Q.Prepare a profile of anyone MSME operating locally in your area. Prepare a questionnaire to find out:

This is a field-based project rather than a factual question: answering it well means actually visiting a local MSME and gathering first-hand information under the four specified heads.

How to approach it

• Pick a nearby unit (e.g. a bakery, tailoring shop, handicraft or food-processing unit) and take the owner's consent to interview.
• Frame clear questions under each of the four headings, record honest answers, and organise them into a report with introduction, findings and conclusion.

What to do

• Select a unit — Choose any MSME operating nearby (a tailoring shop, bakery, handicraft workshop, small food-processing or manufacturing unit). Take the owner's permission to visit and interview.
• Build the profile — Note basic details: name, type of enterprise (micro/small/medium), what it makes, when it started, and how many people it employs.

Design the questionnaire around the four required areas

• (a) Growth prospects — Ask: How has demand/turnover changed over the years? Are you planning to expand output, add products or hire more workers? What opportunities and threats do you foresee?
• (b) Use of local resources and indigenous skills — Ask: Which raw materials come from local sources? What traditional or indigenous skills does the work rely on? Are workers locally trained artisans?
• (c) Actual problems faced by the owner — Probe the real difficulties, using the standard problem areas as prompts: finance (credit, working capital, collateral), raw materials (scarcity, bargaining power), managerial skills, marketing, quality, capacity utilisation and competition.
• (d) Marketing of products and services — Ask: Who are the customers? Do you sell directly or through middlemen/wholesalers? What pricing and promotion do you use? What marketing difficulties do you face?

Prepare the report

• Organise findings under an introduction (about the unit), body (answers under the four headings), and a conclusion (your assessment of the unit's prospects and problems, with a few suggestions).
• Keep the information truthful — report exactly what the owner tells you, and note where information was not available rather than guessing.