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Apr 2012

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Marketing

Marketing Tips for SMEs

Pooja Kumar
May 2011

The finance minister of India, Pranab Mukherjee, might have failed to pay heed to the needs of the SMEs with the latest budget. But there is a platform which has been incorporated solely to alleviate the most common and the most critical problems faced by the SME segment in India. The portal goes by the name of SME JoinUp which is a venture of SME Networks Pvt. Ltd. and can be signed up on smejoinup.com.

Founded by Pooja Kumar, the portal focuses on three of the most critical issues faced by SMEs- money, market and outsourcing. In Pooja's own words, “SME JoinUp is aimed at small and medium enterprises with a turnover of zero to 250 crores. It aims to build an ecosystem where SMEs can get help procuring funds, get visibility for expanding their customer base, and find the right outsourcing partners”

It has been just a year since the inception of the platform, and it already seems to be growing popular among the segment. There are more than 1000 SME owners associated with SME JoinUp, online as well as offline, and the numbers are steadily growing.

The initial success of the platform can be attributed to three factors; one, a decade of experience with Pooja in dealing with the SME sector in India, which makes her aware of the issues that this segment faces. She was VP ,Commercial Banking – SME segment, HSBC, before she decided to follow her entrepreneurial dreams; two, the fact that the platform is meant for decision makers of SMEs only, instead of the usual include-all structure; and three, the fact that the service providers who get associated with SME JoinUp go through a strict selection process. That ensures SMEs get quality service when they choose to let SME JoinUp solve their problems.

Another area which Pooja feels is very critical for SMEs is their participation in B2B events and exhibitions which the much ignored segment is yet to taste. SME JoinUp partners with selected events across India which would be valuable for her SME network .The partnership ensures not only prior information to the SME owners about the event and value it can create in their business but also the members are given highly discounted participation rates or even complimentary invites in many cases.

But Pooja seems to have a lot more ideas up her sleeve which sure look like they could add real value to the SME segment in India. She says,”We plan to introduce concierge services for SMEs in the near future, which will be the first of its kind. Inspired from the concept of relationship managers in banks and concierge in hotels, a dedicated manager would be appointed to each SME, who will make sure that every need of the enterprise is promptly met”

Apart from that, she also plans to launch two more associated portals very soon to make it easier for small and medium enterprises in India reach success. The first of these portals is techJoinUp.com, which is a marketplace for IT/ITes companies in India, where they can get international projects. The lack of international exposure for SMEs hurts them in the long run, and the portal definitely holds a lot of promise for them.

The second is smegetmoney.com. As the name suggests, it will be a portal meant to solve the finance needs of SMEs. Going by all that, it definitely looks like there's finally somebody out there who is ready to help the SMEs in India. However, continued dedication and support is what is required to make it a truly valuable proposition for the small fish in the large corporate pond.

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