INTERNAL RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT Name of the candidate: Anshu Pasricha Enrollment no.

: 04515903911 Course: MBA Batch: 2011-2013 Semester: III Subject Name: Entrepreneurship & Small Business Management Subject code: MS - 207 Topic of assignment: Women Entrepreneurs Subject Teachers name: Dr.G B Sitaram Date of submission: September 28, 2012

Question:
Interview two women entrepreneurs & find out whether they believe the tasks of being an entrepreneur any different for them than for their male counterparts. What are the disadvantage & advantage of female entrepreneur? Are these different substantial or minor?

ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The word entrepreneur has been derived from the French verb enterprendre. It means to undertake. The Frenchmen who organized and led military expeditions were referred to as entrepreneurs. Around 1700 A.D. the term was used for architects and contractor of public works. In many countries, the term entrepreneur is often associated with a person who starts his own new business. Business encompasses manufacturing, transport, trade and all other selfemployed vocation in the service sector. Entrepreneurship has been considered as the propensity of mind to take calculated risk with confidence to achieve predetermined business objectives. There are many views and opinions on the concept of entrepreneurship forwarded by some of the world famous management gurus and economists as mentioned below which will help in understanding this concept. Entrepreneur is one who understands the market dynamics and searches for change respond to it and exploit it as an opportunity.
The entrepreneurship is very an old concept according to which anyone who runs business is called an entrepreneur. The more precise meaning of entrepreneur is; one who perceives a need and then brings together manpower, material and capital required to meet that need. The entrepreneur is the one who

undertakes to organize, manage, and assume the risks of a business. In recent years entrepreneurs have been doing so many things that it is necessary to broaden this definition. Today, an entrepreneur is an innovator or developer who recognizes and seizes opportunities; converts those opportunities into workable/marketable ideas; adds value through time, effort, money, or skills; assumes the risks of the competitive marketplace to implement these ideas; and realizes the rewards from these' efforts. The entrepreneur is the aggressive catalyst for change in the world of business. He or she is an independent thinker who dares to be different in a background of common events. The literature of entrepreneurial research reveals some similarities, as well as a great many differences, in the characteristics of entrepreneurs. Chief among these characteristics are personal initiative, the ability to consolidate resources, management skills, a desire for autonomy, and risk taking. Other characteristics include aggressiveness, competitiveness, goal-oriented behavior, confidence, opportunistic behavior, intuitiveness, reality-based actions, the ability to learn from mistakes, and the ability to employ human relations skills.

Entrepreneurship consists in doing things that are not generally done in the ordinary course of business routine; it is essentially a phenomenon that comes under the wider aspect of leadership. In entrepreneurship, there is agreement that we are talking about a kind of behavior that includes: (1) initiative taking, (2) the organizing or reorganizing of social economic mechanisms to turn resources and situations to practical account, and (3) the acceptance of risk of failure. Entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. This wealth is created by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time, and/or career commitment of providing value for some product or service. The product or service itself may or may not be new or unique but value must somehow be infused by the entrepreneur by securing and allocating the necessary skills and resources. Entrepreneurship is the result of three dimensions working together: conducive framework conditions, well-designed government programs and supportive cultural attitudes. Across these three perspectives of entrepreneurship, two major conclusions are apparent. Firstly, the economic, psychological and sociological academic fields accept that entrepreneurship is a process. Secondly, despite the separate fields of analysis, entrepreneurship is clearly more than just an economic function.

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
Women Entrepreneurship means an act of business ownership and business creation that empowers women economically, increases their economic strength as well as position in society. Hence women-entrepreneurs have been making a considerable impact in all most all the segments of the economy which is more than 25% of all kinds of business. In India Entrepreneurship is very limited amongst women especially in the formal sector, which is less than 5% of all the business. The emergence of entrepreneurs in a society depends to a great extent on economic, social, religious, cultural and psychological factors prevailing in the society. In many of the advanced countries of the world there is a phenomenal increase in the number of self-employed women after the world war. In U.S women own 25% of all business, even though there sales on an average are

less than 2/5th of those of other small business groups. In Canada, 1/3rd of small business are owned by women and in France, it is 1/5th. In U.K., since 1980, the number of self-employed women has increased 3 times as fast as the number of self-employed men. They have made their mark in business for the following reasons highlighted below: They want to assume new and fresh challenges and opportunities for self-fulfillment. They want to prove their personalities in innovative, daring and competitive jobs. They want to undertake changes to control the balance between their families responsibly and business obligations.

