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Breaking Barriers: A Guide to Pursuing a Successful Career as a Women Entrepreneur

Career as a Women Entrepreneur

Do you love meeting new people and making new friends? Are you the talkative one in class? Were you the leader when you played with your friends as a kid? Were you always interested in your family business, if your family owns one? Have you ever dreamt of starting your own business? Are you creative and always building new ideas? Read on to find out who Entrepreneurs are, what they do, how they do it and how to become an Entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs create their own line of business. Entrepreneurship involves a continuous search for new ideas, a willingness to take responsibility and the determination to put your mind to a task and see the ideas through from inception to completion.

Why become a Women Entrepreneur?

To be an Entrepreneur, you should start by knowing that creating a line of your own business is risky and most often a stressful journey but the returns could be huge when compared to a plain job! This means you can expect to get very high profits once your startup turns into a full-fledged business. However, this may not happen in the initial years.

In the startup economy today, 1/3rd of the total number of Entrepreneurs are women. Today various startups are being registered with the Startup India initiative of the Indian government. Startups are small businesses started with the objective to solve a problem (innovative business concepts) or to address an unfulfilled need in the market and eventually create to sell their products and/or services.

Entrepreneurs come from almost any discipline, background, exposure level, past experience, and income group. The best part is that irrespective of your educational qualification (whether you have just passed your school or you have a Ph.D.), you can always become an Entrepreneur. Structured training and formal certification are not prerequisites for becoming an Entrepreneur. You need to have a dream, an idea and a set of personality traits to start selling. However, it is advisable to complete at least a senior secondary level of education (Class 11-12) or equivalent before becoming an Entrepreneur.

There are various government schemes, bank loans, etc. today that are provided to an aspiring entrepreneurs for the ease of doing business and for protecting against corrupt moneylenders. A number of government-approved bank schemes are provided to women entrepreneurs that have flexible collateral rules and much lower interest rates. Collateral may be anything like a bike, house, farm, shop, etc. that you own and if you cannot repay a bank loan then you will lose ownership of these.

Some of these schemes are the Annapurna Scheme offered by the State Bank of Mysore, Stree Shakti Package offered by most of the SBI branches, the Bharatiya Mahila Bank Business Loan, the Dena Shakti Scheme, Udyogini Scheme, Cent Kalyani Scheme, Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme, Mudra Yojana Scheme for Women launched by the Government of India, Orient Mahila Vikas Yojana Scheme provided by Oriental Bank of Commerce etc.

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What does a Women Entrepreneur do?

As an Entrepreneur, you will be engaged with one or more of the following roles and responsibilities: –

  • Identifying the main market to sell products and client groups based on location, geography, economic framework, etc.
  • Determining how to communicate company-related information to stakeholders (the interested parties like clients, investors, competitors, the public, etc.) and developing/implementing business plans.
  • Looking for sponsors, investors, suppliers or interested parties for sharing business concepts with them, finding individuals and partners who can contribute.
  • Communicating with competitors, customers, professional organizations, suppliers, or others to stay updated with industry or business trends and improve business strategies accordingly.
  • Regularly traveling for business meetings, transactions, etc.
  • Identifying/comparing business strategy results with industry or geographic trends.
  • Planning workforce expansion (hiring more employees), capital mobilization (how and where to spend) and recognizing how various investment schemes, loans or proposals will suit your business.
  • Managing day-to-day business activities and regularly communicating with your employees.
  • Ensuring compliance with all accounting or trade laws prevalent in the country and respective states or cross-border laws in case of export/import businesses.

How to become a Women Entrepreneur – Educational Requirement

Structured training and formal certification are not prerequisites for becoming an Entrepreneur. However, it is advisable to complete at least a senior secondary level of education (Class 11-12) or equivalent before becoming an Entrepreneur.

You can also work for a few years in any company before becoming an Entrepreneur. Work experience gives you a number of industry contacts as well as exposure to a commercial environment that is much required to carry out any business.

Various private/public vocational training establishments offer related courses on:

  • Entrepreneurship and Innovation Studies
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Innovation & Entrepreneurship
  • Social Entrepreneurship
  • Creative Entrepreneurship & Creative Industries

Job Opportunities

You may set up your business in any sector – primary, secondary, tertiary or quaternary sectors.

The primary sector deals with producing raw materials that include occupations like farming, mining, fishing, etc.

The secondary sector deals with making things (manufacturing) using machines, like car making or steel industries.

The tertiary or service sector deals with providing a service like nursing, teaching, etc.

Quaternary sector deals with research and development-oriented occupations like software/game/website design etc.

The various industries that you may choose to serve to include:

  • Agriculture / Agro-based or Allied Industries
  • Telecommunications
  • Foods / Beverage / FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods)
  • Auto / Auto-ancillary
  • Education / Teaching
  • Travel and related
  • Medical / Healthcare
  • Oil and Gas / Power / Infrastructure / Energy
  • Industrial Products
  • BFSI (Banking, Financial Service, Insurance)
  • Accounts and Finance
  • Construction / Engineering

The functional areas that you may cover include:

  • Sales / Retail
  • Production / Maintenance / Quality
  • Purchase / Logistics / Supply Chain
  • Accounts / Finance / Tax / Insurance
  • Human Resources / Recruitment
  • Customer Service / Operations
  • Marketing / Advertising

Salary of a Women Entrepreneur

One can earn a lot of money over the years. Entrepreneurship is about starting a business and building wealth. An entrepreneur builds her wealth through direct revenues, investments, investing in other businesses, buying and selling equity, etc. Entrepreneurs can become multi-millionaires in this way.

However, the earning potential of Entrepreneurs depends on the operational functional area, industry statistics, personal capacities, importunity, passion, preparation and earning appetite of an individual.

At the entry-level: Your earnings may vary on an average anywhere between Rs. 3000 to Rs. 60,000 or more per month depending on the factors as mentioned here.

After 1-6 years, you may expect about Rs. 10,000 – Rs. 1, 00, 000 per month or more.

After 6-12 years, you may make about Rs. 15,000 – Rs. 2, 00,000 or more per month.

After 12-20 years, you may expect to make about Rs. 20,000 – Rs. 3, 00,000 or more per month.

Career Progression in Women Entrepreneur profession

If you can flourish as a self-employed individual, your business may grow to serve a broad range of clientele or a multitude of customers and you can certainly become a successful businesswoman.

India is the youngest nation when it comes to Entrepreneurs. We have the third largest startup base in the world with above 14,000 recognized Startups. More than 8,200 startups were acknowledged by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) of India in 2018 alone, creating more than 89,000 new jobs this year hence taking the total to 1, 41, 775 jobs contributed by startups.

According to World Bank’s Doing Business Report (DBR, 2019) released in October 2018 lately, India is one of the top improvers this year and is pegged at the 1st position among all South Asian countries as opposed to 4th in 2014. Since 2011, India has shown the maximum improvement in 2 years by any large country.72% of the startups in India have founders below the age of 35. We have the 3rd highest number of startups in India today, after the US and Britain.

The logistics sector is forecasted to touch the 307 billion US Dollars mark by 2020. With Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation making entries, entrepreneurs get more effective ways to approach their target markets and service their customers. B2B space is doing very well with startups focusing on helping other businesses run their operations efficiently. In the B2C space, retailers are expected to see immense growth with rising disposable income and demand for quality products. Indian Retail is expected to touch the mark of 1.1 trillion US Dollars by 2020 from 672 billion US Dollars in 2017. FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) sector is predicted to grow, from less than 1 billion US Dollars now to 6 billion US Dollars by 2020.

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