Category: MSME

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MSME

Amazon India & CII Sign MoU to Help MSMEs Adopt E-Commerce & Digitisation of Business

Amazon India and CII tie up to help MSMEs| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Facebook)
Amazon India and CII tie up to help MSMEs| Representational Image (Photo Credits: Facebook)

E-commerce giant Amazon India and the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday signed a Memorandum of understanding (MoU), following which they aim to bring benefits of digitisation of businesses to Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in ten states across India. “As part of the MoU, Amazon.in and CII will conduct trainings, workshops and host masterclasses to enable MSMEs to sell online. Amazon and CII will work together to create a special exports module to simplify exports with e-commerce for lakhs of MSMEs across India,” Amazon.in said in a statement. Amazon India to Host 4th Edition of Small Business Day 2020 on December 12, to Support Startups to Sustain Their Business Growth.

Amazon also intends to work with the Ministry of MSMEs and enable MSMEs across the country to take their business online so as to ensure a wider customer base for them, not only in India but at a global level. As a part of this initiative, the CII and Amazon will publish regular reports on market analysis and conditions to help the MSMEs foresee any opportunity and be ready for threats. They will also publish insights for enterprises on promising categories, marketing, and branding of their products, logistics, MSME success stories and information on top performing products and services. IIT Kharagpur Develops Portable AI-Based Device to Enable Automatic Inspection of Goods in MSME Sector.

The Director General of CII, Chandrajit Banerjee, said that their initiative will help Indian MSMEs to reach customers at a global level. She added, “education about e-commerce and e-commerce exports will enable MSMEs to identify opportunities that help them access national and global customers.”  Adding, “We are excited about our partnership with Amazon that will help bring e-commerce closer to MSMEs and drive their digital transformation.”

Early this year, Amazon India had made three key announcements including digitising 10 Million MSMEs, enabling $10 Billion in e-commerce exports and creating 1 Million jobs, by 2025.”As we continue to work closely with the government on this important agenda, our collaboration with CII will help bring more and more MSMEs online, help them be part of the growing digital economy and create newer business opportunities for them,” said Amit Agarwal, Senior VP and Country Head, Amazon India.

Recently Nitin Gadkari the Union Minister for MSMEs had also talked about the importance of technology and digitisation of the sector. “In the next 5 years, technology and e-commerce will play a key role in enabling this growth and ensuring the success of millions of MSMEs in domestic as well as international markets. The combined efforts of government and the Industry will bring us closer to realizing the vision of an Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” he had said.

 

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MSME

IIT Kharagpur Develops Portable AI-Based Device to Enable Automatic Inspection of Goods in MSME Sector

IIT Kharagpur
IIT Kharagpur (Photo Credits: Wikimedia Commons)

Kolkata, December 4: IIT Kharagpur researchers have developed a portable Artificial Intelligence-based device for automatic inspection of goods manufactured in MSMEs. According to a PTI report, the innovation will immensely benefit the micro, small and medium enterprises, which rely on manual checking and face losses when an entire batch is rejected if a few samples turn out to be faulty during random inspections, he said.

The research team, comprising Professors Surjya K Pal and Debashish Chakravarty, technical staffer Pravanjan Nayak among others, has filed a patent for the system, which will be made available to MSMEs to license the technology. MSME Employment Opportunities: Centre Plans to Create 5 Crore Job Opportunities in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Sectors in India.

How Does the Device Work?

The portable device will click pictures of products when set up on a batch of goods and send the feed to the AI-based software for quality control.

Professor Pal highlighted that MSMEs mostly rely on manual inspection, were a few samples are randomly selected and checked based on which the entire batch is accepted or rejected. This not only lacks effectiveness but also increases the cost of production.

The MSME sector, which employs over 10 crore people in the country and contributes nearly 30 per cent of India’s GDP and 50 per cent of export revenue, is still outside the ambit of industry-scale adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning, Professor Pal further pointed out.

