Women entrepreneurship has brought in a lot of metamorphoses in our society as well as the country’s economy. The Bain & Company and Google report titled ‘Women Entrepreneurship in India – Powering the economy with her’ reveals that the rising women entrepreneurs have the potential to produce nearly 150 -170 million jobs and that would be over 25 percent of newer job opportunities in India by 2030. Despite women entrepreneurs are bringing in the positive revolution they tend to encounter a lot of challenges in society as well as in the business environment which are quite different from the ones that men come across in the business world.
Challenges Encountered
Women encounter a lot more challenges as compared to their male counterpart, as the entrepreneurship is still being a male-dominated arena and women has to go a long way to counter this and emerge successfully. It is quite evident with this number, India being a startup hub houses more than 50,000 startups as of 2018, however, only 11 percent of this is owned by
women leaders.
Thus, there are certain measures taken by the corporate giants to bridge the gap for women entrepreneurs like Google's Internet Saathi program.
Sapna Chadha, Senior Country Marketing Director, Google India, and Southeast Asia, Google said, “At Google, we have been investing in scaled skilling efforts across SMBs, Startups and overcoming the digital gender gap in the country through the Internet Saathi program. Across all our programs, we have seen that women are hungry for opportunities to grow their household incomes. Hundreds of women in rural India want to learn more about doing business and many have already made the start to enhance their livelihoods. We are already running a pilot accelerator program for rural entrepreneurs from our Internet Saathi network. This joint effort/report with Bain is a start to better understand the barriers facing the various types of women entrepreneurs across India and find synergies with like-minded companies and the government to accelerate women entrepreneurship in India.”
Financial Crunch
In this competitive world, none could do much without financial support be it men of women. Even after standing on par with men, women find it really hard in convincing the investor to fund them, the major problem of the investors is nothing but the company is being led by a ‘Women’! A report submitted by Bloomberg has revealed that women who run businesses get lesser funding as compared to what men receive.
Megha Chawla, Partner Bain & Company, and the lead author commented, “In spite of India’s economic progress in the last decade, women’s participation in the labor force has declined and is expected to be under pressure due to labor trends, technological disruption and constraining social barriers. Unlocking entrepreneurship amongst women in India is a complex effort, but it provides an unprecedented opportunity to change the economic and social trajectory of India and its women for generations to come. This will drive tremendous job creation and also deliver transformational social and personal outcomes for women.”
Countering these issues, many women have proved themselves however fighting with the outside world could be easier than fighting with oneself and their family. Whatever could be a women’s achievement in professional life, but, in her personal life, she still remains to be a loving daughter, caring mother, and a responsible wife. These roles are equally demanding and taxing as well. When a man returns from his work he could just relax, while this doesn’t hold good for women. A woman as a wife or daughter could escape from her tasks but not a mother, as their little munchkins constantly seek their attention and keep them on their toes. Thus, women find it more challenging to maintain their work-life balance.
Despite, all the taxing challenges we do have a lot of women who have made us proud by achieving big using their entrepreneurial brains. These women have set an example for young girls who are dreaming to achieve big in the modern business world. Such inspiring names include VLCC Healthcare’s founder Vandana Luthra, Aditi Gupta founder of Menstrupedia, Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, Shradha Sharma- founder and CEO of YourStory, and many more to pen whose entrepreneurial journey is no less than a blockbuster movie.
Sri Rajan, Partner Bain & Company and co-author of the report said, “Implementing these interventions to accelerate prospective and current women entrepreneurs will need a deep recognition of the urgency and a multi-year coordinated scaled effort between various ecosystem participants. These include national and state governments, grass-root organizations, investment and banking communities, other private enterprises, educational institutions, and the media."
