WOMEN AS AN ENTREPRENEUR.

A woman who initiate,organize and run a business enterprise is a woman entrepreneur. In business concept of innovative entrepreneur; woman who innovate, initiate or adopt a business activity is called entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, a woman has to perform all the functions involved in establishing an enterprise; these includes: idea generation, determination of objectives, project preparation, product analysis, completion of promotional formalities, raising funds and operations of business. In a nutshell; women entrepreneurship revolve around every aspect of business.

 Today, women vis-a-vis men, acknowledge and avail the business opportunities around them. Woman entrepreneurship has gained popularity around the world over the last four decades,this is because of  the fact that the  opportunities offered by women entrepreneurs help grow markets and increase employment prospects, but despite such progress there are some challenges that women have to face.One  important issue that we as a woman  have to fight is a gender gap; though gender gap is a global phenomenon but in a conservative country like Pakistan it is more severe than other parts of the world.

1) Women do not generally have property on their names to use them for obtaining funds.

2) Our access to external sources for funds is limited.

3)Unlike men limited mobility women specially in Asia is highly limited due to various reasons. A single woman asking for room is still looked upon suspicious.

4) We have to face a stiff competition for marketing their product with both organized sector and their male counterpart.

 5)Lack of education is also a big problem because illiteracy is the root cause of socio-economic problems,

6) In most Asian countries; family ties are also hurdle for women enterprises especially in case of a married woman, she has to strike a fine balance between her business and family.

7) Male dominated society is such a big issue. Male chauvinism is still order of the day in many countries.

In addition to above problems inadequate infrastructural facilities, shortage of power, high cost of production, social attitude, low need for achievement and socioeconomic constraints also hold the women back from entering into the business world. On the other hand women entrepreneurship has hit a media tipping point. The question is! Is it just a passing media fad that will soon be a blip on the radar screen or is it actually a real fundamental economic force that is reshaping the world? I think it is safe to say that it is the later.

In the world, and also in our country;Pakistan,the fear of business failure rates among women are equal to or less than that of men. Woman entrepreneurship revolves around four main trouble opportunities: recognition, networking, financing and performance of firms; These are the main foundation upon which females can build and run their own businesses. Some of the problems faced by women entrepreneurs in our country like Pakistan are finance problems, as finance is counted as life blood for an enterprise and females suffer from this shortage on all counts.

Women owned entities in formal sector represent approximately 37% of enterprises globally, which is worthy of attention while aggregated data is often calling to find. The recent Global Entrepreneurship Mentor (GEM) found 126 million women starting or running businesses and 98 million operating established (over three and half years) businesses. That is 224 million women are impacting the global economy and this survey counts only 67 of the 188 countries recognized by world bank.

Being brought up in a patriarchal society, where men are always given the first opportunity to succeed in life but women have always strived to go the extra mile to emerge as a trail blazers in number of areas.While female entrepreneurs only represent a small portion of the overall number of the business in the country right now, but research shows that the growth of female owned businesses is going  at twice the rate of that of male counterpart. The more women that take leap and start their enterprises, the more the other women will have the “will” to follow the line.

Women entrepreneurs are making their way in business world in a big way. It is used to be called a guys world, and business used to play naturally into a male mindset but not so anymore. Gone are the days when women were portrayed as caregivers, today women entrepreneurs have made their way into the top echelon of corporate firms. Women are scoring high and earning plaudits for their leadership skills.Moreover, women also have some trump cards for their existence in business world, like networking; as women are natural networkers, they love to talk, mingle and rub elbows. In today’s  world of business, social networking is much more important and luckily socializing has never been an issue for women, they can be great communicators. Women are also known for their ability to channel their energy into the right direction especially when they adorn a responsible position. Unlike men,women have senses that clink when a small detail goes out of hand. Her natural pre-disposition towards better listening, capable of effective dealing with stressful situations and coming up with intelligent solutions give her the extra push to be at the top.  She has the ability of effortlessly slip into different roles while at the same time ensuring the quality does not suffer. Women are multi taskers; this gives them an upper hand at managing various scenarios. Being a woman is tough, but working with her is not.Last but not the least women are cool power leaders as the corporate world is on the move from hot to cool power leadership.

Entrepreneurial activity creates growth and opulence and solutions for social problems. Today’s trends show that women will be a driving force of entrepreneurial growth in future. One should  be sympathetic,  encouraging and empowering in their entrepreneurship  strive and will be successful soon.