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Marketing Mantras
Why Indian businesses are going to lap up Cloud Software?
 It might alarm the weatherman but 'increasing Cloud cover' is a term that's bringing cheer to the SME space. And it's important to understand why? Eventually, almost all software will be delivered via the Cloud. No, there's no escaping it - this will be the standard.
Policy Polemic
Red tape makes India a hell of a place for SMEs to do business
 Governments that love red tape make it sheer hell for businesses, particularly small businesses, to operate. And governments in India, at every level from the Central to the States, appear to love weaving reams of red tape that constrain small businesses from realising their potential.
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Directory of Testing Laboratories in India
Buy our one-of-a-kind guide to all industrial testing laboratories in India. Find the one most convenient for getting your products tested and certified. An invaluable compendium for all industrial units and exporters.
PP: 894, Hard Cover.
Price: Rs 900.
50% discount for members.
Handbook for Managing Export Payment Risks
If you are an exporter you simply cannot do without this unique publication which tells you how to manage payment and other risks arising from exports.
PP: 78.
Price: Rs 300.
50% discount for members.
Free Publications
FISME Policy Paper
FISME Policy Paper SME Exchanges in India: Review and Suggestions
Fertilizer quality control in India: Need for change
This monograph argues for a systemic change in fertiliser quality control. Essential reading for those in policy-making positions.
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Activities
Business Banter: Lessons from Entrepreneurs
Macro Metre
Domestic Digest
World Watch
Knowledge Store
...And A Lot More
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 A seminar on ‘IT Opportunities in Global Markets for SMEs’ organized by FISME concurrently with 15th edition of Govt. of Karnataka ‘s flagship show on Information technology Bangalore IT.biz - received huge response from SMEs. Diplomats and Senior Counsellors from Japan, Israel, Turkey, England, Canada (Ontario & Quebec) and Rwanda addressed the SMEs and explained emerging opportunities for business collaborations. The Bangalore IT.biz 2012 was organized from October 17 to 19, 2012 at the Karnataka Trade and Promotion Organization’s Trade Centre. The objective was to promote Information Technology in the fast growing tier one and two cities, promising to be more industry-responsive and holistic.
 Businessworld’s fourth edition of the SME Whitebook 2012-13, a handbook for Small and Medium Enterprises was launched on Oct 29, 2012, at Le Meridien, New Delhi. The book provides a sectoral analysis of industry verticals and latest data crucial for SMEs. The Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises was the SME partner and jointly organised the event.
The SME Whitebook is considered as the guideline for the SMEs as it also consists of expert’s view on the sector. “The SME Whitebook 2012-13 will be very useful for SMEs in the globalised environment and the information will help their transformation from small to big,” said, Mr K V Srinivasan, CEO-Reliance Commercial Finance.
 Brazil’s apex SME promotion institution- Serviço Brasileiro de Apoio às Micro e Pequenas Empresas (SEBRAE) and Federation of Indian Micro and Small and Enterprises (FISME) - India’s largest body of MSMEs, have agreed to work together, to implement SME development programme under aegis of BRICS nations. Recently, a high level delegation from SEBRAE was in India, to learn and share the best practices on SME development initiatives, and also to discuss the SME cooperation strategy among BRICS. The delegation met FISME’s senior office bearers and officials on October 20, 2012.
 The tenth edition of the India SME Forum was organised on October 27, 2012 at the Fortune Landmark Hotel, Indore with FISME as the SME partner.
Delivering the welcome address, Mr Ashok Badjatiya, President, Association of Industries, Madhya Pradesh, highlighted the need for MSMEs to connect to knowledge sources. Mr Vinod Kumar, Country Manager SDRC & Secretary Jury Board, India SME Forum, presented vote of thanks.
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Will the recent advise of RBI to banks for lending more to MSMEs bear fruit?
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RBI's Q2 monetary policy: Analysis
 The following is an exclusive review for FISME members of the RBI’s mid-year monetary policy announced on October 30, 2012. Rajesh Dubey, Advisor (Finance), FISME is the author of this review. A brief snapshot of the main parameters which form part of RBI monetary policy is given in the report.
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The Birla family is one of the most successful and respected business families in India. Birlas are also representative of a type of management school which places very high premium on management of finance. The biography of Basant Kumar Birla contains quite a few lessons. Father Ghanshyam Das Birla made a one-year programme for young Basant to learn: Cash management, copying, accounting, raising bills, understanding bank statements, daily reports, daily and annual profit and loss accounts, savings and expenses, and sales. After learning theoretical principles, he was placed under two successful Marwari businessmen Murlidhar Dalmia and Sitaram Khemka where he learnt how a large complex mill could be controlled and managed through numbers.
