How to create a few power puff women

Specially designed entrepreneurial programmes for women help them do just that while making a living out of doing something they love.

Heading out on a limb requires passion and panache. In an effort to empower and educate women entrepreneurs to create business enterprises, several entrepreneurial courses have sprung up in recent times.

One such course is being offered by the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), in association with the Nadathur S Raghavan Center for Entrepreneurial Learning (NSRCEL), called the Management Program for Women Entrepreneurs. Let’s find out what one can absorb from it.

The business plan

Your impressive enthusiasm can get you far but if you don’t have a business plan in place, you just might be called a dreamer. Prof. Anjana Vivek, IIMB faculty and course director, agrees, “Preparing a business plan is an important topic in any programme on entrepreneurship.

This helps an entrepreneur in thinking through the process of starting and managing a business. Issues relating to preparation of the plan were discussed in classroom sessions as well as in offline discussions. In addition, participants were encouraged to submit draft plans for a preliminary review to faculty members associated with the programme. This helped many participants get multiple perspectives on their plans and validate some of their ideas.”

More than just a plan

A good business plan alone will not spell success. Vivek adds, “Writing a brilliant plan is not a guarantee for success. The key is in the implementation. The ability of the entrepreneur to react to a changing environment and to be able to look beyond the business plan is important. The more one internalises the idea, and the better are the chances of success.”

Here are some of the success stories to emerge out of the course...

Fashionably entrepreneurial

Vineeta Ojha and Sachi met each other at the Women Entrepreneurship programme. And the rest is history. Ojha narrates, “I had been teaching fashion technology in a Bangalore college for some time, while Sachi, after graduating from NIFT, had been doing freelance dress designing. We met during the course. During the course both of us shared our individual goals and aspirations, and decided to explore the possibility of jointly starting a business. While doing our project, our initial ideas were further developed and crystallised. We also became aware of the process to register a business, the people to approach, the process of applying for a loan, etc.”

What did they learn?

“This course provided us with the knowledge of business disciplines, like accounting, marketing and PR. This course also gave us a platform where like-minded people could come together and work towards their cherished dreams of becoming entrepreneurs,” explains Ojha.
The final result

“A budding entrepreneur should be ready to accept setbacks and adapt to new ideas. We met lots of women entrepreneurs during the course, who had already gone through the process of establishing their business. After these interactions, we were not scared of failure. And our efforts bore fruit in the form of Apala Creations, our very own designer label,” enthuses Ojha.

Holistic healers

In today’s stress-ridden world, a holistic approach to health is essential in treating a person. Keeping with this, Suja Issac, a nutritionist by profession and wife of Dr. Mathai, a homeopathic doctor, had started the SOUKYA International Holistic Health Centre. The only issue here was that neither of them had a background in business. Issac explains, “We felt that, as I was to look into administration and management, it was most appropriate to join a programme which could help me learn more about it. I particularly wanted to learn Financial Management (FM). It is amazing how some basic formulas in FM can help you understand more about your own business.”

Why holistic healing?

“In India, we felt there was a need to establish a centre of high repute, offering authentic treatment which is need based with delivery of services on an international standard to attract both national and international clientele. We have thus succeeded in attracting people from over 40 countries who continue to come on repeated visits. We launched the project with our own equity, bank borrowing and memberships and have started making profits in the 2nd year of operation,” states Issac proudly.

Before joining the course...

“...there were questions in my mind as to whether we were running our business properly. Personally, I feel if one is passionate about the business and believes in oneself and one’s ideas and pays attention to detail, the business will become viable. The course reaffirmed what we were practicing, gave us new ideas to implement,” excites Issac.

So, do women make for better entrepreneurs? What makes them so special? Galliara enthuses, “One skill they have is of persistence and the belief that will be able to sail through. And the second factor is that they are able to work with minimal resources and then scale up. “ Given the kind of enthusiasm that these women possess, it is no wonder they are proving their mettle as leaders, both inside and outside the boardroom!