“You know what…as a care giver you just cannot delegate all your responsibilities to your domestic help no matter how big a business you are running” quipped my friend, a mother of two, as we were exchanging our entrepreneurial experiences at a coffee shop. She was clearly having a difficult time dealing with the expectations from her as a mother, wife, daughter and daughter-in-law on one hand and the ambitions to grow her business on the other. Welcome to the world of women entrepreneurship.
As per research, in India, close to around 15-17 million enterprises are women-owned representing 20% of all the enterprises. However, this number could be misleading because many of these enterprises are owned only ‘On Paper’ by women. Also, the fact that these enterprises employ a workforce of 22-24 million people suggests that many of them are single person enterprises unable to scale The challenges faced by the women entrepreneurs are manifold
Financial Challenges Recently, a loan agent asked my wife “Madam, would sir be a co-borrower considering the collateral requirements” (poor fellow had no clue that madam has more collateral to pledge than sir 😊) I believe it was his experience that had led him into asking this question. For the ground reality is that a majority of women entrepreneurs have limited property/assets to pledge making access to formal credit difficult. Add to it, limited financial assistance from friends and family
Technical Challenges While the growing proportion of enrolments in technical and business schools is encouraging, many of the women entrepreneurs still lack these skills and depend on external support which is seldom available
Social Challenges Even today, most of the communities and society at large see women’s primary role as a caregiver/home maker and consider their business ambitions & responsibilities as secondary. This restricts mobility and therefore opportunities to participate and network within the business forums
Emotional Challenges The path of entrepreneurship often gets lonely and without peer/family/friend’s support, can easily impact an individual emotionally. It is encouraging to see women-centric forums such as Sheroes offering the much-needed networking opportunities and helping women with their entrepreneurial ambitions
With adequate support from the government/fellow entrepreneurs, access to finance and integration with the business networks it is estimated that women entrepreneurs can potentially generate jobs in excess of 100 million in the next 5 years. Also, beyond the economic outcomes, women entrepreneurs are known to serve the unmet and often ignored needs of the society and better deliverance of social outcomes.
At SMBNEXT, we have recently onboarded successful women entrepreneurs on our platform with the aim to provide mentorship support to fellow women entrepreneurs.
Happy to connect you with our mentors!!
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