Pune, India, 11 December 2016: Lady entrepreneurs, also known as women entrepreneurs, encompass approximately 1/3 of all entrepreneurs Worldwide – however they constitute only 10 percent of the total number of entrepreneurs in India. In order to help women entrepreneurs organize and scale up their businesses, Pune-headquartered not-for-profit deAsra Foundation conducted a business workshop that aimed to provide a platform to existing and budding women entrepreneurs from Pune.
For any nation, Women entrepreneurship development is an essential part of human resource development. And it is in this direction that deAsra intends to address their business-related issues and queries. Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire. Women are more likely to better understand customer perspective and they are often better at building long-term relationships than men. Lasting relationships benefit a business tremendously, as only so much can be achieved without trust, with employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, government, etc.
Announcing the launch of a dedicated platform for the women entrepreneurs, Ms Pradnya Godbole, CEO of deAsra Foundation, said, “Today, business is no more exclusive domain of men. Apart from managing households, today’s women are as good as in running businesses as men. LEAP, Lady Entrepreneurs Across Pune, is deAsra Foundation’s initiative to empower woman entrepreneurs by providing them necessary support to take their enterprises to the next level.”
deAsra’s LEAP program aims to help women entrepreneurs to provide a formal structure to their business setups, and grow by scaling up. The program also aims to help women entrepreneurs to get compliant with all requirements of business, and acquaint them with one of the most critical aspects of running a business successfully – networking. “Networking not only helps in connecting entrepreneurs with their potential customers, it also helps them connect with other important stakeholders like investors, managers, regulators etc. who are responsible for shaping the future of fledgling businesses.”
Interested women entrepreneurs can become members of deAsra Foundation to get business guidance and support from an experienced and qualified team of business experts. deAsra Foundation offers the following services to all its entrepreneur members:
- Evaluations for readiness to start/grow, current compliance & financial position
- Project Report Creation & Viability Assessment
- Bankable Proposal Creation & Facilitation of Funding
- Registrations/Licenses
- Legal Assistance – legal entity formation, leave/license agreements, etc
- Digital marketing & design
- Financial management, Accounting & ITR filing support
- Information & support for getting on e-Commerce & Cashless platforms
- Reference Guides (deasra.in) & Udyog Mitra handholding throughout the journey
The LEAP workshop organized in association with PULA –Pune Ladies (a very popular Facebook group with 60000 members) on Sunday was a major success with more than 150 women entrepreneurs across Pune coming together to get acquainted with the nitty-gritties of management and scaling up businesses. While introducing deAsra and LEAP to the gathering of the women entrepreneurs, Ms Godbole also narrated the attributes of successful women entrepreneurs.
- LEAP aims to provide a platform to existing and potential women entrepreneurs to address their business-related issues and queries
- Help women understand Types of Businesses, Types of Legal Entities, Compliance: Licenses & Registrations, Viability Assessment, Readiness to start or grow a business, Sources of Finance, Finance Management, Marketing, and provide business services under one roof.