Women Entrepreneurs : In Special reference to Indian

Corporate Culture
ABSTRACT
A women entrepreneur is a confident, innovative and creative woman capable of achieving
economic independence individually or in collaboration generates employment opportunities
for others through initiating establishing and running an enterprise by keeping pace with her
personal, family and social life
-By Kamala Singh
Entrepreneurship as a strategy to promote enterprise can be successful only if the same is duly
imparted and conscientiously induced. This argument holds strong particularly when such a
strategy is being tried on women. In the present context many of the theories dealing with
entrepreneurship has seen a divergence from practice.
It is seen that many entrepreneurs are motivated on their own to start their own enterprises.
Many of these entrepreneurs actually do not receive any structured entrepreneurial input. They
learn the same through trial and error. Keeping these views on entrepreneurship, this article
deals with the problems, which these self-motivated women entrepreneurs con front, and then
highlights the prospects and the future challenges.
The paper helps in:

Establishes the role entrepreneurial training can play in making the ventures initiated
by these self-motivated women self-sustaining.
The paper identifies the concern areas of these women who are in business and also
proposes what kind of entrepreneurial training would be ideal. It is felt that when more
women initiate businesses without such formal training, one should probably then start
investing resources into making them stand on their own.
To identify the basic characteristics of Indian women through which she can become a
successful entrepreneur.
It has also identified certain special factors and problems women in business generally
confront and the gendered root of such problems. The suggestion is that these problems
could be taken care of through investing in building network and alliances.

Keywords: Entrepreneurs, Enterprise, Women entrepreneurs, Formal training.

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FULL PAPER:
A women entrepreneur is a person who is an enterprising individual with an eye for
opportunities and an uncanny vision, Commercial acumen, with tremendous perseverance and
above all a person who is willing to take risk with the unknown because of the adventures
spirit she possesses.
- By Medha Dubhanshi Vinze

Introduction
You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women
-Jawaharlal Nehru.
The emergence of women entrepreneurs and their contribution to the national economy is quite
visible in India. The number of women entrepreneurs has grown over a period of time,
especially in the 1990s. Women entrepreneurs need to be lauded for their increased utilization
of modern technology, increased investments, finding a niche in the export market, creating a
sizable employment for others and setting the trend for other women entrepreneurs in the
organized sector. While women entrepreneurs have demonstrated their potential, the fact
remains that they are capable of contributing much more than what they already are.
Womens entrepreneurship needs to be studied separately for two main reasons. The first
reason is that 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 also by being different. They also provide the society with different
solutions to management, organization and business problems as well as to the exploitation of
entrepreneurial opportunities.
The second reason is that the topic of 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.
Development of the society is directly related with the Income Generation Capacity of its
members with agriculture, as the key income generation activity the entrepreneurship on farm
and home can directly affect the income of a major chunk of our population. The growth of
modernization processes such as industrialization, technical change; urbanization and
migration further encourage it.
Entrepreneurship on small scale is the only solution to the problems of unemployment and
proper utilization of both human and non-human resources and improving the living condition
of the poor masses [Prabha Sigh, 2009].
[Kuratka and Richard 2001] in their book on entrepreneurship started that entrepreneurship is
the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. This wealth is created by individuals who
take the major risks in terms of equity, time and career commitment of providing value to some
products or services the product or service itself may or my not be new or unique but value
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must some how be infused by the entrepreneur by securing and allocating the necessary skill
and resources.
Entrepreneurship is the only solution to the growing employment among rural youth. It helps to
generate employment for a number of people within their own social system. This is more
beneficial for women in rural areas as it enables them to add to the family income while taking
care of their own home and livestock centered task. Rural women possess abundant resources
to take up enterprises. She has the benefit of easy availability of arm and livestock based raw
materials and other resources.
It can be clearly seen from the table that the number of Indian Women Entrepreneurs
(immigrated) have shown a considerable amount of increase (especially in case of India). This
shows that the amount of awareness for starting up of new ventures as entrepreneurs have
attracted the women of India to a considerable amount.

