Women Entrepreneur in India
Women Entrepreneur in India
Women Entrepreneur in India
GLOBALISAT ION AND IT S IMPACT ON INDIAN SMALL SCALE INDUST RIAL SECT OR
Int eral Res journa Managt Sci Tech
Abstract
Economic development is the outcome of human activity and entrepreneurship is one of the rising
concerns of today‘s modern economy. When economic development is considered, then
sustainability becomes a major issue as both are interrelated to each other for survival in the modern
world. Women‘s development has been undertaken as a major issue to the overall sustainable
development of a nation. There are various schemes of Central and State government to build a
healthy environment for women where they can work with their full potentials. Other government
sponsored institutions and non-government organizations are also working for women population
and thus providing various amenities and incentives to motivate them. Women entrepreneurs are
capable of managing and handling things in changing environment and support their personal and
family needs and that ways they become financially independent.
Women have strong desire to do something for their families and at the same time it leads to their
personal growth as well. Women can genuinely contribute to the economy of the nation if they are
given proper support from families, government and society at large. Empowering women becomes
very important for a healthy and developed environment. The role of women has been increased and
they are taking jobs which were earlier reserved for men only. There is no doubt that women
entrepreneurs are performing well but at the same time there is need to enlighten them regarding
more participating and proper training and development.
Introduction
There are different categories of women entrepreneurs in India. In the first phase, there were women
entrepreneurs in cities only and the Consortium of Women Entrepreneurs was formed as a common
platform for non-traditional items that can help women with techniques, finance and marketing of
products. Women with higher level of qualifications entered into the field of business with sound
financial positions. In the second phase, services of beauty parlors, crèches, kindergarten etc were
provided by women with sufficient education and thus include both traditional and non-traditional
items. In the third phase, now the governments have taken initiative for rural and marginalized
population. Women with no educational and financial base are preferred by Government and are
International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology
http://www.irjmst.com Page 365
IRJMST Vol 9 Issue 4 [Year 2018] ISSN 2250 – 1959 (0nline) 2348 – 9367 (Print)
covered under the schemes in order to make them financially independent and confident enough to
take care of their respective families.
Therefore today the focus is more on financially weak and thus empowering rural and illiterate
women is also important for the development of nation.
In comparison to male counterparts, women population is ignored in all respects and they are wholly
dependent on male population for the livelihood and other needs. So there is an urge to make women
financially independent by providing facilities and required base to start small and medium
businesses. Microfinance is also one of the aspects playing a great role providing funds to women so
that they can start their businesses without any interruptions related to availability of funds. There
are number of benefits attached with informal institutions to the rural and poor people because of
easier terms and conditions.
Micro entrepreneurship is one of the important and rising concepts which have been considered by
the government as well in order to alleviate poverty and unemployment. Women are taking a step
ahead after realizing the importance of financial independence and sustainability in the long run.
There are financial indicators that show the level of social and cultural development of the nation.
Though women are considered very important for economic development and they are empowered
by different means but at the same time there is a lot to be done for women‘s development and
empowerment. In the male dominated society, it is very difficult to remove the hurdles faced by
women population in short time span and therefore it would take a long time to reach the grass root
level of the problem completely.
Thus the focus of the paper is not on the empowerment of women so that they can become
entrepreneurs but how they can become successful entrepreneurs of tomorrow and the facilities and
services that facilitate the success are discussed. There are programs and policies undertaken by the
government as well as the other non-governmental organizations for the benefit of women
population but still there is a long way and so much to be done for the same. More efforts and
strategies are required in order to bring a positive change in the attitude of women population and
thus to bring financial sustainability in the economy.
The women possess certain qualities and if these qualities are properly channelized along with
facilities and services provided to them, and then success is guaranteed for women entrepreneurs.
Some of the important qualities are creativity, hardworking nature, and determination to do and
complete the task, ability to tale risk and thus all that helps them in earning profitability if proper
finances are available to them.
Significance of Paper
This paper describes the contribution of women entrepreneurs to the society and how much need to
be done in order to empower women so that they can become successful entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
The women population is now going beyond the barriers and restrictions and working in order to
build a sustainable livelihood and taking care of the family finances as well.