Problems Associated With Women Entrepreneurs:

Basically all women entrepreneurs almost suffer from two main category of problems, such problems can be designated as follows:- 1) Specific Problems 2) General Problems. The first category of problems affect women specifically in their smooth operations of enterprise while the other category of problems have a general or over-all effect on the enterprises owned by such group of women entrepreneurs. Over-all these problems can be summed up as under: Problem of Finances arrangement: Finance is said to be the life blood of every business undertaking, be it large or medium or small scale enterprise. Usually women entrepreneurs face the problems of shortage of finance on two important grounds. Firstly, women do not generally have property on their own names to use that as collateral securities for obtaining loans/funds from banks and other financial institutions. Thus their access to external sources is very limited .Secondly, the banks also consider women less credit worthy and discourage women borrowers on the belief that they cannot repay back the amount of loans taken by them. Scarcity of raw materials required for productive capacities: They have to even face the problems of scarcity of raw-materials and necessary inputs. On the top of this, is the high prices of raw materials, on one hand and getting raw materials at minimum discount rates are the other. Cut-throat competition with other group of men and established self-sufficient entrepreneurs: Women entrepreneurs do not have a proper organizational set-up to pump in a lot of money for canvassing and advertisements. Thus they have to face a stiff competition with the men entrepreneurs who easily involve in the promotion and

development area and carry out easy marketing of their products with both the organized sector and their male counterparts. Such a competition ultimately results in the liquidation of women entrepreneurs. Limited mobility factor in case of women entrepreneurs: Unlike men, women mobility in India is highly limited due to many factors/reasons. A single women asking for room is still looked with suspicion. Cumbersome exercise involved in starting with an enterprise coupled with officials humiliating attitude towards women compels them to give up their spirit of surviving in enterprise altogether. Family responsibilities, ties as well as commitments: In India, mainly a womans duty is to look after her children and manage the other members of the family. Man plays a secondary role only. In case of married women she has to strike a fine balance between her business and family. Her total involvement in family leaves little or almost no time or energy to be diverted for the business activities. Support and approval of husbands seems to be necessary condition for women entry into business. Accordingly, the educational level and family background of husbands also influences women participation in the field of enterprise. Lack of education and prevalent levels of illiteracy amongst women: In India, around 3/5th (60%) of women are still illiterate. Illiteracy is the root cause of socio-economic barriers or hurdles. Due to lack of education and that to qualitative education, women are not aware of business, technology and market knowledge. Also lack of education causes low achievement motivation amongst women. Thus lack of education creates problems before women to set up competitive enterprises. Domination by male and ideology of male dominated society: Male chauvinism is still prevalent in many parts of the country yet. The constitution of India speaks about the equality between both the sexes, i.e. men and women. But in practice, women are looked upon as abla i.e. weak in all respects. Thus women suffer from a number of problems, in a nutshell in a male dominated society; women are not treated equal to men. This in turn, serves as a barrier to womans entry into business. Lesser risk and uncertainty bearing attitude: Women in India lead a protected life. They are even less educated and economically not stable neither self-depended. All these factors

