Beyond the first export: How India’s SMBs can build lasting global businesses

India’s small and medium businesses (SMBs) are already central to its export economy: government figures put the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector’s share of exports at 48.58% as of January 2026.

But the growing ability to find customers abroad through digital channels does not, by itself, make international trade easier to sustain. For Indian SMBs, the more consequential test comes after the first sale: whether they can give a distant buyer reason to order again, collect payment without friction, and build a way of working that holds up in the next market. Payments, logistics and customs processes remain significant obstacles to expanding e-commerce exports, according to an EY-ASSOCHAM report.

That gap between making an overseas sale and building an international business served as the backdrop to this conversation. Nagesh Devata, Senior Vice President and Head of Asia-Pacific (APAC), Payoneer, and Gaurav Shisodia, Vice President and Country Manager for India, Payoneer, examined what Indian SMBs need to put in place to win repeat business: credible signals of trust, a payment setup that works for buyers and sellers, and a measured approach to entering new markets. Their central argument was that the barriers facing Indian SMBs have shifted. Reaching a foreign market is no longer the hard part; being trusted there, and getting paid reliably, is. The physical handshake has become a digital one, consisting of a credible website, ratings from past buyers, a record of on-time delivery and a payment experience the buyer finds easy. What is changing, in other words, is the model of exporting itself: from one-off transactions handled through traditional banks to repeatable international businesses built on digital trust, market-by-market expansion and financial infrastructure that works across borders. For India, where service exports and cross-border trade are increasingly central to growth ambitions, the next phase will depend less on how many SMBs try exporting and more on how many can build the foundations to stay.


Nagesh Devata, Payoneer’s SVP and Head of APAC, who oversees the APAC region, focused on the journey: trust as the foundation of any cross-border relationship, the value of pacing expansion one market at a time, and the pattern he sees among businesses that scale, which adopt more financial tools and eventually set up entities abroad. Gaurav Shisodia, Payoneer’s VP and India Country Manager, drawing on the Indian market, broke the problem down into what an SMB must get right: an engine to acquire customers, a payment set-up that buyers trust and that delivers money predictably, and a structure that keeps the business compliant as it grows. The leaders mapped an evolving digital finance landscape in which the infrastructure once available only to large enterprises is becoming accessible to smaller businesses, and in which that access may decide which Indian SMBs become global companies.

Trust is the first export
For Nagesh, the biggest challenge begins the moment an SMB steps overseas: how to present itself to buyers who have never heard of it. Where trust was once built by getting on a plane and meeting someone in person years ago, that entire first step now happens digitally. Relationships still matter in cross-border trade, he added, “but now our handshake is no longer physical; it’s a digital handshake.”

Gaurav described what that handshake is made of: the quality of the website, third-party ratings, on-time delivery, after-sales experience and, crucially, making it easy to pay. “It’s not a one-time sale,” he said. A buyer who struggles to pay, even when willing, is unlikely to return.

Nagesh advised against trying to sell everywhere at once: pick one market, learn from it and put the basics in place, above all, the ability to pay and be paid. “Five years ago, the barrier to entry was different,” he said. Many now start on a marketplace to test demand, then build their own website and sell directly. “Once they scale to one market, they scale to another market and the next market.”

Gaurav noted that moving into a new market, even on a familiar marketplace, raises practical questions: whether a product will sell there, how to price it and how to handle logistics. Trade agreements, he added, may give a business access to a market, but not a customer; that depends on marketing, partners and knowing what the business does well.

Getting paid is the hard part
The word cross-border, Nagesh said, changes the equation. “I’m really good at selling a good, I’m really good at providing a service. But now I have to get paid. That’s fundamental.” Chasing an unpaid invoice is hard enough locally. Across a border, with different banking systems, currencies and time zones, it becomes a business risk on its own.

Gaurav explained why. A payment from a US bank to an Indian one rarely travels directly; it passes through correspondent banks along the way. “Every bank will take their cut. You don’t know what that is,” he said. The SMB cannot be sure how much will arrive, or when, and if money is held up along the way, neither bank may take responsibility. “It’s a big cash flow problem.” Buyers also prefer different ways of paying, from cards in the US to bank transfers in Europe, and an SMB that cannot accept them loses sales.

Structure and compliance
Growth often means setting up a presence abroad, which brings new risks. Gaurav warned that an overseas entity set up without following the proper overseas direct investment route can become “a FEMA nightmare” under India’s Foreign Exchange Management Act. Large companies have tax advisers, treasury teams and banks that roll out the red carpet. An SMB trying to open a US bank account may have to travel or hold balances it cannot afford. Banks, Gaurav said, can also turn away small businesses that do not fit the profile of customers they want to serve.

What separates those that scale
What distinguishes SMBs that build a global business from those that stay stuck? Nagesh pointed to the tools they use. Businesses that rely only on traditional banks wait for money to land. Those that grow adopt great payments infrastructure, ,, add checkout to their own websites and eventually open entities in other markets. “The ones that are the most successful are the ones that are attaching more products to their business,” he said.

An SMB may start with one market and one customer, but it can end up operating in ten or fifteen markets from a single base in India. The product, Nagesh said, remains the business’s own. “That’s their secret sauce.” What has changed is that the infrastructure to sell, get paid and stay compliant around the world is no longer reserved for large companies. For India’s SMBs, the question is increasingly not whether they can go global, but whether they can build the trust and foundations to stay there.