New Delhi, Nov 4 (IANS): Business activity among the micro, small and medium enterprise sector is fast reaching near normal levels and they are rapidly adopting digital business tools to drive efficiency and growth.
According to data gathered by OkCredit basis the behaviour of the users, the micro retail players are increasingly taking up digital bookkeeping solutions, as it makes their book-keeping task simpler, digitized and secure and there is stronger demand coming from small towns and hinterlands.
On a pan India basis, data among the digital bookkeeping users points to a sharp recovery with smaller businesses in tier 3 and tier 2 towns growing faster than tier 1 cities.
Sixteen of thirty-six states and union territories have recovered to business activity levels that are higher than pre-Covid times. Bihar, Haryana, Assam, Rajasthan, and Himachal are the states where business activity is 10+% higher. Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattishgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, and Punjab are the others that are already exhibiting higher business activity. Out of the 19 states that are yet to recover, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi are trending at 90–95% of their pre-Covid activity levels.
According to Harsh Pokharna, Co-founder and CEO, OkCredit, "The best part for us today is that we are able to get a pulse of the business situation among the trader segment which have traditionally been off the radar for all other retail tracking studies, as they largely belong to the unorganized cash economy segment of the country. It is interesting to note that amid the Covid pandemic, remote towns are emerging as the torchbearers for the digitization of the MSME segment. And they are showing exciting activity and growth as the economy pushes hard for a V-curve recovery."
At a business category level, different magnitude and pace of recovery was observed by OkCredit since February 2020. The company witnessed double-digit growth in business from medical and kirana stores at 21% and 15% respectively in September 2020. This was after a dip of 12% in business from medical stores and 22% from kirana stores in April this year. Both mobile recharge and electronics category registered modest growth of 5% in September 2020 after a dip in April this year.