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by Rajen Kumar

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Running a magazine concentrating on issues of small and medium enterprises and managing with limited resources is a like living life on the edge. In this rush of meeting deadlines,...

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Apr 2012

EMRC, Brussels Associates with SME WORLD as its New Media Partner

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Personality

Finger on the Pulse - Mr. Jagat Shah

SME World Correspondent
Sep 2011

The gist of Mr. Jagat Shah's amazing journey through his career can be best summed up with Robert Frost's poem – The Road Not Taken.

While biding time to join a new assignment, he started investing his time in sharing his international market experience with a handful of SME owners in Ahmedabad. He started teaching from the basics and also managed to get small export orders for three of the SMEs. The training session followed by a visit to Bangladesh resulted in export orders for an overwhelming 60% of the participants. That was the turning point! Action speaks louder than words. Mr. Shah established his credentials and was appointed the export market consultant of all the 10 participating SMEs. It was the stepping stone on which he meticulously started building his own enterprise.

He formulated a simple yet effective business model and Global Network Institute (GNI) was born.

Building on the strength of GNI, Cluster Pulse was created as an economic development agency after exposure to cluster system. Around 2001 working on invitation with UNIDO at Chanderi silk cluster in MP, Mr. Shah experienced the strength of a cluster. He has worked with 82 clusters in India and 20 clusters abroad – Canada, USA, EU, Africa and South-east Asia. Cluster Pulse is involved in USAID projects, UNIDO, GIZ, DFID, World Bank, IFC, The Commonwealth Secretariat, Government of India (Ministries like textiles, MSME, Communications and IT) and 22 state governments, apart from foreign governments like Oman, Croatia, Manitoba (Canada), Brunei etc.

Always with a finger on the pulse, Mr. Shah runs an E-Readiness Centre (ERC) for SME's where they can connect with international buyers on live video meetings. The facility also allows sellers for purchase decisions of their raw materials under a bulk & aggregated quantity negotiated rates.

Another initiative of Mr. Shah is Microfintech formed in 2008. It was created to aid MSMEs whose challenges include finance, training and marketing. The specialty of the company is they give loan and train the loan recipients on business or skills and connect them to markets with orders. Interest charged is only 8% (compared to 16-20% elsewhere) as all loan money comes from individual donors through credit card donations on the portal. The loan is paid back by market through orders. This project is still under experimentation stage and Microfintech has funded 1500 micro enterprises. (www.alappuzhabds.com)

A graduate of Delhi University, Mr. Shah started his career with Xerox. His father Shri. Sumanbhai Shah moved all over the country managing construction projects and that afforded young Jagat Shah varied exposure at an early age. After some stints abroad in China and Indonesia, Mr. Shah found his true calling in India. A proud Gujarati with a loving and supportive family in the form of his wife Rupal and children Nisarg and Monisha, Jagat Shah is poised for multiple enriching roles.

He is involved in his family charitable hospital in Anand and shares time in Indo Canadian Business Chamber (ICBC) and India China Economic and Cultural Council (ICEC). With the support of the government of Tibet, ICEC is trying to build a cultural centre at Kailash Mansarovar with direct flights from Delhi to Mansarovar. He is at the helm of affairs.

Today he is involved in penning a book sharing his experiences and experiments in clusters.

When he started his first company Global Network (before GNI) he was put in a spot when SMEs asked him “if you can guide us how to export then why don't you export”! He says “Frankly, I had no answer to that question.” Today his accomplishments speak volumes of his ability. This is just the beginning of bigger things to come from a man with a mission and a vision.

Achievements:

GNI has conducted 94 batches of “Export Management Course” for business persons, executives and students in Ahmedabad, Hyderabad & Rajkot. 1800+ businesspersons have graduated from this course. Conducted 315 export seminars in 22 states in India, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Serbia, Croatia, Afghanistan, China, South Africa, Brazil, Oman and Turkey, attended by 17000+ companies. GNI has led 85 professionally planned business delegations; generating US$ 415 million of on the spot business and businesses booked later over the years to the tune of US$ 600+ million is in our knowledge, all by SME's.

1 Comments >>

Mats Williams

19 Sep 2011 (15:52:14)

Great jon, Impressiv results and more to come. Best wishes, Mats W

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