Entrepreneur Business Growth Summit 2018, New Delhi

Redian Software was glad to be part of the Entrepreneur Business Growth Summit 2018, New Delhi as an eco-system partner. The summit was organized by the Confederation of Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (CIMSME) in association with IIML L-Incubator, with the explicit aim of strengthening the startup and entrepreneur eco-system in northern India.

What the summit set out to do

MSMEs in India in 2018 contributed roughly a third of GDP and the majority of non-farm employment, yet remained the segment most starved of structured growth capital, mentoring networks, and enterprise-grade software. The Entrepreneur Business Growth Summit was designed to bring three constituencies into the same room: established MSME owners looking to professionalize, early-stage founders looking for first customers, and ecosystem providers — incubators, banks, software firms — looking to plug into both groups.

Redian's role as an eco-system partner was practical rather than ceremonial. The team spoke with founders about the cost of postponing CRM and basic operational tooling beyond the first dozen employees, and demonstrated how open-source platforms could compress that adoption cost dramatically. Conversations ranged from Zoho's quick-start workflows for service businesses to Odoo's integrated stack for manufacturing MSMEs and SuiteCRM for firms that needed full data control.

The longer arc

In the years since 2018, the Indian MSME conversation has matured significantly. Account Aggregator frameworks, the broader UPI rails, ONDC, and direct GST data feeds have all made it possible for small businesses to operate with software-grade visibility that simply was not available at the time of this summit. The role of an ecosystem partner has shifted accordingly — less about persuading owners that software matters, and more about helping them choose and integrate the right pieces.

Redian's CRM and ERP implementation practice continues to serve customers that started conversations at events like this one. Readers exploring whether a similar engagement might fit their business can review documented outcomes on the case studies page.