“Lack of Trained Manpower to Use the New Tech is a Key Challenge”

The MIA comprises very small to mid-sized industrial units located along the Hingna Road industrial cluster. The companies here are engrossed with manufacturing the smaller industrial components that primarily support the automotive and the heavy engineering goods industry elsewhere in the country. Other clusters include the plastics component manufacturers, food processing units, paper products, pharma and auto ancillaries. The growth rate amongst the manufacturing industries is at par with that witnessed by SME industry across India. Another key point to be noted is that the industry exports more of its products to large-sized companies across India more than it exports to the outside world. So, the competition is more from SMEs in other states of the country.

Capt. Chandramohan Randhir

President, MIA

Business challenges faced by the industry

According to Capt. Randhir, the industry is not producing goods to the installed capacity. The reasons are multifarious. He feels that technology is not used to the optimum level as you would expect from SMEs belonging to these verticals, if compared with SMEs elsewhere in Maharashtra or other progressive states in India. The reason being, the IT budgets are not given the same degree of priority as the budgets that go into capital procurement, operational expenses or even to meet statutory obligations. Another reason is the lack of trained manpower available and also the ability of the existing manpower to come to terms with the latest in technology. Therefore, most units here are vary of investing the little budgets they have into newer tech products. However, Capt Randhir also agrees that this is not the way forward. To compete with other companies, globally, they need to invest more in technology and also in providing requisite training to their manpower. The SME industry also needs to refine its processes and make them more efficient. Here again technology can play an important role. Another key issue that plagues the industry is that of corruption at the government. If the government could simplify the ease of doing business and make the competition more fair in nature, more and more entrepreneurs would be willing to invest in setting up industry in Nagpur. This would result in more employment getting generated and better satisfaction levels amongst the employees.

The road ahead

Capt Randhir was appreciative of the HP BusinessNow Express that made deep inroads into the industrial sector in Nagpur and felt such activities, if done regularly, would go a long way in removing suspicions about IT solutions amongst the masses and also make them more aware in choosing the right solution for their needs. His association was extremely supportive of the initiative taken by HP and PCQuest and this was demonstrated through the visits to the bus by his key office bearers and their associates. They all felt such activities, at various scales, need to be regularly held to increase awareness. Most them were astonished to see the pace of change in technology after learning about the various solutions on display. They were able to get subtle clarifications on the need to upgrade to ultrabooks and more efficient MFPs for even smaller organisations, as they help in saving time and getting better output from tasks. Those with limited office and factory space were keen to enquire about AIOs, mini PCs and thin clients and were happy to realise that such solutions were available at a lower price than what they had anticipated.