Women are Driving the Optimistic Trend in Micro-Businesses

Women are Driving the Optimistic Trend in Micro-Businesses

 

By Dr. Sathya Menon

Do women make better entrepreneurs than men?  As businesses worldwide are persevering and adapting to a new economy, there is a new trend:  women are driving the new optimistic trend in micro-businesses. 

Many are setting up enterprises that they are easily being able to generate, operate and sustain from their homes.  From bead-making to human potential re-engineering, women are doing a great job of generating money through small enterprises.  “We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change,” said Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook , explaining highlighting how women are becoming the new face of small and medium enterprises worldwide.

Using different innovative and cost-cutting measures, they have been able to sail through the recession and into happier times.  Not surprisingly, an increasing number of women juggling with home and work are now spurning regular employment and have conveniently created workplaces at their homes.

Reports from the US-based National Federation of Independent Businesswomen revealed that women will create over half of the 9.72 million new small business jobs expected to be created by 2018 and more and more will be doing this from home offices across the world.

The reason why women are being able to create and successfully control micro-businesses is because they are frugal and also innovative. Studies showed that controlling costs was the most popular strategy adopted among women entrepreneurs to get through the recession and there was a 52 per cent  increase in the number of women entrepreneurs using social media to boost business while saving on marketing costs.

In the Middle East, the global opinion that women work harder than men to be considered half as good remains contentious. However, statistics reveal that businesswomen control  more than Dh15 billion in investment and the funds are set to increase in the future.

The investments are concentrated mostly in equities, real estate and trade in the UAE and other countries. There are 14,000 women who manage more than 20,000 companies in the UAE, the second largest Arab economy and one of the world’s 10 top oil and gas exporters.

In the UAE and around the world, women are ushering a new revolution nurturing and developing small scale businesses. In the words of Michelle Obama, America’s First Lady : “You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”

 (ENDS)

Dr. Sathya Menon is Academic Director, Blue Ocean Academy, Dubai.