Women who were the most dormant segment of India population have now become active participants in all walks of life. Women are more educated and forward thinkers, realizing their actual potential. Now, women are becoming not only a significant unit of the society but also influencing the course of social change in society. Women have set extraordinary examples being at top designations and entrepreneurs, making society realize their identity as the most successful managers. She has been believed to have her aspiration, abilities, and qualities not as a man, however equally competitive.
Women are performing in each and every aspect of society like we can see most recent examples in Rio Olympics 2016. PV Sindhu has won the silver medal in Badminton finals. Like this, there are many examples where a woman has performed equally good as men. Women have proved themselves in each and every aspect whether it is a business, game, sports, politics or armed forces.
"If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman." - Margaret Thatcher.
But still, in some parts of India female feticide exist. Facts have shown that more than 10 million female fetuses may have been illegally aborted in India since the 1990s, and 500,000 girls were being lost annually due to female feticide.This is all because of the mentality of people that girls bring a burden on family mainly because of dowry because of which they were not given any equal opportunity as that of boys. Still, the woman is progressing and helping India to progress more and many even have become Entrepreneurs and handling their own business and earning well for themselves and family.
Due to all this question arises “Why India needs more women entrepreneurs?”
In India, women comprise about 30 percent of corporate senior management positions, which is higher than the other countries like the USA etc. (24 percent). But due to worst gender gap women entrepreneurs constitute only 10 percent of the total number of entrepreneurs in the country.
We believe that women entrepreneurs are equally better as male entrepreneurs. Women have their own advantages. One of the most obvious reasons to invest in women entrepreneurs in India is that women control the majority of the budgets in the family. As being close to the financial aspects, women are more likely to better understand customer perspective.
Another is that women are often better at building long-term relationships than men. Lasting relationships benefit a business tremendously, being with employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, etc. Studies have shown that for any startup having women executive’s success rate increase with an increase in women executives.
"Women, like men, should try to do the impossible, and when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others." - Amerlia Earhart
India’s female entrepreneurship data has shown improvement due to women finding opportunities to start the business that is 60%, validation with respect to skills that is 52%. Women entrepreneurs tend to face more significant obstacles when it comes to starting their own businesses than their male counterparts. Although they bring unique abilities to entrepreneurship as well, such as a more sophisticated approach to taking risks, including not being overconfident and not putting their employees at risk.
There are many successful women entrepreneurs of India. Few of them I have randomly quoted under:
Shraddha Sharma : She has founded YourStory in 2008 and running it as one of the most successful startups lead by the woman, with the aim of championing the untold stories of entrepreneurship in India. The subsequent seven years have been a roller-coaster of highs and lows, success, and failures for her but she never looked back. She also got funded by Ratan Tata recently and has taken YourStory to a new level altogether.
Shahnaz Husain
She is known as the “Queen of Herbal Beauty Care”. She was married off at the age of 16. But her interest in beauty and cosmetic made her discover Shahnaz Herbals Inc. The company is best known for its herbal cosmetics particularly skin care products ‘without animal testing’. The company has over 400 Franchise clinics across the world covering 138 countries. She has been bestowed with the ‘Padma Shri’ award by the Government of India in 2006 and ‘World’s Greatest Woman Entrepreneur’ award by 1996 Success Magazine.
Rashmi Sinha
Born in Lucknow, India. Rashmi owns a Ph.D. in neuropsychology from the Brown University. Prior to that, she completed her B.A. and M.A. from Allahabad University. In 2006, she co-founded Slide Share along with her husband, a site to share presentations online. The site received the tremendous response and was acquired by LinkedIn for $100 million in 2012. She was ranked No.8 in the Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs list and named one of the World’s Top 10 Women Influencers in Web 2.0 by Fast Company.
Sabina Chopra
She is the co-founder of Yatra.com, an online travel website. She holds a Bachelor’s of Arts degree from Delhi University and landed her first job with a Japan Airlines. Later, she headed India’s operation of e-Bookers, Europe’s leading online travel company. In 2010, she was felicitated with the Women Leaders of India. Under her guidance, the company has enhanced its customer base and earned recognition.
Radhika Ghai Aggarwal
She is the Co-founder and CMO of ShopClues, a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers online. She has studied MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and a post graduate degree in Advertising and Public Relations. Prior to that, she worked with Nordstrom, Seattle and Goldman Sachs, USA. She has a remarkable 14 years marketing experience and has been one of the driving forces behind ShopClues success.
Women run 14% of Indian businesses, most of them self-financed.
I have been recently added to Indian women entrepreneurs list, when we got our first award Upcoming startup of the year 2016 award by Assocham India for Simbacart. I have been successfully running three ventures Simbacart, Simbaquartz, and Smiles.Care – An NGO from last three years. Along with revenue generation of the company, we are also focused on social activities for rural people like distributing clothes, shoes, books, health checkup campaigns. Women are more emotional, She has the sense to bring life-changing experiences to people.
India needs more women entrepreneurs today, as women are better calculative risk takers, are prone to less over-confidence. Women are much more ambitious and better relationship builders as they always have the urge to prove themselves.
While interviewing few women, I have come across saddened incidents where educated women have become just a family teacher for kids after earning good degrees. This is creating the high level of dissatisfaction inside them and they are generally depressed that they have no identity even they have equal education as their husband or other relatives. We as a country, are discouraging woman that she cannot perform like men by giving her more personal responsibilities, whereas many have set beautiful examples already. We need to win woman self-esteem and confidence by blindly believing in her capabilities and motivating that she can do whatever she aspire to be.
Sheryl Sandberg - The facebook COO, after losing her husband recently, resumed her work boldly counseling herself to the best possible and lead as a remarkable example. She got even tougher with the tough times and continued her work. So, that's the power of women, She has a big heart to soak the toughest times into it and still move on so passionately. She is truly an inspiration.
We can definitely say, that women entrepreneurs will positively affect the mindset of India as a business hub and the gender blend in business is the need of the hour. With the authority given to and authority created by women entrepreneurs, they have shown significant impact on all segments of the economy in India.
My Honest Writings
Mandeep Kaur Sidhu
Co-written by : Reetika Garg (Asst. Professor - School Of Business, LPU) & Vivek Malhotra/Sukhjinder Singh/Sodadasi Vivek ( MBA Students - School Of Business, LPU)