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 Entrepreneurship and Economic development in India

Entrepreneurship and economic development are intimately related. Schumpeter opines that
entrepreneurial process is a major factor in economic development and the entrepreneur is the
key to economic growth. Whatever be the form of economic and political set-up of the country,
entrepreneurship is indispensable for economic development. Entrepreneurship is an approach
to management that can be applied in start-up situations as well as within more established
businesses. As technology speeds up lives and the new millennium is now upon us, it is useful
to take time to reflect on what will surely be one of the driving forces of the global economy of
the 21st century. Women are an emerging economic force that policymakers cannot afford to
ignore.
The present world population is 7.1 billions, which is growing at the rate of 97 millions people
per year will touch 8.5 billion by the year 2025. About 95 per cent of the population growth
will be in the developing countries. The Asian population is 3.55 billions, which may reaches
4.54 billions by 2025 and women constitute around half-of the total world population (V.K.
Singh, 2007). As world economic profile of women shows, women represent 50 per cent of
the world population make up 30 per cent of the official labor force, perform 60 per cent of all
working hours, receive 10 per cent of world income and own even less than one per cent of the
worlds property (M.A. Sudhir et. all, 2007).
Entrepreneurship Development is a very crucial factor for the acceleration of economic growth
of any country and women entrepreneurship development is an essential part of human
resource development. Women entrepreneurs have started show in more interest because it
provides them an opportunity to be ones own boss, the challenges they want to face and the
chances of making more money, which outweigh their family duties. Moreover, technological
development empowers women to acquire more relevant qualifications and values to meet the
demands of entrepreneurship. To fill the gap in the implementation of this erstwhile selfemployment must be designed to development of entrepreneurship among the women, through
which possible to develop the women empowerment.
India has made tremendous progress in various spheres of life during the last five and half
decades. Its economy has expanded and diversified, society has become cohesive and polity
democratized. It has also been facing many problems, some of which have successfully been
solved, but many others still remain unsolved. Poverty is one such challenge India has been
facing today. To fill these gaps the Government of India announced a holistic programme
called Swarna Jayanti, Gram Swarozgar Yojana, which is based on group approach to rural
poor were organized into Self-Help Groups (SHGs) provided micro-credit and look up viable
economic activities on their own.
While most of the development programmes address themselves to alleviating the condition of
poor who live below subsistence levels.
Majority of these women come from the lowest strata of the caste/class hierarchy. Their caste
affiliation restricts their mobility; their class membership limits their access to productive
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resource, while their gender role minimizes their economic participation, it being limited only
extensions of domestic order. As such, they are marginalized as workers, are found in situations
of immense exploitation and victimization and are therefore forced to a status of invisibility
and powerlessness.
Despite their invisibility in the labor force and their powerlessness in the family, it is their
meager but substantial income that sustain and meets the needs of the family. This is
particularly, the case, when unemployment among men is high and where the major item of
expenditure is alcohol and gambling.

Women entrepreneurship in India:

Since ages India has been men-dominated country. But, time is changing now. Women in India
have outraged the fact that since hundreds of years they had been following the orders of men.
They now know their rights and duties and with the spreading awareness amongst the women
they are now no less then the men. They are walking with men at the same pace in each and
every field.
Following this latest trend, women are no less and backward any more. Many women have
established their own economy i.e., entrepreneurial empire and are now ruling their world as
they wished to. The hidden entrepreneurial potentials of women have gradually been changing
with the growing sensitivity to the role and economic status in the society.
Skill, knowledge and adaptability in business are the main reasons for women to emerge into
business ventures. Women Entrepreneur is a person who accepts challenging role to meet her
personal needs and become economically independent. Traditionally, women in India have
been generally found in low productive sectors such as agriculture and household activities.
Human Development Report 2004 ranks India 103 in Gender related Development Index
(GDI). As per 2001 census; women constitute nearly half of Indias population. Out of this
total, 72% were engaged in agriculture, 21.7% in other non agricultural pursuits with only
6.3% in household industries.
Women entrepreneurs in India are handicapped in the matter of organizing and running
businesses on account of their generally low levels of skills and for want of support system.
The transition from homemaker to sophisticated business woman is not that easy.

