Women entrepreneurship

The socio economic status of women was not that of equal to man in the Society. Women were deprived of the opportunity in Education, Employment, earnings and even entitlement to assets, which made their role not so significant although they extended a much larger support and service to the mankind. The awareness of women empowerment started in the past three decades and there has been a concern to empower women providing opportunities to them and to main-stream them in development. Also, women entrepreneurs see the world through a different lens and in turn do stuff differently.

Given the opportunities for training, she can definitely diversify her activities and can enter new areas of work. In the preparation of report and other formalities, credit linkages are quite essential which may be taken care of, as saying goes “If you assist the man you will be assisting a person but if you assist a WOMAN you are assisting the entire family.”

A women entrepreneur can be defined as “confident, innovative and creative women capable of achieving self economic independence individually or in collaboration, generates employment opportunities for others through initiating, establishing and running the enterprise by keeping pace with her personal, family and social life.”  It has been noticed that women in 21^st Century is no more a traditional resource confirmed to home only. They possess the capacity to transform economies into thriving enterprises. It’s always a great start for any women, who organizes herself and is able to dictate it with passion, seek opportunities and aggressively bonds with her decision making. For more than a decade, the number of a woman owned businesses has grown at one and a half to two times the rate of all businesses. Even more important, the expansion in revenues and employment has far exceeded the growth in numbers. 

There is good scope for women to become entrepreneurs. As more women in all the regions have become active in the workforce in the past two decades, national economies have expanded. The concealed entrepreneurial capacity of women has been changing step by step with the developing affectability to the part and mass trading status in the general public.Women today are transmitting that unmistakable sparkle of administration. The time has aimed to get the countries to commend and salute the achievement of women. It is high time that nations ought to adapt to present circumstances and make more help supportive network for empowering more business among women. It’s high time that women split far from stereotyped outlooks.

But being a woman as an entrepreneur is not an easy task, there are some of the challenges which are faced by the women being an entrepreneur:

Patriarchal Society

Entrepreneurship has been traditionally seen a male preserve and an idea of women taking up entrepreneurial activities are considered as a distant dream. If this idea is initiated and if possible, it is immediately curbed. Women also have to face a role conflict as soon as they initiate any entrepreneurial activity.

Marketing Problems

Women entrepreneurs continuously face the problems of marketing their products. For marketing the products women entrepreneurs have to be at the mercy of middlemen who pocket the chunk of profit. Women entrepreneurs also find it difficult to capture the market and make their products popular.

Financial Problems

Obtaining the support of bankers, managing the working capital, lack of credit resources are the problems which still remain in the males domain. Women are yet to make significant mark in the quantitative terms. These problems are such obstacles which even training doesn’t significantly help the women.

Family Ties

In India, it is mainly a women’s duty to look after her family. Men play a secondary role. Support of husbands seems necessary condition foe women entering into a business. The educational level and family background of husbands positively influence women’s entry into business activities.

Scarcity of raw material

Most of the women are hindered by the scarcity of raw material and necessary inputs. Their ability to grow stops because of insufficient abilities of the inputs which they require. The failure of many women co-operations in 1971 such as these engaged in basket making were mainly because of the inadequate availability of forest based raw materials.

Stiff Competition

Women entrepreneurs do not have organizational set up to pump in a lot of money for canvassing and advertisement. They have to face a stiff competition for marketing their products both with organized sector and male counterparts. Such a competition ultimately results in the liquidation of women enterprises.

There is a need of Government, promotional and regulatory agencies to come forward and play the supportive role in promoting the women entrepreneur in India. All they need is proper inspiration, training and promotions.

We got to know a lot about women entrepreneurship. What it actually means, which traits make a woman as an entrepreneur, what challenges she faces as an entrepreneur, how government helps a woman to start help business. But the main question is how women make a successful entrepreneur after all the challenges she faces? To understand this question I took examples of one of the most successful woman entrepreneurs.

1.  Indra Nooyi

The most well known face amongst Indian women entrepreneurs. Strong willed, with an acute acumen for financing strategizing. Nooyi is the CFO and President of PepsiCo. Indra Nooyi is an Indian-born American business executive currently serving as the Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo, one of the largest food and beverage business in the world by net revenue. She consistently ranked among the world’s 100 Most Powerful Women. She was ranked the 82^nd most powerful woman on the fortune list 2016.

2. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw

She is an inspiration for the youth especially for the women entrepreneurs. Her personality and brilliant entrepreneurship skills made her way to enter the club of most powerful women in India. She is renounced face of business world. She is the chairman and managing director of Biocon limited, a biotechnology company based in Bangalore, India and the chairperson of IIM Bangalore. She is on the Financial Times top 50 women in business list. As of 2015, she was listed as the 85^th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

3. Chanda Kochhar:

Chanda kochher is the managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Bank. She is widely recognized for her role in shaping retail banking in India. In 1984, kochher joined International Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) as a management trainee. During her early years at ICICI, she handled project appraisal and monitoring and evaluated projects in industries such as textile, paper and cement.

So, these were some of the Famous examples of successful women entrepreneurs which are important to show the world that women entrepreneurs are equally good as male entrepreneurs are.Now a day’s women entrepreneurs are growing in numbers as well as in their size. It is not right thing to say that business world is only for male entrepreneurs. Everyone in this economy has equal abilities whether it’s male or female. Both are boon for the economy and both of them should be given equal chance.

Ms. Priyanka Gupta

Assistant Professor

Department of Management Studies