Pune, (Maharashtra) [India]: MSMEs—Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises are a very important part of the Indian Economy. With the number of MSMEs in the country at around 56 million and a mammoth 124 million employed in MSMEs, it is the second largest employment generator, next only to agriculture. With 14% of these enterprises led by women and almost 60% based in rural areas, it is also a mirror of the diversity in terms of the Entrepreneurial ability of the Nation.
Despite such fabulous numbers to talk about, MSMEs still face a lot of problems, which lead to their stagnating, slowing growth, and challenging their sustainability.
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Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence, a centre of excellence incubated by Lexicon Management Institute of Leadership & Excellence, Pune, is doing a wonderful job of empowering MSMEs. Starting from Pune, where they have already helped quite a few enterprises in terms of financial literacy, skill development programs, technology adoption, process enhancements and standardization, compliance, innovation, etc., they intend to take their good work to the entire Maharashtra and country.
Mr. Nasir Shaikh, Group Chief Executive Officer, The Lexicon Group of Institutes, Educrack, EasyRecruit+, and Associate Editor, Pune Times Mirror & Civic Mirror, speaking on the need for a center of excellence, said, “MSMEs in our country have been engines of growth, with their significant contribution to the GDP, employment generation, and spread. However, the challenges to their growth and sustainability are immense. Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence is working diligently in collaboration with government agencies, industry associations and educational institutes to create a conducive environment for the excellence of MSMEs. Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence is incubated by Lexicon Management Institute of Leadership & Excellence and thus has an in-house reservoir of academic expertise to draw on for the skill development and training of the MSME sector.”
A few of the major challenges faced by MSMEs are access to finance, technological disruptions, regulatory changes and understanding, skilled manpower, and problems of small scale. Mr. Sanju Unni, Chief Manager, Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence, said, “Helped by various initiatives of Bharat Sarkar, the MSMEs are making their presence felt and their impact enhanced. However, to make their presence globally, they must equip themselves with skills in various aspects of business and not just their comfort areas.”
Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence is currently working with different MSMEs in diverse sectors like engineering, services, ancillaries, beverages, etc. to transform them into process-driven organizations, making them profitably sustainable through better investment in human capital. Cheaper finance from institutions, BSE-SME listing, succession planning, financial planning, and learning to optimally use technological enhancements, etc., so as to successfully scale up.
The efforts of Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence have started to bear fruit and are being appreciated by the MSME fraternity, as evident from the words of praise of entrepreneurs who have benefited from the inputs and consulting. Ms. Reshma Mulla of Mehak Industries, which is into sheet metal manufacturing, said, ‘We are benefiting immensely from our association with Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence. Mehak Industry was started in 2007, but we were not able to grow it the way we wanted. Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence showed us how to set up the vision, strategize for growth, help with business development initiatives, and set up the processes. This support has put us on our way to growth, and now we are looking at providing direct employment to 1,000 people by 2030. Thank you for your guidance and support, which we are looking forward to continuing in the future as well.”
Another MSME, V Square Beverages, promoted by Mr. Vinod Ambeti, praised the Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence for “the help, guidance, and support received in setting up the processes, and the change in the employee’s mindset through training and skilling interventions had a tremendous impact on the overall productivity. Employees who were just working as employees are now working like owners, taking responsibility, thinking of V Square as their own business, and working in terms of establishing V Square as a big name in beverages not only in national but also in international markets.”
Another area where Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence is working with MSMEs is making them process-centric instead of individual-centric, understanding the importance of IPR, and transition planning to make them come out of their comfort zone to be profitably sustainable organizations in the global scheme of things.
Mr. Anand Bhushan, CEO of Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence, EasyRecruit+, and EduCrack, while elaborating on the importance of MSME and the role being played by Lexicon Centre of MSME Excellence, said, “MSMEs are playing a pivotal role in the vision of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. The common challenges of access to funds, financial literacy, skilled manpower, capacity building and training, technological disruptions, and problems of scale are the areas in which they require support and guidance, and here is the input of the Lexicon Center of MSME Excellence making its presence felt. Since there is still a lot to be done for the empowerment of MSMEs in the Lexicon Center of MSME Excellence home district of Pune, it will be concentrating here for another year before starting to support MSMEs in the entire Maharashtra over the next 2–5 years before going pan India. With the vision of ‘Empowering MSMEs to achieve sustainable growth through training and process enhancement to compete globally and contribute to nation-building’, Lexicon Center of MSME Excellence is marching in this direction.”