Some constraints faced by women entrepreneurs to enter in business are:

a) Lack of Confidence & faith: women lack confidence in their strength and competence. The
family members and the society are reluctant to stand beside their entrepreneurial growth.
b) Lack of family support: Womens family and personal obligations are sometimes a great
barrier for succeeding in business career.
c) Market-oriented risks - Stiff competition in the market and lack of mobility of women make
the dependence of women entrepreneurs on middleman indispensable.
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d) Motivational factors - Self motivation can be realized through a mind set for a successful
business, attitude to take up risk and behavior towards the business society by shouldering the
social responsibilities.
e) Knowledge in Business Administration - Women must be educated and trained constantly to
acquire the skills and knowledge in all the functional areas of business management.
f) Identifying the available resources - Women are hesitant to find out the access to cater their
needs in the financial and marketing areas.
g) Lack of capital - traditional sources of finance like banks are reluctant to lend to women
entrepreneurs especially if they do not have any male or family backing. This is especially true
of lower income females. Women do not have adequate finance or legal knowledge to start an
enterprise.
h) Lack of right public/ private institutions: Most public and private incentives are misused and
do not reach the woman unless she is backed by a man. Also many trade associations like
ministries, chambers of commerce do not cater to women expecting womens organizations to
do the necessary thing.
Highly educated, technically sound and professionally qualified women should be encouraged
for managing their own business, rather than dependent on wage employment outlets. The
unexplored talents of young women can be identified, trained and used for various types of
industries to increase the productivity in the industrial sector.
A desirable environment is necessary for every woman to inculcate entrepreneurial values and
involve greatly in business dealings.

Basic Characteristic of Indian women to become successful

entrepreneur:

(a) Multi task oriented

(b) Ability to make strong network
(c) Being Patient
(d) Marketing Skills.
(e) Cost conscious.
(f) Openness and willingness to learn
(g) Loyalty and team work.
(h) Focus intensity and decision making.
(i) Ambitious.

Effective entrepreneurs require certain basic qualities which can be listed as follow --- Innovative thinking and farsightedness
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--- Quick and effective decision making skill

--- Ability to mobilizes and marshal resource.
--- Strong determination and self confidence.
--- Preparedness to take risk.
--- Accepting changes in right time.,
---Access and alertness to latest scientific & technological information
In spite of having all the characteristics of being a women entrepreneur a women face lots of
problems that hurdle them to be an entrepreneur.

The additional business opportunities that are recently approaching for

women entrepreneurs are:

Eco-friendly technology
Bio-technology
IT enabled enterprises
Event Management
Tourism industry
Telecommunication
Plastic materials
Mineral water
Sericulture
Floriculture
Herbal & health care
Food, fruits & vegetable processing.

Top Ten Women Entrepreneurs in World

Worldwide, businessmen, economists and politicians today assent that, Women owned
businesses boost the economy. Presenting here, names who pioneer women
entrepreneurship and epitomize the female power globally.
(a) Madame C.J. Walker (18671919)
Known as the first female entrepreneur, her manufacturing company developed hair care
products for black women. A great philanthropist, she is opined as the first female AfricanAmerican millionaire too.
(b) Gabrielle Bonheur Coco Chanel (1883-1971)
French designer and founder of the brand Chanel, Coco is immortal with her perfume
Chanel No. 5. Her simple but elegant, stylish, sophisticated yet comfortable designs enchant
the beauties even today.
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(c) Este Lauder (1908-2004)

Beginning her career with sales of creams made by her uncle, Este formed her fortune in the
manufacturing of cosmetic and beauty products. She owned an array of businesses under Estee
Lauder Companies with a huge share in the cosmetic markets.
(d) Mary Kay Ash (1918 - 2001)
Management skills, dedication and zeal to work bestowed her with achievements like the Most
Outstanding Woman in Business in the 20th Century reward by Lifetime Television. Her book
Mary Kay on People Management is included in business courses at the Harvard Business
School.
(e) Lillian Vernon (1929)
Born in Germany, she started working at home at 22 and rose it to be the first female-owned
company to be listed on the American Stock Exchange. Today, Lillian Vernon Corporation is
one of the countrys leading catalog retailers.
(f) Martha Stewart (1941)
Commonly known as Lifestyle Guru, Martha initially appeared in fashion shows and
advertisements. Later she ventured into the catering business and transformed it into Martha
Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc., Her company is involved with publications & broadcasting,
e-commerce as well as lifestyle products.
(g) Anita Roddick (1943 - 2007)
After experimenting in various traits, Anita kicked off The Body Shop initially to support her
family. Her environment friendly products made from natural ingredients, packaged in
recyclable materials grabbed her immense business growth and numerous rewards. She
demonstrated that businesses can act as social campaign for worthy causes.
(h) Vera Wang (1949)
A designer known for her bridal wear, Vera was a senior fashion editor for Vogue. She also
worked at Ralph Lauren as a design director before stepping out to set her own studio. Her
work in designing sports costumes and less expensive line of ready-to-wear clothing called
Very Vera is also highly appreciated.
(i) Oprah Winfrey (1954)
A media giant, Oprah ruled the American media as a talk-show host, an actress as well as a
producer. This philanthropist and a co-author spun off Oxygen Media, operating a cable
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television network for women. She also supported Barack Obama for presidency and shows
interest in politics.
(j) Debbi Fields (1956)
This proud owner of Mrs. Fields Bakeries proved that a multimillion dollar enterprise can be
built on something as simple as baking a cookie. Often referred as the tough cookie, Debbi
also is an author of several cookbooks.

