With changing times, women in India have broken the household stereotype and are boldly starting up businesses. The start-up scene which mostly saw men innovating is now experiencing a paradigm shift where women are coming forth to give them stiff competition. However, it isn’t very easy for women to break the age-old stereotypes and work as effortlessly as they’d like to.
Here are a few challenges business women face in the country:
1. Prioritization
Constantly caught between household chores and the business they’d like to dedicate their life to, women are struggling to dedicate all their time to a business. Prominent in tier-II and tier-III cities, women are often chained back due to the responsibilities they owe to their families. This poses as a hindrance to their professional growth.
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2. Marketing problems
To enter a field which has been dominated by males, is a daunting task for women. Men have also ruled over the marketing zone for many years which is why women find themselves lagging behind in this area. They have to rely on middlemen and outsource these tasks to capture bigger markets which eat up a major chunk of their profits.
3. Limited access to resources
Women are often looked down upon with suspicion in this country when they ask for a space to run their business. The attitude of the society in general towards a woman trying to compete in a man’s world is deterring. This also results in women receiving lesser access to varied resources like raw materials, labour, machinery etc.
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4. Funding issues
Venture capitalists look to invest in businesses which are promising. However, they have the general pre-conceived notion that women aren’t dedicated towards the cause and might leave the business any time. This belief leads to lesser capitalists investing in women-run businesses. What is worse is that their scope of funding via angel investors also gets limited due to the same reason.
5. Male-dominated society
The constitution and social media speak of equality between the sexes, but, no one can deny the fact that the country is still a patriarchal and male-dominated society. Due to this regressive belief, women are considered weak and economically unstable which hinders their chances of starting up a successful venture. Any deviation from this belief isn’t treated very favourably which is why women have to work doubly hard to make things happen.
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However, many women have come forth to overcome these difficulties and have carved a niche for themselves in the Indian entrepreneurial scene. A few of the powerful women entrepreneurs are Upasna Taku, founder of Mobikwik, Sabina Chopra, founder of Yatra.com, Richa Kar, founder of Zivame, Falguni Nayyar founded Nykaa etc.