Freelancer Focus
The importance of being an SME!
Written by: Flexing It
28/08/2013
3 minutes read
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Flexing It launches a new SME- focused, customized suite of features
India is on its way to become the largest SME nation globally, with close to 50 million micro, small and medium scale businesses. The sheer size of the SME or SMB segment makes it a vital contributor to India’s GDP (17%), in addition to providing employment (40%) and contributing to exports (40%). SMEs – both manufacturing and services entities – are also crucial ancillaries for India’s large corporations further increasing their importance1. This scale and growth are reflected in our own experience too and SMEs constitute more than a third of total companies registered with Flexing It.
The increased adoption of technology has been amongst the biggest growth drivers for SME service providers, with boutique service providers being established to bridge any sort of gap across various and within value chains. These niche service firms offer solutions in fields as diverse as IT, accounting, marketing, strategy, management, engineering design, etc.
While the opportunities for such service-oriented SMEs are tremendous, we see two major hurdles that could prevent them from harnessing their potential. First, striking a balance between acquiring quality skills and ensuring things stay within a budget/resource envelope, especially in the earlier stages of growth, is one of the most difficult problems faced by this segment. Secondly, given that the global economic climate remains volatile, the availability of not just projects but quality assignments that can usefully deploy capacity and also build out the firm’s credentials in their focus areas can also be a challenge.
Recognising this potential and the challenges, Flexing It has launched a new functionality where SMEs and small service providers can register and offer their services and expertise to organizations posting opportunities. Our platform now offers a full suite of features for small service providers, namely
- An additional route for business development – a firm can register as a skill/service provider and apply for assignments we source and post on the interface, and
- A source of skills in peak periods and/or in very specialized areas – a firm can register as an organization and bring on board skilled professionals for short periods (e.g., a surge in work) and when depth in certain functions or industries is needed.
We are extremely excited by this evolution of our platform and believe that the marketplace will be richer for the addition of this important and quality source of skills. We also believe that this is a great chance for all the SMEs, especially niche service providers, to seize this opportunity and explore how they can leverage the Flexing It platform to their advantage.
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