reduce their ability to bear risks and uncertainties involved in a business unit, which are the most important criteria of every business activity. Lack of self-confidence and optimistic attitude amongst women: Today all the women are suffering from one major problem of lack of self-confidence, will-power, strong mental outlook, optimism etc. They always fear from committing mistakes while doing their piece of work, more over there is limited initiative of taking risk and bearing uncertainty in them. Thus all these psychological factors often obstruct their path of achieving success in the area of enterprise. Old and outdated social outlook to stop women from entering in the field of entrepreneurship: Also one of the dominant reasons for their failure is the attitude of society people towards their modern business prospects and developing attitude. Women nowadays have low risk taking ability because of the number of questions put forward by the conservative society people. Thus they are under a social pressure which restrains them to prosper and achieve success in the field of entrepreneurship. Absence of proper support and back-up for women by their own family members and the outside world people: Many a times their own family members are not supporting and cooperating as well as having encouraging attitude to dare to enter into the entrepreneurship field. They are always making many pessimistic feelings to be aroused in their minds and making them feel that family and not business is a place meant for them. Due to such limited scope of help and cooperation from family and other people, they drop the idea of excelling in the enterprise field. Apart from the above discussed problems there may occur other series of serious problems faced by women entrepreneurs are improper infrastructural facilities, high cost of production, attitude of people of society towards the women modern business outlook, low needs of achievement and socio-economic constraints often puts women behind in the field of enterprise.

Advantages:

Social Networking: Lets face itwomen are natural networkers. They love to talk, mingle, and rub elbows. This is the very reason why husbands rarely ever manage the social calendar. In todays business environment, mastering social media is mandatory, and the ladies absolutely have a leg up!

Intuition: They call it womens intuition for a reason. Women in general can size up another person much faster than her male counterpart. In todays ultra-fast paced business environment, you need the ability to quickly identify the allies and the enemies. Regardless if you are a male or female, you need to trust your gut.

Multi-tasking: Women are known for juggling many tasks at the same time and still being able to produce excellent results. Conversely, the guys are masters at focusing on one thing. Still, the advantage in todays distracting environment goes to women.

Patience: Women inherently seem to have more patience. And in todays business environment, patience is key! Aggressive business strategies are not paying off like they once did. Slow and steady wins the race in this category.

Emotional Intelligence: Whereas men have the tendency to think in a systemizing manner, women are more apt to developing emotional intelligence, thus empathizing more, building strong interpersonal skills that are vital for networking and strategically using their social networks in order to build support for their ideas.

Multitask Orientation: Women have the ability of juggling many tasks at the same time, such as talking on the phone, reading their email, scheduling what else needs to be finished for the rest of the day, producing excellent results. Many successful women entrepreneurs are able to balance family life and career. Men are known to have more trouble with multitasking, tending to focus on one or two things, thus wasting opportunities.

Self-Branding Attitude: Women seem to be natural marketers, extremely passionate and enthusiastic about their choices, talking about them and sharing their thoughts. They naturally emphasize the benefits of their services to their potential clients and are aware of how to highlight the positive features.

Patience: An extremely important attribute for business people is constant patience. Visionary entrepreneurs giving up on their dreams after only some months, as a consequence of becoming impatient with the process only proves that vision is not enough.

The ability to wait and see is a key attribute in order to receive positive outcomes and women have it naturally. Motivation: Most of the women who start a business have a great passion for their work and a philanthropic commitment to society. If they have the drive to pursue entrepreneurship, it means they are not afraid of taking risks and will also make monetary gain a less likely factor in their business pursuits. They possess the inner strength to continue and search all possible means to share their business ideas with others.

While female entrepreneurs only represent a small portion of the overall number of businesses in the country right now, make no mistake that percentage will continue to climb. The research shows that the growth of female owned businesses is growing at twice the rate of male owned ones. The more women take the leap and open their business, the more others will follow in line. And because of these advantages, among others, they should have a pretty good chance of succeeding!

WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS:
1. Dr. Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Ltd., who became Indias richest woman in 2004, was educated at the Bishop Cotton Girls School and Mount Carmel College in Bangalore. She founded Biocon India with a capital of Rs.10,000 in her garage in 1978 the initial operation was to extract an enzyme from papaya. Her application for loans were turned down by banks then on three counts biotechnology was then a new word, the company lacked assets, women entrepreneurs were still a rarity. Today, her company is the biggest biopharmaceutical firm in the country. In 1978, she joined Biocon Bio chemicals Limited, of Cork, Ireland as a Trainee Manager. In the same year she started Biocon in the garage of her rented house in Bangalore with a seed capital of Rs. 10,000. Initially, she faced credibility challenges because of her youth, gender and her untested business model. Not only was funding a problem as no bank wanted to lend to her, but she also found it difficult to recruit people for her start-up. With

