SUMMARY OF PROCEEDINGS: Bengaluru

India SME Forum organised the second season of the Business Leadership Series, on 11th September 2015 at Hotel Move N Pick, Bengaluru, in the presence of over 110 SME owners. The programme was supported by ICICI Bank, BSE SME, Kreato Software, and SDRC India. The one-day educational and interactive programme addressed critical issues of entrepreneurship in Finance, Marketing, and Branding.

The programme titled ‘Target 1000 Crores’, focussed on aiding SMEs to aspire towards growth in the future. The objective of India SME Forum is to reach out and support 5,00,000 SMEs, including 6,000 women entrepreneurs, handhold 5,000 SMEs and transform them into large companies by 2015. The organisation plans to nurture over 1,000 start-ups, while incubating at least 500 enterprises.

The session started with an introduction by Ms. Sushma Morthania, Director General, India SME Forum. Eminent panelists included Mr. Vinod Kumar, Managing Partner-India & Middle East, SDRC India Advisors; Mr. Subhrajit Mitra, Deputy General Manager, ICICI Bank, SMEAG; Mr. Lokanathan Kutuva, CEO, Kreato Software; Mr. Soundararajan V., Head – Sales (Equities), BSE SME; and the star speaker of the evening, famed Brand Guru Mr. Prahlad Kakkar.

A delightful and informative evening, it brought into the spotlight important issues that occupy centre-stage in the SME world today. Highlighting the successes, it provided a platform for SMEs to interact with highly recommended business mentors and industry-specific consultants. The one-day educational and interactive programme addressed critical issues of entrepreneurship in Finance, Marketing, and Branding.

Mr. Vinod Kumar, Managing Partner-India & Middle East, SDRC India Advisors, spoke at length about the important role played by knowledge sharing in terms of growing a business and said, “Sharing and learning are things that never go out of the entrepreneurship ecosystem and those that do (learn and share continuously)…are the ones that reach great heights.”

Furthermore, he drew an analogy between running a business and playing a game of football; speaking on the importance of choosing people with the right skill sets and also setting goalposts periodically to assess growth. Mr. Kumar felt that business owners should work ‘on’ their business rather than just being ‘in’ business; akin to players who work on their game and constantly develop it.

Mr. Prahlad Kakar, a well-known Brand Guru of the country, spoke about the importance of brand building for businesses stating, “One of (the) most important jobs of a company or the one who owns a brand, is to make sure that the brand can deliver the qualities that its name suggests…and teach them (the brand) to fly when it’s illogical…so brand building requires honesty…” He drew an analogy between running a business and bringing up a child, stating that both require patience, resilience and are very demanding jobs in today’s world, involving plenty of nurturing and investment of one’s time.

of nurturing and investment of one’s time. Mr. Subhrajit Mitra, Deputy General Manager, ICICI Bank, SMEAG also spoke about how ICICI Bank decided to change its approach to the SME sector by questioning, “How do we approach SME funding in a different way? So, we looked at the uniqueness of SMEs and not just at their

balance sheets. We looked at the industries that had a high growth trajectory and decided that we needed to fund that growth, so we hired domain experts, we did programmes for them…
” Mr. Lokanathan Kutuva, CEO, Kreato Software, highlighted the need for automation in businesses by saying, “Automation is the key…wherever it is possible we should perform automation, so the entrepreneurs can focus on the core business, thereby increasing productivity.”

The programme also comprised case studies of successful entrepreneurs, such as Mr. Jacob Crasta, Chairman CM, Envirosystems Pvt. Ltd. who have already notched up a sizeable business for themselves and have the ability to scale up. The participants interacted amongst themselves to analyse real-life business situations and arrived at a compelling conclusion, that helped them to be in the right path ahead, for every given business stage.

The evening ended with a sumptuous dinner, some very productive networking and many happy faces, leaving with memories that are sure to inspire till the next time around…