Summary: Coaching programmes for Small & Medium Enterprise (SME) owners help them develop and learn new skills to further grow their business. Tridib Bhattacharjee lists out the myriad benefits of coaching for SMEs.

The SME sector is one of the most important pillars on which India’s growth story is based. This sector makes significant contribution to India's GDP. As per CII, this sector has been able to provide employment to around 120 million persons and contribute around 45% of the overall exports from India. The sector has also consistently maintained a growth rate of over 10%. As the power of digital, government's monetary policies, global competition and other environmental factors disrupt the Indian market, the business environment is going through unprecedented changes. Hence the SMEs business leaders in India are now under huge pressure to evolve their business plans, strategies and capabilities. They are also required to enhance customer experience, build a high-performing organisation and remain competitive.

More importantly, they are required to achieve these results with less people and within limited time and budget. These are extremely challenging tasks and to achieve them, it has become imperative for business leaders to empower themselves with new sets of capabilities, digital fluency, business strategies and an efficient organisational support system. However, in many instances, these complex challenges make a leader feel overwhelmed and lose focus on the most important tasks. Consequently, there is an impact on effectiveness and productivity. At an enterprise level, these challenges impede the growth, profitability, sustenance and even the survivability of an organisation.

In order to navigate through these challenging phases, business leaders across the globe connect with seasoned business coaches who can provide structured support and work as trusted advisors during this critical part of the journey. The following types of coaching have yielded great benefits to SMEs and their business leaders:

• Business Coaching

• Leadership Coaching

• Life Coaching

• Wellness Coaching

Structured coaching that is focused on execution and success help SMEs:

• Develop effective strategies and business plans to benefit from industry convergence.

• Increase business opportunities and revenue streams

• Mitigate existential threats - 1/3 of today’s businesses won’t survive the next 10 years

• Acquire competitive advantage & future-proofing

• Create winning marketing plans & messages

• Enhance customer experience & increase customer reach

• Align organisation, business and customer facing processes for rapid business growth

• Expand capabilities and develop digital fluency of leaders and their teams

• Enhance employee engagement, mobilization and productivity

• Develop a workplace that is connected, collaborative, agile and intelligent

However, to ensure that SME business leaders get tangible results from a coaching engagement, it is very important for them to engage with an advisor or a coach who has a structured coaching process that is focused on delivering measurable outcomes within agreed timelines. Otherwise the engagement will turn out to be a huge waste of time, money and effort. Advisory coaching frameworks also enable the leader and other team members to carry out structured analysis, co-create transformative business strategies and take effective decisions to ensure lasting business success and growth.

In SME coaching engagements, the effectiveness of advisors and coaches must always be measured by the level of success achieved by the organisations and their leaders.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, official policy or position of GlobalLinker.