We are SMall but Exist

Opinion

Today I was just beginning to read a full page feature on Ratan Tata-the man spearheading India 's most trusted and loved brand-Tata. Though I thought I would read it, it would be interesting, yet I stopped after a few sentences. What else? It would be another pean to the already much much written about business behemoth. I’m tired of all this. Do I not have other stuff to read today? About some lesser known company, its success story.

The other day I read somewhere about Micromax, the mobile handset maker which is threatening the market leadership of Nokia. The company was started by Rajesh Agarwal as a distributor of computer hardware for brands like Sony, Dell HP etc. Later in 1999, three of his friends joined him as equal partners in the business. One of them, Rahul Sharma, convinced others to enter the crowded mobile phone market and they started making mobile phones in 2008. In two years time, Micromax has acquired the status of India’s 3^rd largest GSM mobile phone vendor, with a market share of 6% after Nokia-62% and Samsung-8%. The company claims to be selling about 1million handsets every month and targets a turnover of Rs.1500 crore by the end of this fiscal. What a wow story!

Why do 99% of business media talk about the big business houses that comprise hardly 5% of the overall enterprises in the country? I don’t know what is their underlying interest? How much of their advertisement revenues come from them? How else is the business of media houses connected to or dependent upon these fat cats? Leaving aside the business rationale, what can be the other underlying reasons explaining the media obsession and near saturation with these successful entities. As I can understand, it is more glamorous to read about a Ratan Tata finding a heir for his empire or Kokila Ben mediating the great Ambani divide. Is it in any way less adventurous to publish something about a startup which has achieved a 35 crore turnover within 2 years of starting up?

You will get to read about the developments taking place at companies like Micromax only on some blog or business website. Conventionally, all Small Business news will keep being relegated to a small corner unless it becomes a Nokia---when it is no more media hungry-when media gets hungry to write about them.

There are some 26 million micro, small and medium enterprises in the country. Nobody talks about them. We only know about their existence through figures-26 million enterprises, employing 62 million of the workforce; contribute 8 % to GDP; 45% to country’s industrial output…blah, blah, blah…nothing more. As if they are static entities where nothing is happening. These are actually the most active centres of our economy where most of the innovations take place, where great ideas are being nurtured into great businesses. It is time the media wake up to their lopsidedness.