For women who mean business

The crucial need for women to contribute to the global economy by starting their own businesses to generate more employment while improving their own lives, is increasingly being stressed on various platforms. But how exactly women, who have for decades been kept out of the entrepreneurial scene, can make a decisive breakthrough in this male bastion, is now getting specialised focus.

When it comes to women starting, running and scaling up their own businesses, there is more organised and professional help now available. And through women’s networks and various gender outfits, the message going out is that it is high time women were encouraged and helped to get out of home-based, cottage-industry kind of enterprises. “Dream big” is the message.

Most encouraging of all is that women are now getting proper training, professional help and structured education to ensure that the business idea they have is viable, scalable, and has an adequate hi-tech component. Profit being always the bottomline, the entrepreneur is trained to present her business idea in a package that will get venture funding because it promises to deliver good returns.

Latest research shows that the US continues to be the land of opportunities not only for entrepreneurs in general but also women entrepreneurs. Women-owned businesses currently have an economic impact of $3 trillion and account for three million jobs in the country. It is estimated that were female entrepreneurs in the US to receive the same amount of venture capital funding as their male counterparts have got, they could add six million additional jobs to the economy in five years.

These were the findings of a Dell-GENI (Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index) that were unveiled at the fifth DWEN (Dell Women’s Entrepreneur Network) meet in Austin, Texas, last week.

It was inspiring to hear the stories of some of the 160 women entrepreneurs from 15 countries who were assembled there. As some veterans such as Jane Wurwand of the skincare product giant Dermalogica told their stories, the auditorium resonated with wonder, laughter and, above all, celebration of the female spirit.

As the women shared their experiences, you realised that the story is the same everywhere. As in India, in most female enterprises women have to battle odds, show exemplary courage, break boundaries and taken risks to start, nurture and grow their businesses.

A female space entrepreneur — Jane Poynter of World View — who has started a venture to take people on luxury space tours in a balloon; a Frenchwoman who after graduating from business school set up her own company to manufacture cosmetics for women over 45; an American mother who made the transition from full-time homemaker to managing the finances of a technology company she has started with her husband and two sons, who initially questioned her business acumen, but have now left the finance section to her… Take away the label of the country, scratch beneath the surface and the story is the same!

Standing between a woman entrepreneur and success has always been lack of networking and adequate linkage to finance, which prevents their businesses from expanding and going global. Apparently women entrepreneurs who receive venture funding are likely to put in “relentless work and commitment” to ensure that the investor gets the promised returns. Experiences were shared in which it was described how a male recipient of venture funding is likely to say: “Well, I gave it my best shot, I hope it works, and if it doesn’t I’ll learn something.” But women, on the other hand, are often unable to sleep at night till they are sure they will deliver the returns promised to their investors.

But a major shortcoming when it comes to women-run businesses trying to scale up by getting external funding is that the woman tends to concentrate and present only her personal talent or skill. And we’ve often witnessed how women tend to understate their achievements. This is much more so in the world of business.

A common mistake women make is to not to tom-tom a strength most women inherently possess, such as recruitment and team-building.

For instance, a funding agency would be most impressed when told how the woman who is running a medium business and now wants to scale up, has been able to attract a tech specialist and a financial wizard from top corporations, and how they have now become an integral part of her team.

This is a huge achievement as funding agencies look out for business ventures with strong teams. So the business plan has to be a combination of a fantastic idea and a strong team of skilled people to deliver on the idea.

But the bad news for women-run organisations is that because they are mostly small in size, they are considered high-risk ventures and the returns expected are 30 per cent, compared to the normal 12-15 per cent expected from bigger and proved enterprises.

But the value systems — not taking short cuts, not cheating distributors, clients or their own employees, not spinning tall stories about deliverables on both quality and quantity — that women bring to an enterprise is now being increasingly recognised and rewarded.

Incidentally, the news from India is bad for female entrepreneurs. According to this report, India is near the bottom of the pile — ranking 26 among 30 nations surveyed — when it comes to a supporting infrastructure and linkages for female entrepreneurs. It is below Nigeria, Morocco and Ghana. Only Uganda, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan are worse than India when it comes to helping women start businesses.

The shortcomings include lack of access to adequate capital — sometimes even opening a bank account is a problem in some of these countries.

Surprisingly, in Turkey there is a 50 per cent gap between men and women when it comes to bank accounts. The other problem is inadequate employment for women in the formal sectors in these countries, including India.

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