ICICI Bank, the leading private sector lender, and speciality media house CyberMedia have jointly launched a nationwide project to empower the CEOs of various small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by providing a platform for knowledge sharing and joint learning.
The joint venture programme ‘SME CEOs Knowledge Series’ was recently held in Nashik, which saw the participation of delegates from 150 SMEs.
The programme, will cover identified industrial clusters in 26 cities. After Agra, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Gurgaon, Noida, Jaipur, Hyderabad and Pune, Nashik, became the ninth city to be covered under this project. Commenting on the joint venture programme, Vijay Chandok, head (SME business and senior GM), ICICI Bank, said: “Nashik has availability of talent and is rapidly emerging as a major industrial hub in Maharashtra. The programme is yet another initiative towards ICICI Bank’s desire to create a supporting ecosystem for the SMEs. In this evolving economic scenario, the SME CEOs Knowledge Series will provide an expertise to issues like finance, strategic marketing and taxation, which will help the SMEs to handle their current concerns and improve their businesses towards a more secure future,” said.
The event in Nashik started with a session called Finance Clinic in which entrepreneurs were offered customised expert advice on how to raise capital for business depending on the stage of businesses and the optimal level of capital mix their business needs, through a discussion on various topics like debt financing, private equity, IPO, M&A, forex advice and other risk management products.