ICICI Bank, India's second largest bank, has partnered with CyberMedia, Asia's largest specialty media house, to launch an innovative nation-wide program to equip the Small and Medium Enterprises with skills and knowledge relevant to their sector.
The program aims to empower the CEOs of various SMEs by providing a platform for knowledge sharing and joint learning. The forum will cover identified industrial clusters in 26 different cities, offering an opportunity for the CEOs to interact with the experts in various fields viz. human resources, taxation, marketing, finance and entrepreneurship. The experts include practicing Professors from IIM Calcutta, Taxation experts from advisory firm Deloitte and Bankers from ICICI Bank.
The first half of the program is titled 'Financial Clinic'. It is a first of its kind customised session where experts will give advice on how to raise capital for each stage of a business providing entrepreneurs with information on the financial procedures like debt financing, private equity, M&A, forex advice and other risk management products. In the second half there will be a one-on-one mentoring session with the experts, where each entrepreneur will get enough time to interact and discuss their issues and concerns with the mentors.
The mentoring session will be followed by a panel discussion, where the panel in addition to the experts will also include local successful entrepreneurs from the concerned clusters. Thus, the initiative will be a complete package to empower, educate and equip the entrepreneurs for the emerging opportunities and growing competition.
Present at the occasion, Mr. Vijay Chandok, Senior General Manager & Global Head SME, ICICI Bank, said, "The SME CEO Knowledge series is yet another initiative towards our desire to create a vibrant ecosystem for the SMEs. This will also enable us to cater to the entrepreneurs at the root level with specific knowledge and guidance thereby strengthening the industry as a whole."
|