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Macro Metre
 Showing concerns over hardening inflation, the Reserve Bank on recently left the key interest rate unchanged but reduced cash reserve ratio by 0.25 per cent to infuse additional liquidity that will inject Rs 17,500 crore into the financial system. Accordingly, the CRR or the portion of deposits banks have to park with the RBI now stands at 4.25 per cent while the repo rate, at which RBI lends to the system, has been retained at 8 per cent.  The Reserve Bank sharply lowered this fiscal's economic growth projection to 5.8 per cent, from 6.5 per cent earlier, in view of global and domestic factors like poor investments and subdued demand. "...global risks have increased further and domestic risks have become accentuated by halted investment demand, moderation in consumption spending and continuing erosion in export competitiveness accompanied by weakening business and consumer confidence," RBI governor D Subbarao said in half yearly review of the monetary policy. The rupee lost 14 paise to 54.12 against the dollar in early trade recently at the Interbank Foreign Exchange largely due to month-end demand for the American currency from oil importers. Forex dealers said increased dollar demand from oil importers mainly put pressure on the local unit. However, stronger euro against the dollar overseas and a higher opening in the domestic equity market capped the rupee's losses, they added. RBI Governor D Subbarao recently said the central bank will soon be holding meetings with lenders to improve flow of credit to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). The Governor said the bank chairmen have been asked to study the issues relating to SME financing with their hierarchies including the field staff in a month, after which they will be meeting deputy governors Anand Sinha and K C Chakrabarty.
 After taking charge as the new MSME Minister, K H Muniyappa recently sought to allay fears of FDI hurting home-grown small enterprises. "With FDI coming in (single-brand retail), it does not mean that it will be a problem for indigenous (small) industry," he said here after taking charge as the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
 After assuming charge as Minister of State with Independent charge of the Ministry of Micro, Medium and Small Enterprise (MSME), K H Muniyappa recently said that India has excelled during the global slowdown because of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). "One of the major reasons of India's survival during recessing was the support of those SMEs, which remains alive during the worst phase of their life. We are not suffering like other western countries because of our SMEs," he told SME Times on the side-lines of a press conference held in New Delhi recently.
 Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME), Vayalar Ravi recently said cluster development should be a priority business strategy for the sector. The minister said guidelines for the cluster development programme have been comprehensively prepared to provide higher support to the SMEs. "With this, more than 500 clusters spread across the country have so far been taken up for diagnostic study, soft interventions and setting up of common facility centres under the program," said, Ravi.
In a step to generate employment in the state, Indore will have country's first snacks and manufacturing cluster in next two years. The cluster will attract investment of Rs 150 crore and provide nearly 2,000 jobs to the people. "If everything goes as per the plan, this cluster will become operational in the next two years," said DS Mandloi, director, Micro Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute (MSME-DI).
Ahmedabad based Cluster Pulse, an economic development agency for educating SMEs, has signed an MoU with Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the economic development agency of government of Germany on" impact of climate change on businesses & economy ". Cluster Pulse claims that this is first of its kind of climate change program in India which relates to businesses. "Till now the discussion on climate change has been at academic level and now it is being taken to businesses for the first time with this MoU," said Jagat Shah, founder and chief mentor of Cluster Pulse.
 The Kerala government has decided to set up an international skill academy to boost the growth of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME). The state Labour Minister Shibu Baby John announced it recently in Kochi. Speaking at the Emerging Kerala-2012 Global Connect, John said, “Quite a few players have already shown interest in the project.”
The BJP-led government in Madhya Pradesh Sunday announced a slew of incentives for the promotion of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the state in a bid achieve a 12 per cent growth rate and additional job creation during 12th five year plan. The Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan at the maiden MSME Convention held recently on the eve of Global Investors Meet announced reservation of certain plots for MSMEs in the proposed 27 industrial estates, 24x7 power supply under the feeder separation scheme, exemption in the payment of export tax imposed by local civic bodies, cluster development programme.
The Madhya Pradesh Government recently announced a slew of incentives for the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME), including abolition of ‘export tax’. Export tax levied by the civic bodies on products of MSMEs will be abolished and these units will be provided land from the State Government’s 20,000-hectare land bank, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, inaugurating the third Global Investors Meet.
The initiative to benefit small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the information technology (IT) space in Andhra Pradesh, which was introduced as part of the state’s IT&C 2010-2015 policy, has failed to gain momentum among SMEs in the state. The initiative — which was to unbundle the big-ticket government IT projects that are coming to the state across hardware, software and system integration (SI) verticals and divide those into smaller projects to benefit SMEs — is facing hurdles in its implementation.
