Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Post-Covid suggestions by the government to market micro, compact and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in India is probably to facilitate less difficult access to credit and more development, according to more than 50 per cent of the Indian compact business enterprise selection-makers surveyed by American Express and marketplace analysis firm YouGov headquartered in the UK. For instance, the MSME definition, which was revised last year, will aid formalise retail and wholesale trade, enabling improved monetary and sectoral possibilities, respondents mentioned. Also, a substantial majority of the merchants believed that the government’s move in July this year to involve retail and wholesale units in the MSME segment, which is probably to aid them avail finance beneath priority sector lending, will allow them to engage with the formal monetary sector.
Also, to make certain business enterprise continuity, more compact firms are focusing on ease of buying and order delivery for their consumers. The survey was carried out amongst 500 compact business enterprise selection-makers and more than 2,000 customers across the major 10 cities. “There has also been a significant increase in the number of businesses that provide delivery of product/service at home and online orders in comparison to last year. While only 31 per cent businesses provided home delivery and 33 per cent took online orders last year, this year, 46 per cent businesses have switched to home delivery and 42 per cent have started taking online orders,” Manoj Adlakha, Senior Vice President and CEO, American Express Banking Corp. India told TheSpuzz Online.
Moreover, 63 per cent merchants made use of SMS/ WhatsApp messages whilst 56 per cent leveraged social media posts to improve reaching out to consumers and engaging with them to increase their business enterprise recovery. While embracing digital payment and presence has been the survival mantra for most merchants, the survey noted that 54 per cent compact firms accepted new cashless or digital payment procedures.
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Rajkumari of a bakery brand Nik Bakers told TheSpuzz Online that their business enterprise was severely impacted due to Covid and frequent lockdowns and they had to look at revolutionary approaches of engaging with consumers. “We have taken several measures which include in-store preparedness, in-store safety measures and hygiene, embracing digital payments, and execution of various methods of communications with our customers.”
“Our MSME community is always evolving and we are always looking at what more we can do for them. Diwali is around the corner when we lot of promotions for MSMEs and offer membership rewards that encourage them to spend that much more. So we have seen a significant lift in terms of promotions we have been running for small businesses such as Shop Small campaign focused on 80,000 merchant community,” Adlakha added. American Express had last year launched the Shop Small campaign to incentivize customer spending at compact firms and aid them recover from the influence of the pandemic. These compact firms had been across retail shops, healthcare services, bakeries, beauty salons, travel and utilities, electronics, restaurants, and hotels.