For women entrepreneurs, going online is the most promising road ahead
With small businesses forming 30 percent of the GDP, enabling women entrepreneurs is more important than ever and will be critical for the socio-economic transformation of India.
Parvesh, a woman from a small village in Haryana called Bajghera, began working with Indha—a small homegrown organisation of apparel, accessories, and home furnishings to supplement her income. Despite not having studied past the eighth standard, Parvesh along with five other women from her village managed to scale up their brand Indha solely by leveraging the power of digital. A Facebook page has taken Indha from receiving 10 orders each month to thousands now. Today, 300 women have been skilled under the brand that now curates products for consumers across India and abroad.
Women across the world and here at home in India are challenging the status quo and breaking stereotypes, in line with the theme of this year’s UN Women's International Women’s Day—'Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a Covid-19 world.'
We know that women entrepreneurs all over the world have faced multitude of challenges, far greater than those faced by men. This was further confirmed by the Future of Business study done by the World Bank, the OECD, and Facebook during the pandemic that showed that women-owned small-medium businesses (SMBs) were more likely to report that they were closed due to Covid-19, and that women were disproportionately bearing the burden of domestic responsibilities.
But not all has been lost. A Deloitte study released for Facebook late last year found that women business leaders showed a greater degree of flexibility in their business models in response to Covid-19. It was indeed commendable to witness ‘womenpreneurs’ bounce back from the effects of the pandemic. Many businesses led by women quickly shifted their businesses online in order to ensure they not just survive, but thrive, even through these difficult times.
We need to celebrate women and their dreams every day, and here are some things I’d want every entrepreneur who is a woman to remember, not just today but every day of the year.
With small businesses forming 30 percent of the GDP, enabling women entrepreneurs is more important than ever and will be critical for the socio-economic transformation of India. With the massive digital acceleration that has ensued over the past year, we will see more and more women trailblazing the way for their communities, building innovative business models, fueling change, and supporting each other to build a brighter tomorrow for our country and the future generations.
The writer is Director – Small and Medium Businesses of Facebook India