Industries associations of Orissa recently demanded a separate directorate for micro, small and medium industries (MSMEs) and rationalisation of value added tax (VAT) to have a level-playing field to compete with entrepreneurs from outside the State. “After the creation of a new MSME Department, there is a need to create a separate directorate to deal with the problems faced by the entrepreneurs,” president of Odisha Small Scale Industries Association (OSSIA) Nishikanta Mishra told media persons after a meeting with Chief Secretary BK Patnaik.
 Corporation Bank’s small and medium enterprises (SME) asset quality continues to be robust with gross NPA ratio at 1.66 per cent, said Ashwani Kumar, Executive Director, Corporation Bank. Addressing reporters to announce the bank’s ‘SME festival loan bonanza’, Kumar said “Funding SMEs is a challenge. So far the bank has exposure to the tune of Rs 15,000 crore and we are managing it well.”
 State-run Corporation Bank is targeting to disburse Rs 5,000 crore loans nationally this year to the SME sector. The bank is planning more visibility for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector, Corporation Bank Chairman and Managing Director Ajai Kumar told reporters recently. In Kerala alone, Rs 500 crore will be disbursed as loans to the sector, he said.
Making money is serious business; any industrialist will tell you that, but their roadmap to success can inspire budding entrepreneurs. Several industrialists shared their experiences at the convention of micro, small and medium scale industries (MSME) at the Global Investors Summit in Indore recently. Director of Bend Joints, Govindpura, Uttam Ganguly has a four-point charter. “Respect for everyone, safety of workers, truthfulness in dealings and transparency in policy, has helped us reach where we are,” said Ganguly. “That’s why we have a very low attrition rate,” he said.
 India had the potential to exploit solar power to a large extent that would enable industries to reduce its dependency on an unreliable grid supply and diesel-powered generators, which are fast becoming expensive as the Government begins to withdraw subsidies, according to M. Srinivas Ramprasad, Chief Executive Officer of Persept Solar, a Bangalore-based solar firm with German technology. While the huge capital investments and large land requirements were factors inhibiting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) from taking to this technology, he said that this company had created a business model to tackle both these issues.
 Tradeindia.com, India's largest B2B marketplace with over 22 lakhs registered users, recently announced its association with Google India as a Premier SME Partner (PSP), informed the company officials in a press release in New Delhi. With this partnership, Tradeindia will bring its small and medium enterprise (SME) members the fantastic opportunity to promote their business across all Google products & platform.
 Internet giant Google is readying a new strategy aimed at bringing local doctors, lawyers and plumbers onto its advertising platform. Google is hoping to persuade millions of small and medium enterprises in India to sign up for digital advertising using Google products. To start with, the company is helping the small businesses to get an online presence through free tools. Already about 2.5 lakh SMEs have gone online under this programme. The target is to get to 5 lakh over the next few months.
The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Institute will conduct a free entrepreneurship skill development programme for SC and ST candidates in Chennai. Programme envisages six-week training in the operation of conventional lathe, milling, grading, CNC lathe/milling machineries and welding.
 Major Indian and Russian trade bodies recently launched an initiative to focus on small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) and B2B (business-to-business) interactions to step up trade between India and Russia. "The trade target between India and Russia is USD 20 billion by 2015. Medium size companies in the market are not in a position to either discover new instruments of fund-raising or find new partners for business. Therefore, joint ventures should be created at all levels of business," said, Petr Fradkov, Director General, Export Insurance Agency of Russia (EXIAR), in an event.
 With small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, in Gujarat becoming more receptive to the use of information and communication technologies within their organisations, Lenovo is looking to become a market leader as an IT business solutions provider for the segment. “Currently, we are at the fifth position in terms of catering to SMEs in Gujarat with IT business solutions. However, with the launch of our first Lenovo Business Store in Ahmedabad, we expect to grow fast in the state. Gujarat offers tremendous potential in the SME market. We hope to become the largest supplier in the segment soon in Gujarat,” said Rajiv Rao, director — SME, Lenovo India.
The attraction and retention of talent has become such a business critical operation that even small and medium firms (SMEs) and family-run enterprises are today outsourcing their HR functions to third party providers so that they can focus on their core businesses.
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During the period October 15 to October 30, 2012 a total of 5 new MSMEs became members of FISME.
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The Credit Guarantee Scheme will go live in coming days, and is expected to provide an additional €150 million in lending for small businesses per year, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said recently. The scheme which will be live in few days will be open to companies employing fewer than 250 staff and with an annual turnover of less than €50 million. It will offer loans of up to €1 million. “The Credit Guarantee Scheme will benefit innovative, job-creating businesses that face obstacles accessing credit because they do not have enough collateral, or because they operate in sectors which the banks are not familiar with. These are the businesses we need to stimulate our jobs recovery,” Mr Bruton said.
