SME Vision 2010 - use techology for the development of SMEs,India

Internet led B2B - best for SMEs

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the life-blood of the Indian economy. They are the main source of revenue and play a key role in enabling India to compete in world markets. Information and communication technologies (ICTs), and particularly B2B portals, offer many opportunities for SMEs and local and regional networks of SMEs and technology transfer centres to grow and prosper.

B2B portals are about networking businesses, streamlining business processes and introducing collaborative business practices. It is about collaborative, scalable software and environment and services for SMEs, including promotion of a local/regional knowledge economy. The success of SMEs in India lies in their ability to harness the potential of Information and Communication Technologies to leverage the development process.

The Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have seen rapid growth and development in the recent past. The biggest challenge faced by SMEs is not only to make such systems feasible to fit their businesses, but also to make them secure and dependable.

I have all the while been reiterating one fact that to survive, grow and win, SMEs will have to continuously infuse the Information and Communication Technologies in their production processes and marketing and management functions to cut cost, gain efficiency and consistency...a fact that everyone in the panel at the SME Vision 2010 Summit agreed.

Technology has changed a lot over the past decade. And yet, when we look at how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use technology, there has been only a limited adoption of the various new technologies. Even as the rate of change in technology accelerates, the pace of usage of these technologies in businesses at the bottom of the pyramid has not increased dramatically.

The Information and Communication Technologies can help SMEs in improving the technology and the process they use. It can also help them to achieve world class quality and create a global market without having to travel. This in will help them to reduce cost of production and also to generate new opportunities.

In short, it is the survival of the fittest - only the technology-strong SMEs in developing countries will be able to stay in business, develop, attract and work shoulder to shoulder with larger enterprises.