India Land of a Billion Entrepreneurs

7

The Defenders and the Explorers

“Small is beautiful”.

—E. F. Schumacher

Size and shape do not define entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship can be found in large enterprises as well as in small and medium enterprises (SMEs); and also in tiny and micro enterprises. In a world preoccupied with ‘bigness’, the classification of small and medium units can be misleading.¹ By conservative estimates, entrepreneurial firms in the small and medium sector account for nearly half of India’s manufacturing output and nearly 40 per cent of exports. There are over 13 million SMEs, employing over 42 million people. Clearly, the role they play in national development is critical.

I would like to call the entrepreneurs in the small and medium sectors the ‘defenders’. ...