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MSME

MSME Employment Opportunities: Centre Plans to Create 5 Crore Job Opportunities in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Sectors in India

future jobs
Job (Representational Image) Photo Credits: Picpedia)

Mumbai, December 1:Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Monday stated that the Central government is planning to create 5 crore employment opportunities in addition to the existing ones in Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sectors alone.

He was addressing at 2020 Horasis Asia Meeting. Gadkari was quoted saying, “The government is planning to create 5 crore more employment opportunity from MSME sectors only. In the coming years, India will become the top automobile manufacturing hub in the world.”

He further went on to compare India’s manpower with China and said that our country has huge potential. The availability of young talented manpower, raw material and favourable Policy of Centre and State governments gives an excellent opportunity for investors to invest in India,” he added.

The government is working to increase the contribution of the MSME sector to the economic growth from 30 percent to 40 percent and also increase the MSME export from 48 percent to 60 percent.

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MSME

Small and Medium Businesses Disclosing Data Breach ‘Quickly’ Incur 40% Less Financial Loss: Report

SMBs which report data breach incur 40% less financial loss| Representation Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)
SMBs which report data breach incur 40% less financial loss| Representation Image (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

A new report by the cyber-security firm Kaspersky has highlighted the direct relationship between the disclosure about data breach and financial losses suffered by the organisations. The report said that the small and medium businesses (SMBs) who decide to voluntarily inform about a data breach, on average, are likely to lose 40 per cent less financial damage than their peers that saw the incident leaked to the media. For SBMs who disclosed their breach to the public within due time reported an estimated loss of $93,000, while those who did not disclose themselves suffered $155,000 when the incident was leaked in the media.

The failure to suitably inform the public about a data breach in a timely manner can make the financial and reputation consequences of a data breach more severe, concluded the report. The same tendency has also been found to be the case in enterprises. The firms who voluntarily disclosed about the data breach in public incurred a loss of $1.134 Million, while where the information was leaked the firms suffered a loss of $1.583 Million, a 28 per cent more than the former. “Proactive disclosure can help turn things around in a company’s favour – and it goes beyond just the financial impact. If customers know what happened firsthand, they are likely to maintain their trust in the brand,” said Yana Shevchenko, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Kaspersky.

One of the real life examples is of Yahoo! The firm was fined and criticised for not notifying their investors about the data breach it experienced. Uber was also fine for covering up an incident of data breach. The firm surveyed more than 5,200 IT and cyber-security practitioners globally. The survey showed that organisations that take ownership of the situation usually mitigate the damage. Around 46 per cent of businesses disclosed a breach proactively. However 30 per cent of organisations that had experienced a data breach preferred not to disclose it. Almost 24 per cent of firms tried to hide the incident initially, but it was leaked to media eventually.

“Although minimal losses were reported by businesses that managed not to disclose the incident, this approach is far from ideal. Such companies are at risk of losing even more if — or more likely when a cyber-security incident is revealed to the public against their intentions,” said the report. It added that the risks are especially high for those companies that couldn’t immediately detect an attack. Nearly 29 per cent of SMBs that took more than a week to identify that they had been breached found the news in the press, which is double those that detected it almost immediately.

 

 

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MSME

Here Are 3 Major Roadblocks on the Path of Indian MSMEs’ Road to Digital Transformation

Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation (Photo Credits: Pxfuel)

New Delhi, November 24: Indian MSMEs realised the importance of digitisation amid the coronavirus crisis. Infact, digitisation opened the gates for many local businesses and helped them strengthen their operations and cope better with stressful times.

However, there are some roadblocks on the path of Indian MSMEs which needs to be cleared to achieve success.

Limited growth capital: MSMEs have limited growth capital that makes technology adoption and digital transformation demanding.

Expensive: Digitisation is an expensive affair, from buying the latest smart devices, strong internet services, to getting skilled employees to manage the system.

Unaware of digital impact: Indian MSMEs are still unaware of digitisation and they fail to create customer loyalty and retention.

