Promote home-grown enterprises, innovation, start-ups tell new govt

The start-up and e-commerce industry is seeking a better and simpler business/operational environment in the second term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

While favourable policies and ease of doing business is definitely a priority, entrepreneurs also want the government to increase focus on promoting home-grown businesses and taking the 'Make in India' initiative to its next level.

Ronnie Screwvala, co-founder and chairman, upGrad, said the government has a proven track record on strong execution and reviewing its impact. "Now it's time to move towards taking bold steps to overhaul our systems at the grassroots level. In the coming years, India needs to move towards a post arbitrage model where the focus lies in home-grown companies and a massive entrepreneurship wave versus an outsourcing model that has been the bedrock of Indian economy so far," he said, adding that in order to ensure our position as one of the top three economies in the world India needs to move away from a cost-based arbitrage to an innovation-led economy.

As the world's second-largest start-up nation, the government has taken initiatives to boost the sector while protecting investors and entrepreneurs. However, a lot more needs to be done to ensure faster growth and increase entrepreneurial activity. While measures have been taken to provide relaxation from angel tax, according to Ankur Pahwa, partner and national leader – e-commerce and consumer internet at EY India, there are still some unfulfilled expectations linked to its simplification.

"More attention is needed to protect entrepreneurs, and at the same time enable promoters and investors to raise capital through differential voting rights. While the government has made considerable and commendable headway in ease of doing business, further steps linked to easing of norms will fuel the start-up ecosystem," he said.

The NDA-I, industry experts said, had worked to address many fundamentals of the economy and business environment like introducing goods and services tax (GST), rationalising rate structures, ease of doing business and the 59-minute loan schemes amongst other matters.

"I would expect NDA-II to frame policies and drive programmes to help Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups, take their rightful position in the global economy. The policies should encourage new age businesses to be set up and should remove business irritants. There should also be an improvement in access to financing and credit cycles for SMEs," said Sameer Vakil, co-founder and chief executive officer, GlobalLinker, a global network of business owners and professionals.

The e-commerce industry in India has had a bumpy ride over the last few years owing to policy issues and other mandatory guidelines like data localisation. Experts said as the new government steps in, the e-commerce policy needs some urgent attention as it can propel investments, job and wealth creation to boost overall economic growth. The colour of money differentiation needs a re-examination, wherein more emphasis should be given in governing the sector than focusing on foreign versus domestic capital segregation.

"The need of the hour is an equalised policy treatment for both foreign and domestically funded e-commerce companies, consistency in the approach in governing both online and offline retail players, and a well-rounded data policy in line with global standards that takes into account consent, privacy, protection, ownership, access and usage of data for both individuals and companies," said Pahwa.

The e-commerce policy also needs to take into account the view of impacted stakeholders and provide sufficient runway for implementation. "Incentives to companies exploring 'deep-tech' such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, etc, will bring in more efficiencies in the system and ultimately improve customer experiences," said Pahwa.

WHAT START-UPS WANT

• Protecting entrepreneurs and, at the same time enable promoters and investors to raise capital through differential voting rights
   
• Equalised policy treatment for both foreign and domestically funded e-commerce firms and a well-rounded data policy