Literature review
Surekha Adki (2014) explained the importance of women participation in the economic
development and how the government is forming a base for their financial and cultural development.
Thompson (2005) emphasized on the fact that success is directly related to the facilities and services
available to the prospective entrepreneurs and the way resources are managed have great effect on
the success building.
Einsmann (1992) explained the reasons that affect the development of entrepreneurs and one of the
major factors is environmental problem faced by the people while tackling the issues related to
building of successful entrepreneurs.
Shah (2012) focused on the fact that in order to increase the growth of economy, there is a need for
women entrepreneurs because only they can bring change in the families and inspire others to
become financially independent.
Again, Shah (2013) discussed the there is a rise in urban women entrepreneurs but at the same time
economic development requires rural and poor women to come up as entrepreneurs too because in
rural areas they already know the condition and local entrepreneurs are required. Thus most of the
failure cases are linked to the fact that local women entrepreneurs are not available.
development
To analyze the hurdles faced by women entrepreneurs
To give suggestions in order to overcome hurdles
Research Methodology
This is based on descriptive study and all the important aspects has been studied and observed
properly. For this purpose, information has been collected from various secondary sources of data
like books, journals, magazines and research articles, etc.
There is a lot done in the field of small scale industries, employment generation, and balanced
regional growth by the Government of India. In order to promote and develop small business sector
and rural industries, various schemes have been launched and still the improvement is going on by
the State. The Government is promoting self-employment by giving assistance to rural people
especially women population in respect of finance, technology, training, raw materials and
marketing, etc. Some of the important programs started by the Government in order to promote rural
industries and women entrepreneurship are discussed below:
National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) – It was set up in 1955 in order to promote
small industries in the country and at the same time it focused on development and
International Research Journal of Management Science & Technology
http://www.irjmst.com Page 367
IRJMST Vol 9 Issue 4 [Year 2018] ISSN 2250 – 1959 (0nline) 2348 – 9367 (Print)
create awareness on changing technology, development of software technology parks, etc.
The Rural Small Business Development Centre (RSBDC) – It is one of the NABARD
sponsored centre for small and medium sized industries. RSBDC was formed in order to
provide benefits to the people in rural areas who all are ignored by the society especially
women‘s role in the business development.
National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) – It was set up in
1982 in order to promote rural development with different strategies for the same. It provides
services like consultancy, counseling, training and development to rural and poor people.
Women entrepreneurship is also being promoted by NABARD since few years.
Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) – This is one of the banks of India
that provides finance to rural and poor people and helps in improving productivity of small
enterprises in the informal sector. It also helps in generating employment for needy people
and provide them proper training so that they can perform better. Women participation and
their development become important for overall development of the economy and thus
Government is supporting it with the initiatives taken under SIDBI.
Rural and Women Entrepreneurship Development (RWED) – It promotes a conducive
business environment and encourage entrepreneurship for rural and poor people especially
women population is taken care of. RWED creates healthy business environment enhances
the capacities of human and institutions and provide them training to work efficiently.
Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) – SFURTI
facilitate sustainable development by the Central Government along with the help of State
Governments. Some of the main activities of SFURTI are development of traditional
industries, build innovative and traditional skills and create sustainable employment
opportunities. Women are trained under SFURTI because they are able to do traditional
works more efficiently and lesser efforts are required to develop skill.
The Government is supporting women empowerment and entrepreneurship by taking into account
different programs for the same. But at the same time it is difficult to eradicate all the problems
related to women entrepreneurship because of various issues attached to it. Few of the major
challenges faced by women entrepreneurs are as follows:
Lack of training – Though there are several training institutes for women entrepreneurs but it
is difficult to make them expert in their respective field.
Problems of marketing – Women are not very open about roaming to places and thus they
lack marketing tactics and not even able to find proper markets for their products.
Problems of Finances – One of the major problem that women faces is the non availability of
finances. There is lack of support from credit houses and banks that can support women
because of pre-conceived notions regarding their inability to manage funds.
