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MSME Matters: Can Start-ups Come Forward to help MSMEs? 

Image courtesy: KNN India

There is tremendous talent available in India’s start-up ecosystem. The question is could they be directed towards resolving the challenges that the MSMEs face currently? While it may not be possible to provide tech support on the manufacturing side, could the Indian start-up come forward and support the operations part of the business? 

These are some of the thoughts that we discussed in this edition of MSME Matters, which you can watch by clicking on the YouTube link at the bottom of this page. 

There are two distinct challenges (a) relating to the demand side and (b) the liquidity crunch, feels Sugata Halder, Associate Partner at Management Consultants for Human Capital (MCHC) who has spent more than two-and-a-half decades consulting on change management, strategic HR and talent management in the industry. 

He feels that supporting digitization of business could be a panacea for all MSMEs as technology enabling even the support systems can be a huge cost saver in the medium term. Which is why he suggests that the vibrant Indian start-up environment should now start looking towards the small and medium business to deliver solutions that can eject them into the high growth areas once again.

Credit policy, across both government and private levels, need to be revisited and calibrated for at least the next two years for the MSMEs. Those enterprises that have performed well on their credit repayment during the pre-Covid19 days should be looked at differently when it comes to providing credit in these tough times, he says. 

Spending money to boost demand is one step, while the government can do more by providing the operational support to the MSMEs to expand their horizons through digital interventions. There is no one-size-fits-all solution that can be implemented in this field and the government would need to get into specifics when it comes to providing policy support to such industries. 

Watch the full interview here:

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