SMEs to get global rating

Vishal Sharma / New Delhi/ Agra


SMEs of Agra have for long been lagging in the world markets due to their lack of credibility among the international clients, and this factor alone plays the biggest role in the low international business volume generated by local SMEs.
 As a solution, the National Chamber of Industries & Commerce, UP, has now sought the help of the SME Ratings Agency of India Ltd (SMERA) to assist Agra industrialists in obtaining registration with Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) to help local SMEs gain international credibility.
This will be through a nine-digit “D-U-N-S” number, which is a unique identifier sequence for every business worldwide.
A meeting of the SMERA and chamber officials was held in Agra recently, where the agency stressed the need for SMEs obtaining both ratings from the SMERA and D&B to help them do business in both domestic as well as international markets.
According to SMERA officials, obtaining an SMERA rating was the first step for the SMEs towards acquiring an internationally acceptable credit score through a nine-digit D-U-N-S number provided by Dun & Bradstreet, the world’s leading source of global business information and insight, which currently maintained a global registry of over 100 million businesses worldwide that had obtained a D-U-N-S number by registering themselves with D&B.
The D-U-N-S number also acted as a common classifier or identifier for invoices, requisitions, payments, shipping, customs clearance and other business documentation, making international business easier.
The company officials claimed that though obtaining a D-U-N-S number was a voluntary step for SMEs, it was mandatory when doing business with more than 50 global, industry and trade associations, including the United Nations, the U.S. Federal Government, the Australian Government and the European Commission while more and more banks and trade organisations were joining this list now which would make international trading for non-registered SMEs difficult soon.
Talking to Business Standard, Rajiv Gupta, former chairman, NCIC UP, said that by obtaining a D-U-N-S number, the Agra SMEs could also stand at par with their global competitors but the high costs of obtaining a rating from either SMERA or D&B currently deterred the industrialists from opting to go for it.
If the government agreed to offset this cost either through subsidizing the process or providing easy financial aid to the entrepreneurs, more and more SMEs shall join the bandwagon.

 

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