India’s micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprise sector is a vital contributor to the country’s growth story. According to a 2019 study conducted by YES Bank, it revealed that over 50 percent of digitally-empowered MSMEs improved their profits, operational efficiencies, as well as customer engagement. In addition to this, the Narendra Modi government has pushed out several initiatives to boost the sector.

MSMEs are not alone in their journey to digitisation, e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart to corporates like Mastercard all have been doling out initiatives to help the MSME sector. Also, several startups like Khatabook, FarEye, Udaan, and others are dolling out several initiatives to help MSMEs in the digitisation journey.

 

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MSME

MSMEs Show Signs of Recovery, All Eyes Now on Diwali 2020 to Bailout the Stressed Sector

Startup Growth
Startup Growth (Photo Credits: Pixabay)

Mumbai, November 3: The coronavirus pandemic has been extremely difficult on every business, and India’s MSME sector is one of the worst-hit. The sector which has about 70 million enterprises and employs around 110 million people is battered due to the lockdown.

From factories being shut down, and freeze in the production, it is the small companies who are facing the heat of the pandemic. All eyes are now on Diwali 2020, from which they expect the sales to recover and help them to bounce back.

With the ease in the lockdown restrictions and with the economy opening up, business is taking place. According to a Financial Express report, retailers in majority sectors are yet to recover back to the year-ago level, and businesses in consumer durables and electronics seem to be scaling back relatively faster.

Some of these sectors like- sports goods, furniture, jewellery, footwear, food and grocery have still not managed to hit October 2019 level growth, according to the survey done by the Retailers Association of India.

While all hopes are pinned on the Diwali season, but according to reports, the demand continues to be low as people are sceptical of going to shops and making their purchases. On the other hand, customers are extremely careful in terms of spending as well.

 

 

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MSME

Stimulus 3.0: Narendra Modi Govt Announces Fresh Relief Package, From Creating More Jobs to Credit Guarantee Support Scheme, Here’s How MSMEs Will Benefit

Stimulus Package
Stimulus Package (Photo Credits: Picpedia)

New Delhi, November 12: FM Nirmala Sitharaman announced a slew of measures as part of stimulus 3.0 with an attempt to give relief to the stressed sectors amid the coronavirus pandemic.

FM announced Atmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana to boost employment and create jobs. This will be effective from October 1, 2020. Under the new scheme, any EPFO-registered employer takes on new employees or hires those who lost jobs between March 1 and September 30 will be given some benefits.

The other measure was Credit guarantee support scheme, which was launched for the healthcare sector and 26 sectors stressed due to coronavirus pandemic. The scheme can be utilised for 100 percent guaranteed collateral-free additional credit at capped interest rates in these sectors.

The entities from these sectors with an outstanding credit of above Rs 50 crore and up to Rs 500 crore as of February 2, 2020, will be benefited in this scheme, the further FM added.

As part of PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana, an additional outlay of Rs 10,000 crores will be provided for in the current financial year, to boost rural employment.

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MSME

MSMEs in India: Over 11 Lakh MSMEs Registered So Far on Udyam Online System Since July; Here’s How You Can Register Your MSME Online

A worker at an MSME firm
A worker at an MSME firm. | Representative image.

New Delhi, November 11: As many as 11 lakh MSMEs in India have registered on the new online system of Udyam Registration so far in just less than 5 months. The Udyam Registration was launched in July by the government. Of the 11 lakh MSMEs, as many as 3.72 lakh enterprises have registered under manufacturing category whereas 6.31 lakh enterprises under service sector. The five leading states for Udyam registrations are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

The MSME ministry stated that the top five industrial sectors of registrations are food products, textile, apparel, fabricated metal products and machinery & equipment. 1,01,03,512 persons have been given employment by these registered units. Registration without PAN and GST number is permitted on the system up to March 31, 2021 as a transitional arrangement.

