infact times have changed a lot, now something really unique will word.

May be a global branding exercise on Indian skill set will work. All of this must have a clear positioning of Indian MSMEs.

Challenges will remain as they, challenges will continue to haunt many of us, but if only few people can look at those challenges as opportunities, the Indian perspective at the global level will change. I think, this must be the priority of the Modi Government, to bring such change which can Reposition India.

Faiz Askari is the Founder & Editor of SMEStreet, he can be reached at faiz@smestreet.in or faizaskari@gmail.com 

Any suggestions or recommendations are most welcome which can further strengthen SMEs’ engagement or improve SMEStreet. 

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