Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
India :
Challenges and Opportunities
Prof. Veena Tripathi,
K.J. Somaiya Institute of Management & Research, Mumbai
Introduction
Of the 1.3 billion people who live in absolute poverty around the globe, 70 percent
are women. For these women, poverty doesnt just mean scarcity and want. It
means rights denied, opportunities curtailed and voice silenced. Woman constitutes
the family, which leads to society and Nation. Social and economic development of
women is necessary for overall economic development of any society or a country.
Entrepreneurship is the state of mind which every woman has in her but has not
been capitalized in India in way in which it should be.
You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its
women
Jawaharlal Nehru
Due to change in environment, now people are more comfortable to accept leading
role of women in our society, though there are some exceptions. Our increasing
dependency on service sector has created many entrepreneurial opportunities
especially for women where they can excel their skills with maintaining balance in
their life.
For women, entrepreneurship is a journey from poverty to prosperity, total
dependence to equality, agricultural labor to entrepreneurs in industry and in
service sectors and finally, as opportunity entrepreneurs. It has almost reached a
stage where it is more suitable a profession than getting employed in public /private
organizations which have their own limitations. Women Entrepreneurs are key
players in any developing country particularly in terms of their contribution to
economic development. In recent years, even among the developed countries like
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USA and Canada, Women's role in terms of their share in small business has been
increasing.
The women have achieved immense development in their state of mind. With
increase in dependency on service sector, many entrepreneurial opportunities
especially for women have been created where they can excel their skills with
maintaining balance in their life. Accordingly, during the last two decades,
increasing numbers of Indian women have entered the field of entrepreneurship and
also they are gradually changing the face of business of today, both literally and
figuratively. But still they have not capitalized their potential in India the way it
should be.
Entrepreneurship refers to the act of setting up a new business or reviving an
existing business so as to take advantages from new opportunities. Thus,
entrepreneurs shape the economy by creating new wealth and new jobs and by
inventing new products and services. It is in reality an attitude to create something
new and an activity which creates value in the entire social eco-system. It is the
psyche makeup of a person. It is a state of mind, which develops naturally, based on
his/ her surrounding and experiences, which makes him/ her think about life and
career in a given way.
Women in business are a recent phenomenon in India. By and large they had
confide themselves to petty business and tiny cottage industries. Women
entrepreneurs engaged in business due to push and pull factors. Which encourage
women to have an independent occupation and stands on their on legs. A sense
towards independent decision-making on their life and career is the motivational
factor behind this urge. Saddled with household chores and domestic
responsibilities women want to get independence .Under the influence of these
factors the women entrepreneurs choose a profession as a challenge and as an urge
to do some thing new. Such situation is described as pull factors. While in push
factors women engaged in business activities due to family compulsion and the
responsibility is thrust upon them.
Womens entrepreneurship has been recognized during the last decade as an
important untapped source of economic growth. Women entrepreneurs create new
jobs for themselves and others and by being different also provide society with
different solutions to management, organization and business problems as well as
to the exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities. However, they still represent a
minority of all entrepreneurs. Thus there exists a market failure discriminating
against womens possibility to become entrepreneurs and their possibility to
become successful entrepreneurs. This market failure needs to be addressed by
policy makers so that the economic potential of this group can be fully utilized.
While without a doubt the economic impact of women is substantial, we still lack a
reliable picture describing in detail that specific impact.
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having a minimum financial interest of 51 per cent of the capital and giving at least
51 per cent of the employment generated in the enterprise to women.
Despite all the social hurdles, Indian women stand tall from the rest of the crowd
and are applauded for their achievements in their respective field. The
transformation of social fabric of the Indian society, in terms of increased
educational status of women and varied aspirations for better living, necessitated a
change in the life style of Indian women. She has competed with man and
successfully stood up with him in every walk of life and business is no exception for
this. These women leaders are assertive, persuasive and willing to take risks. They
managed to survive and succeed in this cut throat competition with their hard work,
diligence and perseverance.
Historically, an entrepreneur has been a male dominated pursuit, but many of
todays most memorable and inspirational entrepreneurs are women. Several
women entrepreneurs are working hard to prove that, when it comes to starting and
sustaining a business, they are second to none. It is all about breaking tradition and
overcoming mindsets. Despite all social hurdles, many women have been successful
in their works.
Today, the countrys largest private sector bank ICICI is being headed by Chanda
Kochhar. Upcoming contender Axis Bank, which has the largest ATM network, is
being headed by Shikha Sharma. Naina Lal Kidwai heads HSBC India. Zia Mody is a
partner at AZB Partners, one of Indias prominent corporate law firms. Ekta Kapoor
heads Balaji Telefilms and has played a pivotal role in virtually changing the face of
Indian television in the last decade. One of Indias leading Biopharmaceutical
Company Biocon is headed by Kiran M Shaw. Apollo Hospitals is being headed by its
founder Pratap C Reddys four daughters with eldest, Preetha Reddy at the helm of
one of Indias and Asias largest healthcare groups. Such examples are now
becoming commonplace.
Self-employment represents one of the most important job opportunities for women.
This seems to be a correct conclusion independent of what country or type of
economy is observed. Self-employment represents an important job alternative for
many women and perhaps especially for women in developing economies.
A recent survey titled Women & Entrepreneurship in India 2012 Study by Womens
Web interviewed more than 100 women entrepreneurs in India and put together an
interesting set of statistics. Most of the respondents were owners of small to
medium sized businesses, a majority of which reported sub 10 lakh revenue.
position and stark reality of deprivation and degradation. As the real drivers of
global economy, they need both psychological and practical support for starting up
their business.