Reports inform that the share of micro enterprises is 93.17 percent whereas small and medium enterprises are 5.62 percent and 1.21 percent, respectively. Adding further, an official statement said that 7.98 lakh enterprises are owned by male whereas 1.73 lakh enterprises by female entrepreneurs, and 11,188 enterprises are owned by divyangjan entrepreneurs.

Here’s How MSMEs Can Register:

  1. MSMEs can register on the official website of Udyam Registration- i.e. udyamregistration.gov.in
  2. An enterprise for the purpose of this process will be known as Udyam and its Registration Process will be known as ‘Udyam Registration’.
  3. A permanent registration number will be given after registration. After completion of the process of registration, a certificate will be issued online.
  4. This certificate will have a dynamic QR Code from which the web page on our Portal and details about the enterprise can be accessed.
  5. There will be no need for renewal of Registration.
  6. The single window systems at Champions Control Rooms and at DICs will help you in the process. Registration Process is totally free. No Costs or Fees are to be paid to anyone.
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MSME Technology

Paytm to Double Loan Disbursement for MSMEs From Rs 550 Crore in Last Fiscal Year to Rs 1,000 Crore by March 2021

Paytm (Photo Credits: Facebook)

New Delhi, November 9: In a major boost to the micro- and small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), financial services platform Paytm on Monday announced to double its loan disbursements for the MSMEs from Rs 550 crore in last fiscal year to Rs 1,000 crore by March 2021. The firm said that it has company expanded collateral-free loans of up to Rs 5,00,000 at a low-interest rate and unique daily EMI product customised for micro-merchants.

Paytm continues to lead the offline payments (P2M) segment with over 50 percent market share by offering all digital payment methods. Bhavesh Gupta, CEO, Paytm Lending was quoted by IANS saying that with the firm’s collateral-free instant loans, it is trying to help kirana stores and other small business owners who have been left behind by the traditional banking sector and do not have easy access to loans and credit.

According to a report by IANS, the company informed that the recently launched Paytm All-in-One Android POS device has enabled over two lakh MSMEs to accept all payment modes. The company said it will continue to offer collateral-free loans under the ‘Merchant Lending Programme’ in Paytm for Business app. The firm said it has digitised the entire process starting from the loan application, approval to disbursal with no additional documents required in partnership with NBFCs and banks.

Rrports inform that in the last financial year, the company processed loans worth Rs 550 crore, benefiting over a lakh merchant partner. “Going forward, we will especially focus on EDC merchants and provide higher loan amounts based on their EDC transactions,” Gupta said.

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MSME Startup

Gift Shops: 5 Tips to Follow to Revive Your Gift Shop Business Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Gift shop Business
Gift shop Business (Photo Credits: Flickr)

Mumbai, November 6: Coronavirus pandemic affected every business across the world. From job losses to pink slips, majority of the companies have suffered.  It has been more difficult for small businesses, like gift shops, who had to remain shut for several months in the middle of the lockdown.

Gift shop business is a revenue-generating venture, provided you keep a few things in mind. Across the globe, in the past decade, this business has witnessed a huge growth because of the increase in application for inventive products and extension in the customer base.

Now with the ease in the restrictions, and with the economy opening up, these businesses have also started operating.

Here are 5 tips which you can follow to make your business successful: 

Have Strong Online Presence: In today’s age, there is no other alternative, but you need to have a strong online presence. From having an e-commerce website to allowing customers to discover your brand on social media platforms, you should never miss this opportunity.

Spend your funds wisely: After remaining shut for several months, it is very important to use your resources and funds wisely.

Choose Your Niche, Be Original: Remember there are thousands of gift shops in the market. Try and understand how your shop will be different from the rest. It is very important to be original in your idea in order to stand out from the clutter.

Pay attention to hygiene: Since you are opening the shop in the middle of the pandemic. You need to take care of the hygiene and pay other attention to precautions that need to be maintained amid the pandemic.

Make your shop look attractive: Being a gift shop, you will have different items to showcase. Design your shop in such a manner so that you can manage to attract the attention of the audience. Your shop may not be big in terms of the space, but utilise it with proper planning without making it look cluttered.