Human capital are known to be the main assets of any business and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are no exception. With advancements in information and communication technologies in recent past two decades, knowledge and information is now-a-days available at a click of mouse that has changed the entire gamut of hitherto business operations. In a knowledge driven economy where knowledge and information keep on changing rapidly, skill is the key determinant that empowers the employees in an enterprise to handle the business efficiently. Quality of a worker plays a crucial role in delivering appropriate result with optimal use of available resources.
Skill Development and Entrepreneurship go hand in hand. Hence, it is pertinent to mention that without continuous and appropriate skill development in line with the fast changing business environment, it is very difficult for an enterprise to fulfill its business commitments. Skills provide workers with one of their main sources of competitiveness and potential for improvement of living standards. Without the required skill level, majority of SMEs face serious survival challenges and succumb to fierce competition even in their own domestic markets. With crumbling trade barriers that has brought in foreign firms to the market, it makes no sense for SMEs to continue their businesses in the erstwhile way. They must improve their competitiveness to cope with the market conditions, which is only possible if they act to improve the skills in the overall firm level before it is too late.
Skill development is an aspect that SMEs need to take seriously for their business expansion and sustainable growth. Skill development contributes to the competitiveness of an SME as it is evident from numerous studies world over that establish the benefits of training and skill development for enterprises as well as employees. Whereas large enterprises are capable of hiring highly skilled labour and continuously enhancing their skills, SMEs face challenges in that regard due to financial as well as other constraints. This is one of the major challenges that majority of the SMEs face especially in developing world that badly affects their overall performance and taking part in global value chain.
Skill development activities have some cost implication on the SMEs and, therefore, they must assess the return. To continuously update and upgrade the skills of their workers, SMEs alone cannot do much because of several operational limitations. They would have to take help of local authorities, industry associations and academic institutions who could help them dealing with their problems.
ISSME has top priority for skill development among small entrepreneurs. Keeping this in mind, ISSME conducts tailor-made training programmes and webinars as per the demands of SMEs. It has been trying to develop specific course contents with videos in different aspects of SME management and then providing these course online for SMEs to enhance their skills that would have a value proposition for their businesses. We team up with some of the reputed global institutions pioneering in the area of SME management training & education.