Shortage of raw materials – Women finds it difficult to manage raw materials as per the
requirement due to availability in the remote areas.
Production cost is high – Due to price rise and inflation the production cost is increasing a lot
and in order to reduce the production cost, it is important to increase efficiency which
requires proper training and development facilities.
High competition – There is high competition in the market and the male counterparts have
vast experiences in comparison to women population.
There is need to improve the condition of women entrepreneurs as they have potential to perform but
they lack certain facilities and abilities due to non availability of right direction to put their efforts
into actions. Few of the suggestions that can be taken into account for the same are as follows:
More initiatives should be taken by the government in order to enhance the women workforce
and for the betterment of their conditions.
Women in developing countries like India are not exposed to networking and marketing
strategies, thus they are required to be taught about how to build a healthy network of supply
chain and to find the right market for their products.
There are not sufficient training and development facilities available to them and thus there is
need to form proper groups of women and provide them such facilities according to their
field of operations.
There are number of cultural barriers around the women population and unwanted barriers
must be removed in order to make them confident enough to work independently and gather
information to make better decisions.
Conclusion
Women entrepreneurship improves the economic condition of women and so the effect can be very
well seen on the health of the country‘s economy. Women are accepting the challenges and grabbing
the opportunities that were previously not available to them. But at the same time there is a lot of
scope for the improvement of women entrepreneurs and their working conditions. In today‘s
competitive economy, though opportunities are given to women but because they were previously
ignored, they don‘t have much idea about the utilization of funds and potential and such problems
can be solved only with proper training and development of women as well as providing more
facilities to them. There is a need to understand that only programs and policies to provide facilities
cannot make successful women entrepreneurs, instead proper training and development facilities
must be provided as well. The motive of government of rural development is supported by women
entrepreneurship as well and thus government need to create awareness about taking
entrepreneurship as a good career option instead of conventional career options.
Key words:
Cultural barriers
Culture is a kind of behavior, arts, languages, signs, symbols, ideas; beliefs etc that are learnt and
shared in social groups are called cultures. A single culture has many sub-cultures in the same
nationality, ethnicity, religion, etc. When there are hindrances in understanding a particular set of
culture because of different upbringing and level of taking things, then cultural barriers comes into
the scene. Barriers can be like language barriers, semantic barriers like difficulty in understanding
certain signs and symbols, etc.
Economic development
The focus of economic development is on the improvement of standard of living with the help of
employment generation, innovative ways of doing things, better income and quality of life. The level
of economic development and its areas depends on the condition of the economy and its need as
well. It is categorized in three parts, first is plans of government related to big economic objectives
like creation of jobs, initiative for industries, tax etc. Secondly, it includes programs and plans for
infrastructure development in the nation and thirdly, the government needs to provide training and
development and skills to people in order to build strong work force.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the process of designing, launching and running a new business along with risks
in order to make profits. There are so many factors that affect the business like funding, market
demand, government policies, and infrastructure. So there is a need to identify the opportunities,
evaluate their viability and the ways to exploit the resources in an optimal way. Thus
entrepreneurship consists of whole plan of identifying the opportunities and developing products and
services in order to create wealth.
References
1. Shah, H. 2012. ICECD: Achieving Convergence for Empowerment of Women. Paper presented at
the Western Regional Conference of the National Mission for Empowerment of Women, April.
2. Shah, H. 2013. Creating an Enabling Environment for Women‘s Entrepreneurship in India. United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP), South and South-
West Asia Office. South and South-West Asia Office.
3. UNCTAD. 2013. A Survey on Women Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Geneva: United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
4. VanderBrug, J. 2013. The Global Rise of Female Entrepreneurs. Harvard Business Review,
September 4, 2013. Accessed August 6, 2015.
5. C.B.Gupta, N.P. Srinivasan : ―Entrepreneurial Development in India‖, 2001, Sultan Chand and
Sons, New Delhi.
6.Gupta, D., 2000 ―Rural Banking for Woman‖ Social Welfare, Vol.45, No.12.
7. Mehta, S and Sethi, N.1997 ―Targeting women for Development‖, Social Welfare,
Vol.34, No.10.