At the present time, the primary concerns for the manufacturing industry are associated with the struggle for reduction in the costs of factors of production and enhancing the unit’s competitiveness. While land, labour and capital are those pillars of manufacturing that the manufacturing units have limited control over, these explicitly challenge the industry. While the land prices for the Micro and Small industry ought to be subsidized by the state, it remains the most prohibitive cost for setting up or expansion for a manufacturing unit. The cost of capital for these units poses another challenge. Small units find it tricky to raise capital at low rates from financial institutions owing to bad financial book keeping practices.

Chandigarh based Access Consultancy Services has been at advocating these difficulties of the MSMEs with the State Govts. “We have been giving objective inputs to the Depts of Industry and Commerce for creating schemes and incentives that can catalyze industrial growth. Resultant to our interventions, a dedicated MSME policy, which is industry & cluster

specific, was written with our involvement. It took into account the stakeholder requirements and the due financial and non financial incentives were put in place. Being a part of the policy formation committee, we have managed to impress upon the Departments to have a transparent and predictable span for the policy to create a stable working environment for the industry of the region,” enlightens Deepak Sharma, Founder of Access Consultancy Services. While most consulting organisations focus on particular subjects like finance, marketing, ISO, labour, taxation etc, Access Consultancy looks at Govt policy interventions and believes in creating industry specific approach of the State Govt.

A solution is significant, only if it has a larger social Impact

The Initial Days
Deepak during his professional stint dealt with a number of OEMs and product dealers. The markets back then were rather unorganised. Moreover, small business consulting was not looked upon as a lucrative area as there was a lack of easy access to information. The size of SMEs was not big enough to justify the fees. This was the time when he decided to venture out with an approach to look for a commonality of issues in a cluster of manufacturing industries of a geo location and started offering them common solutions. “We are motivated by the theory of Cluster Development of Prof Michael E Porter known for his theories on

economics, business strategy, and social causes. So rather than having individual clients, we began encouraging groups of SMEs to get together and hire our services. This reduced their, per unit cost of fees and we benefitted from an increased quantum of revenue,” he elaborates.

What makes the company stand out in the crowd is its nimble problem solving approach. The approach is Research based. The team endorses an indepth understanding of the local manufacturing conditions, markets, skill and labour mismatches, institutional credit availability, bureaucratic barriers or Govt views on policy in real time. This approach helps them to stay ahead of the competition.

The Growth
Over the years, Access Consultancy has recorded impressive growth and has shown a robust growth of nearly 40 per cent YoY for the past five years. “We have consciously decided to operate only in the States of Punjab and Haryana as its better to leverage your strengths, rather than spreading yourself thin. The client faith can be maintained only with swift and rewarding results,” he asserts.

For the coming times, the team is gearing up for the new age challenges of manufacturing. “We intend playing a larger role, post policy formation. We have been engaging with some of the best bench marking clusters of the world and are mapping the gaps in the local context. This shall prove to be a success determinant for us,” he concludes.