New Delhi: The Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector is a hidden gem and critical for accelerating job growth and also GDP growth of the country. It has the potential to create 50-60 million jobs in the next few years. However, today, MSMEs face an existential crisis. Wadhwani Foundation’s flagship program Wadhwani Advantage’s research estimates that close to one-third of the 60-70 million of MSMEs face survival anxiety and a threat of being wiped out. This will render about 10% of our GDP under threat given the impact of COVID-19. This would put to threaten the employment of 30 million people working in these MSMEs. The second wave of COVID has already increased the unemployment rate close to 10%. In 2020, in the first wave, it rose to over 35% at its peak. Additionally, the Advantage program team’s model suggests that the NPA incidence is rising and hovers between 7-35% in the SME segment.
While the situation looks gloomy, the biggest unleveraged advantage that the Indian MSME sector has is the entrepreneurs own willpower to survive and fight back. Indian entrepreneurs are known the world over for being resilient and productive even in adversities. All that is needed in today’s time is to create a spark to ignite positive energies to look beyond the challenges and chase success with the opportunities at hand.
To strengthen their well-being, SMEStreet Foundation with the support from Wadhwani Foundation is proud to announce the launch of SMEStreet GameChangers Forum – a nationwide MSME outreach, education and Opportunity showcase exercise which will motivate entrepreneurs to understand the potential around them. The intention of this initiative is to bring back the fighter spirit among Indian Entrepreneurs by showcasing positivity in the form of promising business opportunities.
On collaborating with Wadhwani Foundation, Mr Faiz Askari, Founder of SMEStreet Foundation said, “This tie up will fetch great results of business growth, learning and empowerment for MSMEs and entrepreneurial development. We are very thankful to the great committed organization – The Wadhwani Foundation which is supporting us from the perspective of their knowledge and expertise”.
This program – SMEStreet GameChangers Forum will engage and influence over 5 Million MSMEs across India. SMEStreet Foundation is excited to start this exercise in association with Wadhwani Foundation. This program will have a deep intervention by the Advantage team at the Foundation to help MSMEs do discoveries and undertake transformations, supported by a series of Webinars, Panel Discussions, Articles and Podcasts all aimed to educate and motivate entrepreneurs. This exercise is an extension of SMEStreet GameChangers Award Listing Initiative which recognized individual success stories that have influenced and encouraged business growth in the tough times of COVID Pandemic
“We are delighted to partner with SMEStreet and help the MSMEs in these times. COVID or no COVID, our job is to empower entrepreneurs, to train them to make sound business decisions with our tools, content, connects on a technology platform ‘Genie’ that opens the world of help to the entrepreneurs. Helping a job creator-MSMEs grow faster is amplifying thousands of family-supporting jobs in India,” says Samir Sathe, EVP, Advantage Program-Wadhwani Foundation.
This program seeks to enable acceleration of some of the neglected areas of the MSME sector in India. The Wadhwani Advantage program provides growth strategy and long-term support to MSMEs to help them grow by 2X-10X by identifying and solving their business challenges. The endeavor is to bring in data-driven problem solving habits and empower them with all-round capabilities for sustainable growth. In India, and globally, it has helped ~1000 SMEs and influenced the 15000 jobs in the last 2 years.