Bangalore, India: The term SME must be concretely defined and accepted across all investment and banking sectors to ensure equal funding opportunities. This is just one of the several conclusions that arose from the SME CXO Summit India 2010 that ended on a markedly successful note on Tuesday  at the JW Marriott in Mumbai.

SME access to financing would be tremendously enhanced if there was a standard understanding of what constitutes a small and medium enterprise in the legal context, according to Suzlon CFO Robin Banerjee.

Mr Banerjee was on the first panel of the SME CXO Summit India 2010 on Monday, titled ‘Five challenges SMEs face in India,’ which brought together leading businessmen from across the nation in an informative interactive discussion on the ways to circumnavigate obstacles in the way of SME growth. ASSOCHAM SME Expert Committee Co-chairman Bikky Khosla, on the same panel, suggested that alternate financing is ‘free consulting’ at its best, so why not go for it, despite its taxing nature? “The government cannot leap like a tiger, but you (SMEs) can,” he said, referring to the agility and malleable nature of SMEs.

The summit brought forward several perspectives on how Indian SMEs can overcome monetary concerns, technology upgrades, government intervention and competition, among other issues.

Bombay Stock Exchange Deputy CEO Ashish Chauhan shed light on the growing relevance of getting listed on the stock exchange and also spoke about BSE’s plans for an SME exchange in the pipeline.

The summit sponsors played a vital role in delivering informative keynotes, and with Nokia, Mphasis, Salesforce.com, Sybase, Caliber Point, Allied Digital and IGI Insurance on board, the value of one-to-one meetings and roundtable discussions were significantly enhanced by their presence.

Salesforce.com Director – Sales & Engineering Anish Malhotra opened the technology session with a keynote on cloud computing and how to ‘grow your business, not your costs.’

Mphasis Regional Director for India & SAARC Rajiv Singh gave an informative presentation on managing change in an enterprise, while Nokia’s keynote on mobilising business emails with their service also received commendations from attendees.

Sybase India Director for pre-sales and service Sudesh Prabhu’s presentation on waking up to the world of mobility re-educated delegates on the growing relevance of ‘unleashing the power of unwired enterprise.’

Day two kick started with JSL Group CIO Ajay Kumar Dhir’s keynote address on innovations in Indian SMEs, covering issues of product, process and organisational innovation and the need of the hour to be ‘different’.

The following panel on SME access to financing and the available offers led delegates into an intriguing discussion with Sequoia Capital India Advisors Principal G V Ravi Shankar, who delved into what investors look for in today’s Indian SMEs, and Eye-Q Co-Founder Rajat Goel discussed what it’s like to be on the flipside of the story and attempt to find the right investor.

Interactive roundtable sessions brought the event to a close on Tuesday afternoon on a very successful note, indicating the birth of yet another naseba CXO series in the making, taking the form of another SME event next year.

SME CXO Summit India 2010 media partners Wall Street Journal Asia, Business Wire India, Finsight Media and Small Enterprise India.com attended and covered the summit, as did the event association partner SME Chamber of India.