B-school students to guide SME owners, managers

IIM-A's 'National Management Literacy Movement', which involves training owners and managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by second-year post-graduate programme (PGP) students would soon be co-ordinated with other IIMs as well as reputed business schools like the Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), Delhi and SP Jain, Mumbai in the coming few months.

The movement, undertaken by the student's training group (STG), conducted their second workshop for SME owners and managers from the textile industry and decided to involve other institutes on the basis of the positive feedback received from the participants.

The workshop was attended by SME owners and managers and focussed on issues related to the textile industry in the areas of marketing, finance, HR, operations and strategy.

Textile was chosen as the theme for the workshop since SMEs in the industry have not kept pace with the rapid growth potential at an international arena, said the student trainers.

"Surveys conducted by IIM-A students revealed that the SME sector has not been exposed to professional management practices and this is especially the case with the textile industry which has witnessed important policy amendments in the recent times," said Amritpal Singh Bhohi, STG co-ordinator, IIM-A.

Although just one or two of the five student trainers had previous work experience, they opine the workshop is more an exchange of thoughts rather than a standard lecture format.

"While SME owners and managers have the experience of working in the industry, what they lack is a structured way of thinking. Through the workshop, we have intoduced core management concepts and helped them strategise for better growth," said Vineeta Singh, second year PGP student and one of the student trainers for the workshop.

The participants of the workshop, most of whom had textile businesses of around Rs 10-20 crore said their business decisions were based mostly on instinct rather than logic which they hoped to understand better in their interactions with the students.

IIM-A plans to conduct three more such workshops on diferent industries in September, Novermber and December this year.