Women in entrepreneurship has been largely neglected both in society in general
and in the social sciences. Not only have women lower participation rates in
entrepreneurship than men but they also generally choose to start and manage
firms in different industries than men tend to do. The industries (primarily retail,
education and other service industries) chosen by women are often perceived as
being less important to economic development and growth than high-technology
and manufacturing. Furthermore, mainstream research, policies and programmes
tend to be men streamed and too often do not take into account the specific
needs of women entrepreneurs and would-be women entrepreneurs. As a
consequence, equal opportunity between men and women from the perspective of
entrepreneurship is still not a reality.
Womens entrepreneurship is both about womens position in society and the role of
entrepreneurship in the same society. Women are faced with specific obstacles
(such as family responsibilities) that have to be overcome in order to give them
access to the same opportunities as men. Also, in some countries, women may
experience obstacles with respect to holding property and entering contracts.
Increased participation of women in the labor force is a prerequisite for improving
the position of women in society and self-employed women.
In practice most of the upcoming women entrepreneurs face problems that are of
different dimensions and magnitudes than that faced by their male counterparts.
These problems, generally, prevent these women entrepreneurs from realizing their
potential as entrepreneurs. The major hurdles that the women face during starting
and running a company generally come from financing and balancing of life. The
balancing of life is caused due to lack of family support for the women. The other
hindering external factors include gender discrimination, inaccessibility to
information, training opportunities, infrastructure etc. Some internal factors like risk
aversion by women, lack of confidence, lack of vision of strategic leader etc. can
also create obstacles for the women entrepreneurship development.
Most of the women entrepreneurs have begun to appreciate the importance of
Marketing management, that they have not adopted the modern marketing
techniques due to their limitations like small size of their enterprise, limited area of
the market of their products and the like. They face the problem at the time of
starting as well as during operation of their business enterprises, problem of getting
loan and subsidy, insistence of collateral security and margin money requirement,
time taken to process loan, tight repayment schedule, poor financial management
and maintenance of accounts.
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General
Population
Firm
Establishmen
t
Firm
Development
All most all the women entrepreneurs irrespective of their education ,age, married
and the unmarried, caste, religion, type of organizations, ownership type,
experience, amount of capital investment , fixed assets find it very difficult to
arrange and get financial assistance as and when they want, hence have ranked the
problem of finance as first in order followed by the problem relating to sales,
competition from other sellers, purchase of raw materials, technical problems and
labor related problems.
The most formidable problem that women normally faced is the problem of
entrepreneurship among them is resistance, apathy, shyness, inhibitions,
conservatism, poor response-all governed by cultural traditional, value system and
social sanction.
There are umpteen problems faced by women at various stages beginning from
their initial commencement of enterprise, in running their enterprise. Their various
challenges are as follows:
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Women were given priorities in all the sectors including SSI sector. Government and
non government bodies have paid increasing attention to womens economic
contribution through self employment and industrial ventures. At present, the
Government of India has over 27 schemes for women operated by different
departments and ministries. The efforts of government and its different agencies
are ably supplemented by NGOs that are playing an equally important role in
facilitating women empowerment. Despite concerted efforts of governments and
NGOs there are certain gaps.
Efforts are being taken at the economy as brought promise of equality of
opportunity in all spheres to the Indian women and laws guaranteed equal rights of
participation in political process and equal opportunities and rights in education and
employment were enacted. A new talent pool of women entrepreneurs is forming
today, as more women opt to leave corporate world to chart their own destinies.
They are flourishing as designers, interior decorators, exporters, publishers,
garment manufacturers and still exploring new avenues of economic participation.
Resurgence of entrepreneurship is the need of the hour emphasizing on educating
women strata of population, spreading awareness and consciousness amongst
women to outshine in the enterprise field, making them realize their strengths, and
important position in the society and the great contribution they can make for their
industry as well as the entire economy. Women entrepreneurship must be molded
properly with entrepreneurial traits and skills to meet the changes in trends,
challenges global markets and also be competent enough to sustain and strive for
excellence in the entrepreneurial arena.
Women Entrepreneur is a person who accepts challenging role to meet her personal
needs and become economically independent. A strong desire to do something
positive is an inbuilt quality of entrepreneurial women, who is capable of
contributing values in both family and social life. With the advent of media, women
are aware of their own traits, rights and also the work situations. The challenges
and opportunities provided to the women of digital era are growing rapidly that the
job seekers are turning into job creators.
Thereafter, several other literatures were shown like.
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of
support
agencies
in
promoting
womens
tended to place a slightly higher emphasis on their job than on their family.
The results further indicated that women entrepreneurs tended to be more
similar than dissimilar.
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In the 2nd OECD conference of ministers for small and medium sized
enterprises in Istanbul discussion was done on Women Entrepreneurship:
Issues and Policies Promoting Entrepreneurship and Innovative SMEs in a
Global Economy : Towards a more responsible and inclusive Globalization. In
the discussion key policy recommendations was put to encourage women
entrepreneurs in the form of Risk and Reward framework for Women
Entrepreneurs.
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Xiaoping Tian and Barbara Bird (1989) in their research paper, Women
Entrepreneurs: The Satisfaction of Self-Employment, discussed the effect of
undertaking a venture on the women entrepreneurs life at work and outside
the work place. The study revealed that women entrepreneurs who were
unable to achieve satisfaction in other parts of their lives got more
satisfaction from work.
References :
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