Wellness Camp in Bhubaneswar to Educate and Support MSMEs
Bhubaneswar: Arrelic and CIME organized an MSME Wellness Camp recently in Bhubaneswar to address issues associated with the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises located in and around Mancheswar Industrial Estate, Bhubaneswar. This unique event was attended by a good number of MSME units from a wide range of sectors such as food, healthcare, education, software and training, automotive components, electrical and electronic products. Popular brands like Celesty Ice creams, Santony Signage, Tirupati Conductors, Bestray Infotech and Jyoti Electronics joined the deliberation. The MSME leaders shared their experience and pain points in Marketing, Finance, HR, Operations, Quality control and use of social media in business.
A panel of Experts comprising of Prof. S.R. Mohapatra- Principal of CIME, Prof. A.K. Panda, Head of the MBA Department at CIME, Prof. R N Sahu, sr. faculty of CIME, Mr. Deepak Sahoo, Director of Arrelic, Prof. Amitabh Nanda, sr. faculty in Marketing, Prof. Debasish Mohanty, sr. faculty in Finance, Dr. Mihir Nayak, Director (Planning), KIIT University, Prof. K.P. Panda, faculty in Human Resources and Prof Kamala Kanta Dash from Sri Sri University brought in decades of experience in the industry and academia to understand real as well as hidden issues, articulate those properly and navigate through a structured problem solving for the wellbeing of MSME.
Prof. Nanda spoke how differentiation, branding and integrated marketing communication could help the MSMEs. Prof. Mohanty focused on criticality of working capital and cash flow management for small business, Prof. K P Panda highlighted the importance of human resource and a responsive HR policy in MSME. Prof. Dash emphasized on using the social media effectively and intelligently for business growth. Many questions relating to specific issues were answered by the panel of experts. The deliberation focused on identifying bottlenecks, improving efficiency and profitability.
The experts evaluated various options and advocated for deployment of cost effective solutions and leveraging of technology to minimize waste and maximize profit. They shared insights on best practices in India and outside while offering tips on improving visibility through brand building.
Prof. A K Panda moderated the session and facilitated the dialogue between entrepreneurs, policy makers, students and the experts. Prof. S R Mohapatra advised the promoters of the MSME units to avail guidance free of charges from the experienced professors and faculty members of the institute thereby creating a synergistically vibrant relationship between the industry and academia.
Mr. Samarendra Sahu, Director General, Institute of Entrepreneurship Development, Odisha was the Chief Guest at the event. He spoke on various policies of the State and Central government to facilitate creation and growth of MSME units. He also disseminated various features of the new startup policy and startup portal of the MSME Department, Government of Odisha. He urged the student entrepreneurs for online registration of their startups and avail a range of incentives extended by the state government.
Dr. Mihir Nayak lauded the efforts of Arrelic and CIME for helping the MSME units of the state through their joint initiative of establishing an MSME Innovation Lab at CIME. Mr. Rahul Saralia, Director, Mangturam Saralia Foods producer of Celesty and Flavours brands of ice creams assured opportunity to bright management students to work as interns in his company. All the stakeholders agreed that such interactive and problem solving sessions should be held more frequently and cover units from other industrial clusters of the state.
The camp organizer Arrelic is a deep technology firm aiming to bring the next level of IoT based sensor technology to transform manufacturing operation and maintenance practices of various industries. The camp partner College of IT & Management Education (CIME) is a reputed government institute that offers AICTE recognized Post Graduate professional courses in the fields of IT, Management and Computer Science Engineering.