SME State of Market

Over the last couple of months, I got chance to interact with multiple stakeholders across SME, MSME and new India digital services vendors as my friends at Confederation of Indian Industry, Sharp Electronics Corporation USA Vodafone Idea Limited, ZEE Business and Profectus Capital Pvt. Ltd invited me to showcase partner events. Couple of quick observations below:-

👉 Digital Competition Bill (DCB), 2024 might have counter implications, SME and MSME apprehend high and un-necessary regulatory costs and mind it, there are already many costs which these business include under "cost of doing business"

👉 Middle-aged founders, having done an innings at established firms are most confident, well-funded and taking calculated risks to bring live their business' like once they grew their practices from 10 FTE to 400FTE's. I remember interacting with Anuj Gupta, Apar Sureka and likes of them who have a clear growth vision!

👉 As I described the category as new India digital services vendors, these vendors are providing a range of services and most importantly are expanding rapidly. Today I heard Antino by Rajesh Kumar is expanding to UK region and last month Jay Vachhani told about expansion plans into new verticals. Unlike the traditional SME and MSME segment, this category is less cynical of bills such as DCB 2024 but want a supportive ecosystem and freedom from tax terrorism and charges on account of PMLA