Women Entrepreneurs in India No Longer an Option But an Imperative

Global leaders including, Indra Nooyi, Sheryl Sandberg, who steered one of the largest beverage firms, Oprah Winfrey, popular talk show host, and Arianna Huffington, the chief editor of one of the most widely-read dailies, have influenced women across the globe to pursue their passion and keep faith in themselves to take the paths less chosen.

Back home, there are well-established women entrepreneurs such as the Reddy sisters and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, who lead thriving healthcare companies. Moreover, there is a budding category of innovative women entrepreneurs such as Radhika Agarwal, who runs an e-commerce marketplace, and Upasana Taku, known for supporting India’s first payment startup.

Women entrepreneurs are flourishing in India — today the country has 13.5–15.7 million women-run businesses, making up for 20% of total businesses, a rise from 14% a decade ago. Still, the labor force participation rate (LFPR) is among the lowest in India, as compared to other developing regions such as Indonesia which stands at 67%, and Brazil at 64%, while developed regions such as the UK and the US which are at 63% and 62% respectively. Furthermore, unemployment is greater in women by 2–3X across various categories.

In addition, women are poised to be affected more by the technology and AI transformation as there is a greater percentage of women in functional and data-specific jobs that will be the first to get mechanized. This is despite the research that — given equal opportunities, women enterprises perform in line with men-driven enterprises.

HOW WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP CAN MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE

Boost Employment Creation

Speeding up women entrepreneurship from the existing 20% to 30% can generate more than 30 million women-led enterprises by 2030. This can result in at-scale employment creation in India — of 150–170 million jobs — which is over 25% of the new jobs required for the overall working-age population, from now through 2030.

Making Women a Key Contributor to Economic Growth Instead of a Secondary Component

Women entrepreneurs could play a significant role to propel economic development by setting up new businesses and contributing to the growth in several key objectives –innovation, per capita income, community development, and standard of living.

Social Liberty and More Women in the Environment

Supporting women entrepreneurship could result in disproportionate social through a better focus on childcare, more informed family planning decisions, and, health and education for self and family. Furthermore, women in power could contribute towards bringing more women into the workplace and as such, help promote gender diversity.

Push Innovation Keeping Women, Child and Mother Care at the Center

Women entrepreneurs are more aware of the demand gaps associated with women, mother, and child care. They could set up innovation-enabled businesses in these areas that develop better products and enhance access.

Until some years ago, there were few Indian firms in child and mother care products. Women had to purchase pricey imported products or compromise on the quality aspect. Now, there are many women-owned Indian companies that have been able to gain the loyalty and trust of consumers.

A few of the other companies that rose from this deep understanding of the demand gap include early years education environment, natural beauty product platforms, female hygiene products, hand-crafted conventional product online aggregators, and curated online shops for hand-picked products that support women-crafted products.

EFFICIENT INTERVENTIONS THAT CAN BENEFIT WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

There is huge untapped potential in India to propel women entrepreneurship. The upsides of developing this parallel entrepreneur environment are manifold. At present, there are a few efforts and interventions at various levels, which if executed and supplemented efficiently, can do a great deal.

Women-centric Platforms

There are a couple of women networking platforms that are striving to generate opportunities for women by offering them a medium to exhibit their capabilities and products, communicate with other women and share thoughts as well as find mentors and advisors.

Mentorship Support

This is an extremely important aspect of influencing women entrepreneurs and can make a major contribution to achieving the goal of seeing more women in companies. There are various accelerators and incubators that are emphasizing on mentoring women entrepreneurs. Moreover, government agencies such as NITI Aayog and UNDP have programs to help women entrepreneurs and offer access to advisors, networks, and so on.

Government Interventions are Key Driving Forces of Any Change

At present, there are few regulations that promote women entrepreneurship. Preferential loans (collateral-free, lower interest rate) are given to PSUs banks for women enterprises in the MSME realm. Several schemes such as innovation allowance, allocation of a certain proportion of seats in government-funded incubators, and remuneration of promotional event expenditures.

We have to capitalize on these and make considerable interventions that offer better access to finance and skilling from banks and other financial organizations, as well as tax rebates.

Women entrepreneurship is no more a ‘good to have’ affair, yet a vital support for India to fulfill its goal of economic growth and job creation. It also creates a balance of the corporate environment, which is imperative in the long run. More power to WOMEN!