Staff Reporter | 26 Jun, 2008
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to start a SME Vitalization Cell as One Stop Mentoring Network: The Visionary SMEs Programme under Prof. Shoji Shiba.

Mid-size companies from India can now aspire to become the Matsushita’s or Sony’s of tomorrow over a three year time horizon by signing up to a unique initiative to create Visionary SMEs.

The programme focused on enabling accelerated growth for Mid-Size companies is an outcome of a strategic partnership between - Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Indian Institutes of Technology, Kanpur and Madras (IITK, IITM), Indian Institute of Management (IIMC), Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) and National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council (NMCC) on the Indian side, and Prof. Shoji Shiba and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from Japan side.

This was revealed at a Ceremony organised in Japan to present the VSME Programme to JICA.

“These companies would become the locomotives of growth by pulling the SMEs in India to become Visionary SMEs. A key factor that enables such a transition is the company philosophy. We would build that through a community network of the SMEs supported by Government (NMCC), Academia and Industry (CII)”, said Prof. Shoji Shiba while presenting the programme to JICA in Osaka.

More than 100 Mentors would be drawn from Industry, Academia and Institutions who would become mentors for strengthening Leadership, Management, Innovation through Technology, Operations and Marketing,”  added Prof. Shiba.

“The Government would propose to put in place a mechanism to give the Visionary SMEs (VSMEs) support on a priority basis. These would include support in the form of VSME Passports and recognition through Awards from highest levels in Government. To the academia we would give incentives for preparing excellent case studies and supporting excellent innovative projects that would catapult the VSMEs to the next stage of growth” said Mr. M.Sahoo, Chief, NMCC, while speaking at the Ceremony.

“CII would be introducing the programme jointly with IIT Kanpur and Madras, IIM Calcutta and EDI, Ahemadabad.. The first mentorship workshop will start on 26th September in Mumbai” said Dr. Sartia Nagpal, Deputy Director General, CII.

Detailing the process of selection, she said “The company selection process has been kicked off and 10 to 15 companies would be invited to join the programme. A selection criteria has been drawn up and an invitation task force set up for completing this task by August 15th. . The SME vitalization cell in CII would aim to become a one-stop mentoring network to create the new brand of India SMEs”.