Choosing business services and tech products to run startups is easy now! With a few clicks, startups can find all support online anytime, anywhere. There are diverse one stop shops that help Indian startups and SMEs with a large pool of resources like business consulting services and others for buying and selling products and lots more. Here we are explaining about well known one stop shops that can be checked out by startups to raise their business swiftly.
Business activities are ever changing because of availability of new technologies and of resources. Start-ups hope to gain fast profits but rarely do they succeed. There are few factors that hinder startups to turn a successful brand. Starting a business, finding effective solutions and evaluating it for success is quite difficult task. The market is overcrowded with a huge number of companies of all sizes, be it small, medium or big sized ones. They face challenges when they launch new products and services in the market. Because of lack of resources and knowledge they also face many other challenges.
To help startups, a number of one stop shops are providing the whole thing on a single platform. Through these platforms, startups can get excess of everything including tools to services required to manage businesses efficiently at budget friendly packages. All resources and tools are available on one place; startups can choose the required service or tool as per their requirement and budget easily. Even though, if they face any challenge in the selection, free guide and expert support also provided via “one stop shops”. A list of such platforms is given below. All these platforms help startups to save their time and resources which they can use to build their market reputation and business planning.
Here are few online resources for Startups & SMEs in India:
1. SIDBI Startup Mitra – Startup offerings by state governments
‘SIDBI Startup Mitra’ – first ever national platform for the Indian startup ecosystem is unique platform for all aspiring startups, incubators, accelerators and startup financing organisations to register and leverage the power of the startup ecosystem in India.
State governments in India have launched various policies and schemes specifically to support and promote start up development. If you are a startup, register on SIDBI Startup Mitra today to explore and take advantage of the startup policies and schemes within your state.
2.smallB.in – Simplifying the process of Starting an SME
samllIB.in is SIDBI’s effort to support Indian SMEs by simplifying the procedure of starting and setting up a business in India. This platform helps entrepreneurs to identify business opportunities all along learning from other successful startups. It also gives access of technologies from IITs and other trustworthy institutions. It also helps SMEs to understand about how to get collateral free loans from banks and related formalities etc. Basically smallB Forum act as discussion platform to take inputs on different subject matter from experts.
3. SME JOINUP – Business Services Helpline for Startups and SMEs
SME JOINUP is an effective solution for all small businesses that need help in understanding a particular business service and finding the relevant vendor for their requirement. Pooja Kumar, Co-founder, SME JOINUP shared, “We hosts information and vendor contacts of 36 services from six categories namely Financial Services , Legal Services , HR Services , Online and Offline Marketing Services , Web & Mobile Development Services , SAAS and other platforms.” SME Joinup is a brand of SME Networks Pvt Ltd. She informed that so far SME JOINUP has market strength of 1lac+SMEs and the user base is increasing by the day. Pooja Kumar is a qualified Chartered Accountant with a work experience of 11 years before she started this platform in 2010. She says, “Being an entrepreneur, I understand that startups & Entrepreneurs have a tough time in understanding various business services in terms of usefulness, cost and the right vendor to outsource. We have launched SME JOINUP to serve as a business services helpline to address this problem.” Her understanding of B2B market along with Marketing, Branding and Sales helps startups and entrepreneurs to identify their business needs better.
4. IndiaFilings – Helping on Legal and Regulatory Requirements
IndiaFilings is another dedicated platform that is committed to helping startups and entrepreneurs to start and manage their business with no hassle! This is an initiative started by Verve Financial and aims to educate startups on the legal and regulatory requirements. It has a dedicated team of experts including Chartered Accountants, Lawyers, Accountants, Chartered Engineers, Bankers, Company Secretaries and lots more to provide a wide-ranging service for startups and SMEs. This is one stop shop helping new businesses, start-ups, private limited companies, one person company, trust and many others in obtaining IPR, tax registration, import export code and lots more. IndiaFilings is committed to 24/7 customer support. It utilizes modern technology to ensure the delivery of quality business services through its wide extended online and offline networks. IndiaFilings was launched by Lionel Charles, in October, 2013. He is a Certified Public Accountant and holds other degrees.
5. Power2SME – Empower SMEs to enable the India growth story
Headquartered in Gurgaon, Power2SME was launched in 2012 by R Narayan who won the ‘Serial Entrepreneur of the Year’ award at the Entrepreneur India Awards 2013. He has launched this concept with an aims to empower small businesses to ensure fast growth. It plays a vital role in arranging raw materials for SMEs at competitive prices. To help SMES, it has created a wide extended network of professionals with expertise in managing supply chain, marketing, finance, sales, HR and IT for Paints, Chemicals, Metals and many other industries. Currently it has extended network all over India with offices in Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Pune. Power2SME has raised funding from Kalaari Capital, Inventus Capital & Accel Partners over USD 15.5 million in three rounds.
6. SME Toolkit India – Provides Helpful Tips and Advice for SMEs
Another impressive one stop resource for small businesses is SME Toolkit India! Unlike above mentioned one stop shops, it is a cooperative initiative from International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group and ICICI Bank. This platform provides valuable tips and advices to small businesses in India to make them competitive at global level. It offers a number of free resources like software for website development, business planning, accounting, marketing etc. Apart from a wide range of resources, SMEs can also list businesses for free all along receiving valuable industry updates and advice from world famous mentors and entrepreneurs.
7. SBI for SME – Collaborating banks, buyers and sellers for transactions
State Bank of India has developed SBI for SME platform to cater the developing needs of SMEs related to financing and funding. It has created an online two-way platform to take the banks, buyers and sellers all together for easy financing across SMEs segment. SMEs can explore financing schemes from different banks easily. It has Electronic Vendor Financing Scheme which is completely a web based solution for offering instant credit to suppliers of reputed companies. This scheme allows both the industry leaders and its vendors to get benefits by making funds available. SBI bank has a wide extended network with specialized SME loan facilities across the country.
8. SMBConnect – Engaging SMEs with Professionals Community
Sandipan Ray, Director and co-founder of SMBConnect launched this platform in 2012 to connect SMEs directly with other professionals in the same industry pan India. It organizes events where SMEs get abundant chances to connect with each other for helping each other. It is creating common meeting points for SMEs, start-ups and entrepreneurs to share their experiences and learning from each other knowledge.
9. SMEListing.com – Contacting SMEs to get best priced services
It is another fast growing marketplace for startups and SME in B2B space. As per the info shared on website, it has more than 1, 00,000+ registered companies either for products or services from across the country. SMEs can also list their companies to get business enquiries hassle free.
Apart from these platforms, there are others like IndiaMart and Just Dial which also help find the right vendors however they don’t offer customer support and enough information on services, tools to help in closing a transaction. They connect buyers with suppliers and majorly assist manufacturers, exporters, importers, retailers and all other type of businesses.
Nonetheless, every startup idea is different and has different requirements. Choosing the right B2B vendor with right suite of services is very important. This problem can be solved easily with the help of above mentioned B2B one stop shops easily as they have a huge data of service providers as well as the service seekers.
http://www.indianweb2.com/2016/08/25/8-useful-online-resources-startups-smes-india/
Enterprisers.in 
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