Surat draws SME Mentor Growth Series to a high

The SME Mentor Growth Series seminar concluded the 10-city journey at Surat in an event that saw the who's who of Surat SMEs, hosted at the Taj Gateway. The series commenced at Kolkata and travelled to New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh and Surat.

The event saw the participation of members from many associations. These included the Surat Chamber of Commerce of India (SGCCI), Surat Textile Processors Association, Surat IT Association and Surat Diamond Association.

A special presentation by George D’Souza, vice president, Content Solutions, Network 18, provided studies and solutions on areas of finance, human resources, marketing, IT and infrastructure – called the five pillars of SME success.

D’Souza shared Crisil research which said that the demand for SME financing was Rs 16 trillion while the available finance was Rs 6 trillion, thus leaving a deficit of Rs 10 trillion. He also presented the Indian School of Business proposed solution of converting SME debt in to commercial paper.

On the human resources front, he discussed several points from a study by HR researcher and consultant, Sumeet Verghese, and Samir Parikh, MD & CEO of Naman Integrated Solutions. The points delivered here talked of how SME owners are aware that people are critical to success, and while had talent philosophy they did not have a talent system in place.

D'Souza suggested SME owners communicate performance expectations to their employees and be responsible for their mentoring.

On the marketing front, two examples of SMEs that are now over Rs 2000 crore companies were discussed: Pidilite and Nirma. Kishore Biyani and the Future Group were also mentioned.

On the IT front, D’Souza talked of how Askme.com, a Network 18 property, and said how, using technology, it was able to convert a directory experience in to an online interactive experience.

The SME Mentor event has presentations from Vodafone’s Satyanarayana Pillamari, DGM of new products development/wireless planning, who demonstrated enterprise solutions, as well as answered queries from several SME owners regarding the 3G services and connectivity issues in Vapi and other areas.

Prashant Chaudhry spoke of Religare Finvest’s working capital options for SMEs, and the flexibility in evaluation of balance sheets. Several Religare Finvest’s schemes were discussed, like the no-collateral balance sheet funding, loan against property and loan against shares.

Dell’s terriroty account manager, Shailesh Kumawat talked of the entire range of Dell’s products from notebooks, servers and storage. He also discussed issues relating to cloud computing.

Raakesh, Trivedi, secretary-general and Harivandan Rana, honorary secretary, of South Gujarat Chamber of Commerce of India (SGCCI) commended the event. “A very well-organized and well-conducted event,” Trivedi said, adding that the chamber would look forward to working with SME Mentor and Moneycontrol.com in the future.

Amit Inamdar and Kaushal Choksey, the secretary and president, of Surat IT Association, were also laudatory of the event. Among the many participants of the event was BR Shah, of BR Designs, a popular jewellery store, who represented the Diamond Association.

Moneycontrol.com is planning a second phase of the SME Mentor Growth series seminar at a later date.