NEED OF THE HOUR:

Women sector occupies nearly 45% of the Indian population. The literary and educational
status of women improved considerably during the past few decades. More and more higher
educational and research institutions are imparting knowledge and specialization. At this
juncture, effective steps are needed to provide entrepreneurial awareness, orientation and skill
development programmes to women. The institutions available at present are very limited.
Moreover, their functions and opportunities available with them are not popularized much.

QUALITIES REQUIRED TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR:

An effective entrepreneur requires certain basic qualities, which can be listed as follows.

Innovative thinking and farsightedness.

Quick and effective decision making skill.
Ability to mobilize and marshal resources.
Strong determination and self confidence.
Preparedness to take risks.
Accepting changes in right time.
Access and alertness to latest scientific and technological information.

Matching the basic qualities required for entrepreneurs and the basic characters of Indian
women, reveal that, much potential is available among the Indian women on their
entrepreneurial ability. This potential is to be recognized, brought out and exposed for
utilization in productive and service sectors for the development of the nation.

ACTION PLAN:

Proper planning and execution are required at all levels. Proper training in right direction is to
be planned meticulously. The steps to be taken can be listed as follows:

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 Identifying women with different literary levels in proper groups and to create awareness
about entrepreneurship and its importance as job providing avenues rather than job seeking
ventures.
Skills to be provided to selected women group are to be identified.
Making them to realize the income generation and social status and recognition
Giving orientation and skill training on selected trades on their choice and suitability.
Assisting them in preparation of project reports for their own proposed units and helping
them to follow up the venture to start the new enterprise.
Providing consultancy and guidance, continuously.
A training capsule of around 15 days may be provided by expert institutions, voluntary
agencies and Govt. departments. The financial resources are to be mobilized to provide this
type of programmes, by the government organizations like banks, public sector organizations
and voluntary agencies.
The higher education institutions, which are spreading throughout the country, may conduct
programmes like this, regularly, in addition to their academic programmes, with or without
government aid. Young graduates of that area and the final year students of U.G/P.G courses
may also be provided with such training. Normally, infrastructures are available with such
institutions.
Getting expertise and mobilizing other requirements will also be easier for such institutions,
since they are already having good establishment facilities.
Voluntary agencies like Rotary clubs, Lions clubs, and etc.Govt. sponsored institutions like
UGC, Science and technology Councils may interact with the colleges/universities, through
financial assistance, to carry out the programmes.
With proper financial assistance and effectively using them, each college/university may train
300 to 1000 youths, in the area of entrepreneurship development. When women are going to be
the target groups, the benefit will reach a larger section of the society.
Thus ED culture is to be developed gradually among the women, in addition to providing
educational facilities to use the vibrant women force in right direction. Thus programmes
combining, technical skill and entrepreneurship skill, to selected groups, will make the Indian
women more self reliant and confident and would lead them to be envied by people at the
international level.

TRAINING COMPONENTS:

Even though there are very efficient institutions at the national level ,like EDI Ahmadabad,
NSTED BOARD, New Delhi, NISIE, Hyderabad and at State level, CED in Madurai and
Chennai, TANSTIA in Chennai, such programmes are to be conducted at regional level, at the
residential area of the women, in their vernacular language and to the specific requirement of
the people of that area.
The essential components of such training may be listed as follows.

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Awareness, career building and attitudinal change towards enterprise formation.

