The small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector is considered to be the backbone of the Indian economy. It is said to be the desired growth engine which helps India achieve an ambitious two-digit gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate.
In its current form, the SME sector contributes about 45 percent to the nation's GDP, which is about three times the corporate sector's contribution, and is estimated to have around 51 million units that employ more than 46 crore people.
But there is a void which is unorganised and limits these SMEs towards access to capital, infrastructure, technology, new market and economic policies related to taxation, which is restricting them rise to their full potential.
To harness the true potential of this sector, there are some tech-based platforms which are putting in innovation for the SMEs while witnessing inclusive growth, some of which are as follows:
OfBusiness - Business beyond financing
OfBusiness is a technology-driven SME financing platform that adds value to SME's business beyond financing through its raw material fulfilment engine and new opportunities platform.
Additionally, SMEs can use OfBusiness' proprietary platform - BidAssist - to discover new growth opportunities across public and private tenders. It serves SME's across the commanding heights of the India economy in Manufacturing (Auto, Power, Capital goods, Consumer goods, Pre-Fab, Solar, Plastics, etc.) and Infrastructure (Civil contractors - Government and Private).
OfBusiness serves as a single-window for SMEs in manufacturing and infrastructure sectors to get secured and unsecured credit lines enabling them for cost-effective procurement of raw material including industrial steel (structures, plates, and coils), TMT, electrical goods, cement, RMC, Bulk polymers, chemicals, building materials and solar installations. The platform aggregates these materials and passes the aggregation benefits to the SMEs.
Indifi Technologies - Accelarating access to capital
Indifi is a Gurgaon based platform for enabling debt-financing for small businesses. It aims to substantially improve the experience that borrowers get in terms of speed of approval and disbursement, convenience of the loan process, relevance of the loan product to their business needs, and finding the best rates in the market.
Driven by the idea of establishing or automating SMB financing in India, Indifi has emerged as an enabler for start-ups and small businesses to seek seamless access to funding through Collateral free loans.Indifi focuses heavily on bringing segment-specific products to the market.
Shopmatic - Hand-holding SMEs digitally
Shopmatic enables Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs to take their business online enabling SMEs to build their online stores with integrated payment and shipping functions and sell their products or services through multiple channels. Data analytics and insights have also been built into the platform to help sellers be more effective in reaching out to their target audience.
Shopmatic provides customers with everything from free domain names to clickable, beautiful templates for building their unique stores- by clicking, replacing and uploading pictures and text as they go, to enabling of Payment and Shipping with domestic and international partners for them, to even helping them list on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay- should they so wish to do so.
NowFloats - Getting the discovered online
NowFloats is a 50 million company with over 600 employees working towards one aim - To help small businesses grow. The company is currently caters to 2,40,000 small businesses and 13 million customers present in more than 50 countries.
NowFloats help build companies "Local SEO" to ensure more customer walk-ins. The company focuses on how to get a small business or a retail store discovered online. NowFloats is a hyper local optimization technology which helps a consumer find the most relevant merchant around him who has a product. It is a go-to destination for any SME that plans to take their business to the next level. The company focusing on getting more businesses discovered, getting them online & making them bigger.
InCred - Integrating Hardcore Tech to make it simple
InCred is a new-age financial services group founded with the vision of providing credit and thus, furthering financial inclusion in the country. InCred has developed an algorithm driven, alternate data based and machine learning enabled risk management engine which enables it to build bespoke risk scorecards targeting the new-to-credit category of customers. By deploying technology and data science, they have optimised the customer experience and the loan turnaround process.
InCred has designed its products to be flexible and can tailor make them to best suit the requirements of its customers.
IndiaMART - Making Payments get easy for over 1 lakh SMEs
IndiaMART is India's largest online marketplace, connecting buyers with suppliers. IndiaMART's 'Pay With IndiaMART' feature allows to receive instant payment with click of a button. The hassle-free payment gateway with the advantage of receiving instant payments at the lowest possible interest rate of 1.75 percent makes it exceptionally suitable for SMEs, enabling sound financial dealings especially for those who cannot afford to wait for payments. Meanwhile, for the buyers, the digital payment service enables an Escrow Account, which takes care of the first point of payment collection till the product is received and confirmed by them.
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content
