How Women Entrepreneurs are Claiming the Top

By: Aparna Gupta, Managing Director, Evolve Digitas

Holding nearly 14 years of experience, Aparna has expertise in brand development and digital experience.  

In the past, it was typical of us to assume that women only belong inside the four walls of their home and were generally an inferior gender without any dreams or ambitions. But today, a woman can look after her household and at the same time run a successful company all thanks to her multitasking ability. The global evidence buttress that women have been performing exceedingly well in different spheres of activities like academics, politics, administration, social work and so on. However, despite the growth, several constraints restrict women entrepreneurs from reaching their full potential and unfortunately when compared to their male counterparts, have to conquer more obstacles and scale higher mountains in their professional journeys. The prejudiced social, cultural, and political backdrop continues to provide women with a thorn-riddled path to walk on in every sphere of life, be it arts, sciences, sports, armed forces, or entrepreneurship.

Therefore it is obvious that India has been found to be in a group of countries where women business owners as well as women leaders and professionals struggle with less favourable conditions, pronounced cultural biases, and a lack of business resources such as finances, capital, training, and development. However, the role of women at the work place has undergone a dramatic change in the last 50 years, just as the view of entrepreneurships over the centuries. Can you believe that just five decades ago, there were only a few women who owned and operated their own businesses? Today, it is a whole another story as it is estimated that around 13.5 to 15.7 million women-owned enterprises make up 20 percent of all the enterprises in the country. This is a rise from 14 percent to the current 20 percent over the last decade. A study suggests that advancing women’s equality in India could boost its GDP by $0.7 trillion in 2025 or 16 percent as compared to the ‘business as usual’ scenario. Moreover, entrepreneurship remains critical to harness the economic potential of women and thus, achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030.

With modernisation and the advancement in the educational system, the social and cultural landscape in India along with the rest of the world has also drastically evolved over the past decades. It is safe to attribute the majority of the credits for the inclusivity of women entrepreneurs in today’s generation to the past and present women leaders and women entrepreneurs as it would still have been next to impossible to penetrate the world of dreams and ambition. When we hear the word “Entrepreneur”, so often we think of all the successful businessman like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc. So much so that we have to think hard on the women entrepreneurs that have achieved every milestone there is to achieve like Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Sreelakshmi Suresh, Huda Kattan, Tory Burch, JK Rowling and many more.

"With modernisation and the advancement in the educational system, the social and cultural landscape in India along with the rest of the world has also drastically evolved over the past decades"

Women entrepreneurs have been regarded as the backbone of many economies because of their ability to found and develop new enterprises and in the process create more new job opportunities. It is said that a society in which women cannot realise their full potential loses out on the significant potential for innovation, economic growth, and job creation. For instance, a recent study showed that in India, measures to close the gender gap could lead to a 6.8 percent gain in GDP. Women have also recently been receiving attention from various stakeholders such as Non-Governmental Organisations and especially the Indian Government who have initiated #startupindia to not only help entrepreneurs but also give a push to and given a special chance to women entrepreneurs that has led to the change in the demographic characteristics of business and economic growth of the country. Startup India is committed to strengthening the women entrepreneurship ecosystem, through policies and initiatives, and creation of enabling networks. Women’s entrepreneurship, if accelerated to meet its full quality and quantity, can lead to the creation of over 30 million women-owned enterprises. It can potentially transform employment in the country with 150-170 million new jobs, according to the study.

Women owned businesses are rapidly increasing in the economies of almost all countries, especially India if we compare it to the past scenario. Skill, knowledge, adaptability, problem solving ability, are among some of the top qualities and reasons in business as to why women emerge successful in various business ventures. Women have come a long way from being hidden away in their homes to building empires. But one shouldn't stop there. There is still miles to go before we obtain our desired goal and now is only the beginning. The future looks bring as well as challenging and we are up for it. Afterall, what is life without the hurdles on the way to the top!