single-minded determination she overcame these challenges only to be confronted with the technological challenges associated with trying to build a biotech business in a country facing infrastructural woes. Uninterrupted power, superior quality water, sterile labs, imported research equipment, and advanced scientific skills were not easily available in India during the time. She is responsible for steering Biocon on a trajectory of growth and innovation over the years. Within a year of its inception, Biocon became the first Indian company to manufacture and export enzymes to USA and Europe. In 1989, Biocon became the first Indian biotech company to receive US funding for proprietary technologies. In 1990, she upgraded Biocons in-house research program, based on a proprietary solid substrate fermentation technology. In the same year, she incorporated Biocon Biopharmaceuticals Private Limited to manufacture and market a select range of bio therapeutics in a joint venture with the Cuban Centre of Molecular Immunology. In 2004, she decided to access the capital markets to develop Biocons pipeline of research programs. Biocons IPO was oversubscribed 32 times and its first day at the bourses closed with a market value of $1.11 billion, making Biocon only the second Indian company to cross the $1-billion mark on the first day of listing. She entered into more than 2,200 high-value R&D licensing and other deals within the pharmaceuticals and bio-pharmaceutical space between 2005 and 2010 and helped Biocon expand its global footprint to emerging and developed markets through acquisitions, partnerships and in-licensing. Her belief that healthcare needs can only be met with affordable innovation has been the driving philosophy that has helped Biocon manufacture and market drugs cost-effectively. In 200708, a leading US trade publication, Med Ad News, ranked Biocon as the 20th leading biotechnology companies in the world and the 7th largest biotech employer in the world. Biocon also received the 2009 Bio Singapore Asia Pacific Biotechnology Award for Best Listed Company.

Today, thanks to her leadership, Biocon is building cutting-edge capabilities, global credibility and global scale in its manufacturing and marketing activities. It has Asias largest insulin and statin facilities also the largest perfusion-based antibody production facilities.

2. Neelam Dhawan, Managing Director, Microsoft India, leads Microsoft India. She is a graduate from St. Stephens College in 1980, and also passed out from Delhis Faculty of Management studies in 1982. Then she was keen on joining FMCG majors like Hindustan Lever and Asian Paints, both companies rejected Dhawan, as they did not wish to appoint women for marketing and sales. Neelam Dhawan, the Indian women entrepreneur was the managing director and the head of Microsoft India and the company's marketing sales and operations from 2005-08. Neelam started her career with the FMCGs like Asian Paints and Hindustan Lever. She then couldn't continue to be a part of the marketing and sales as the organization didn't prefer a woman to head the particular domain so she become the Vice-President of Customer Solutions Group before joining Microsoft. Neelam Dhawan is settled in Gurgaon and is in the IT Sector for the past 22 years. She has a good record of maintaining customer and partner relationships. She has worked in top IT Companies like HCL, IBM and is currently The MD at HP. HP is the 4th largest IT Company in the country after TCS, Infosys and Wipro. At Microsoft India, she was responsible for growing Microsoft's products and services businesses and plays a key role in driving the company's partnerships and strategic alliances. An economics graduate from St Stephen's College, Delhi, Neelam did her MBA from Faculty of Management Studies in Delhi University. She does not appear in media very often partly because she chooses not to flash her credentials and accomplishments to get fame. HP's success in India has been a result of innovative adaptation of its solutions to the requirements. The banking sector's financial inclusions initiatives will not turn profitable for many years so Dhawan created solutions that "ensure our customers remain competitive".

After over 22 years in the industry, Dhawan, the Indian women entrepreneur attributes her success largely to her parents who never differentiated between her and her brother, and then her immediate family (a doting mother-in-law who quit her job when her elder daughter Naina, now 16, was born, and a supporting husband Atul Dhawan, a partner at Deloitte Haskins).