Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are the most robust economic development and employment drivers. The MSME sector also contributes to the growth of the Indian economy, with a vast network of about 63.38 million enterprises. The industry contributes about 45% to manufacturing output, more than 40% of exports, and over 28% of the country’s GDP while creating employment for about 111 million people, which in terms of volume stands next to the agricultural sector. MSME, as a whole, has a lot of potential for growth, innovation, contribution to the economy, and further job creation. Let’s have a look at some of the major problems faced by micro and small enterprises are as follows:

Types of challenges faced by the MSME Sectors

• Inadequate Access to Market

MSMEs have struggled to access broad markets for various reasons, like lack of adequate capital, inadequate use of marketing tools, and lack of awareness of the more general economic environment. The MSMEs have not scaled the business for access across the domestic and global markets. The Ministry of MSME has always uplifted and facilitated MSMEs by transforming them into a digitally empowered community. The MSME Databank web portal makes getting an online Census of the MSMEs in India easier.

• Adoption of Technology

Technological advancements have the strength to make or break a business. If MSMEs adopt new technologies, they can become more competitive, cost-effective, and accessible to the market. Lack of adoption will only make the company and its existence obsolete and under threat.

• Access to Funding

The overall MSME credit infrastructure has various bottlenecks; long sanction process, high rates, collateral requirements, and disbursement delays. The inability to access funds at a reasonable rate promptly hinders growth. However, business owners can apply for an MSME loan and use the funds to expand and grow their businesses. The introduction of MSME Databank enables monitoring of various loan schemes and policies structured specifically for MSMEs so that the government can pass on the benefits directly to small business owners.

• Quality Human Resource

If your goal is to run a scalable business, you’ll need to build a strong team of experienced professionals willing to stay with the company for a long time. Many MSMEs fail to devote quality Human Resources to the growth agenda. These MSMEs are often so thinly staffed, making it difficult to allocate these resources to work on long and midterm projects.

• Lack of Experience in Using External Experts

A good consultant or vendor often saves time and effort and helps by bringing expertise and talent. However, most MSMEs depend on the capabilities of the founders of the core team. The standard builds, or buys dilemma makes them feel better about doing things in-house with their staff. Often, an in-house team may not have the required experience and knowledge the time, effort, and costs escalate.

• Over-reliance on Existing Clients

Some companies stick to large or critical clients and let the business run on autopilot. However, this can limit their business and ability to maximize their potential. This also results in high concentration risk as over-reliance can prove disastrous if the clients ever move away. The MSMEs should always look at their clients across sizes, geographies, and industries wherever possible. They should still work on building the brand value and focus on adding new clients and retaining the existing ones. Fund constraints hamper the use of marketing channels to create a strong sales funnel.

MSMEs faced various challenges, such as economic slowdown, raw materials cost increasing, stricter competition, etc., but they have still overcome these challenges and survived.

However, the havoc created by the pandemic lockdown has resulted in the most extended lockdown in India, causing a significant threat to the survival of many small-scale companies. Only those MSMEs will emerge as real winners if they can transform their way of doing business quickly, precisely, and cost-effectively and show credibility and trust in sufficing the consumer’s needs efficiently.