[TechSparks 2020] How India and the UK are encouraging small businesses and startups to collaborate globally

In a completely digital experience, YourStory’s TechSparks 2020- India’s most influential tech-entrepreneurship event has gone all virtual in its eleventh edition. 

With UK-India Tech Hub as Country Partner, the second day of the five-days long event focussed on ‘Innovate Local to Collaborate Global’ in a fireside chat between Divya Bajaj, Vice President, London and Partners and Deepak Ramesh, Founder of Dubai based SourceEzy. 

London’s official trade and investment agency, London and Partners focuses on helping Indian companies set up and scale in the city of London. In the conversation, Divya talked about how the world is laying its eye on India as a startup space and how the nations technological innovations can help it collaborate and move globally.

Talking about why entering India is a preferred space for the business world, Deepak says that India is one of the fastest-growing economies of the world with 65 million MSMEs. 

SourceEzy is a platform that gives access to small businesses to streamline their sourcing processes on a digital platform to get the benefit of adding at least five to seven percent of their procurement cost to their bottom line. Deepak says that India has a lot of potential and bringing SourceEzy to India has made the sourcing process much easier for the local businesses. 

Highlights from the fireside chat:

India: an easy place to do business

For any international company, setting up an office in India is advantageous given the reason that it is a huge country whilst companies getting access to a large talent pool. Setting up the business in the country is easier with less documentation says Deepak. 

“Indian consumers are aware and ready to adapt to digital revolutions that also makes India an easy place to do business. However, businesses coming to India need to make digital a socializing tool.

You can’t dismiss London when doing business

Talking about scaling the business operations Deepak says that the city of London can’t be dismissed when an entrepreneur is aiming to expand its business operations given the pool of talent the city has to offer. 

London and Partners works with the UK government to look forward to the talent to work with. It offers the accelerators programs for free to handhold small and medium businesses to scale and bring value to business across the globe including Europe, the Middle East, China, and more. 

While India has massive organisations, London has access to manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and lots of services that gives access to a huge talent pool that makes doing business ease in both countries. 

Deepak also left a keynote to the Indian SMEs of keeping their costs low especially in these tough times of COVID-19. And also, he stressed upon the businesses to reach out to the clients to make them aware of the products and services of the business.

For more information on TechSparks 2020, check out our TechSparks 2020 website. Sign up here to join the event.  

 TechSparks - YourStory's annual flagship event - has been India's largest and most important technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship summit for over a decade, bringing together entrepreneurs, policymakers, technologists, investors, mentors, and business leaders for stories, conversations, collaborations, and connections that matter. As TechSparks 2020 goes all virtual and global in its 11th edition, we want to thank you for the tremendous support we've received from all of you throughout our journey and give a huge shoutout to our sponsors of TechSparks 2020.