Effective training on building up self-confidence and communication skills.
Skill training on specific trades suitable to their option.
Training on quick and effective decision making techniques and managerial skills.
Training on marketing strategies.
Training on effective financial management.
Training on project formulation and implementation.
Scope for increasing access to new technologies and scientific knowledge.
Information on persons/offices to be contacted.
Interaction with successful entrepreneurs for sharing their experiences

Training in such areas are not going to have much financial burden to the govt., when
compared to other developmental projects. This type of programmes can be conducted in all
the parts of the country. A consistent and continuous effort in this project will add more
dimensions Indian women and their empowerment. and to the economic development of the
nation as a whole.

SCHEME FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

In order to alleviate the problems faced by women entrepreneurs, Government of India

launched the scheme Trade Related Entrepreneurship Assistance and Development of Women
(TREAD) in 1998. The scheme envisages development of micro/tiny women enterprises in the
country both in the urban and rural areas. The main objective of the scheme is to empower
women through development of their entrepreneurial skills by eliminating constraints faced by
them in their sphere of trade.
A revised scheme of TREAD was launched in May, 2004. It is to be implemented by Small
Industries Development Organization. It also provides for market development and financial
loans through NGOs, which are also provided grants for capacity building. This assistance is to
be provided for self-employment ventures by women for pursuing any kind of non-farm
activity.

The scheme has three components;

(a) To provide assistance to women entrepreneurs through NGOs for non farm entrepreneurial
activity.
(b) To build up capacity of Entrepreneurship Development Institutions like National Institute
for Small Industry Extension & Training (NISIET), Small Industries Service Institutes (SISI),
State level EDIs, etc., by providing financial support in the form of Government of India grant.
(c) To create entrepreneurship development training facility through NGOs by providing
financial support for conducting training programmes.
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 Areas where Indian Women can be successful in India:

Suggested list of appropriate areas suitable to Indian women entrepreneurs:
Food products manufacturing
Food processing and preservation.
Catering services and fast food centres.
Interior decoration.
DTP and Book binding.
Maintenance of Dairy, Poultry and their products.
Maintenance of house-hold appliances.
Stationeries retailing.
Manufacturing of note books and pads.
Packing & packaging
Diagnostic lab & pathology clinics.
Communication centers with telecom, fax, browsing, and Xerox facilities.
Readymade garments, embroidering and fashion designing.
Retail selling through different methods.
Art and painting works on commercial decorations.
Hiring of warehouses and godowns.
Floral decorations.
Jewellary
Beauty centers
Running old-age homes
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 (Many

other

areas

can

be

included

but

this

is

just

suggestive

list)

Conclusion

Independence brought promise of equality of opportunity in all sphere to the Indian women
and laws guaranteeing for their equal rights of participation in political process and equal
opportunities and rights in education and employment were enacted.
But unfortunately, the government sponsored development activities have benefited only a
small section of women. The large majority of them are still unaffected by change and
development i.e. the urban middle class women.
The reasons are well sighted in the discussion part of this article. It is hoped that the
suggestions forwarded in the article will help the entrepreneurs in particular and policyplanners in general to look into this problem and develop better schemes, developmental
programmes and opportunities to the women folk to enter into more entrepreneurial ventures.

Bibliography:
--- Books Referred:
1. Asok Mitra, Adhir K. srimany and Lalit P. Pathak The status of women household and nonhousehold economic activity, ICSSR Programme of women studies III, Allied Publishers,
1976.

2. Cole, Arthur. H. The Entrepreneurs Introductory Remarks. American Economic review,

1968.

3. Vasanthagopal .R, Santha. S. Women Entrepreneurship In India New Century

Publications, 2008
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4. Ganesamurthy, V.S., Empowerment of women in India: Social, Economical and Political,

New Centuary Publications, University of Michigan, 2008

5. Purushothaman Sangeetha, The empowerment of women in India: Grassroots women

network and the state, Sage Publications, University of Michigen, July 2009

6. Schemes and Programmes of Ministry of Small Scale Industries and Ministry of Agro &
Rural Industries, Govt. of India

7. Coughlin Jeanne Halladay & Thomas Andrew The rise of Women Entrepreneurs: People,
processes, and Global trends(2002)
--- Websites Referred:
http://www.awake-india.org
www.google.com
www.siliconindia.com
www.mamangementparadise.com
www.score.org/topics/women
www.financial-inspiration.com/famous- women-entrepreneurs.html
www.forbes.com

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