Earlier this week, I was honoured to be able to speak briefly at the Women’s Entrepreneurship Hub meeting in Cardiff.
Established in 2008 to provide a focal point for research, policy and practice in women’s enterprise and entrepreneurship, it has developed a range of initiatives in partnership with a range of organisations including business support bodies, higher education institutions, chambers of commerce and women business owners across Europe and beyond.
It was a humbling experience listening to some of the particular challenges that women face in not only starting a business but managing it afterwards.
And it may be some of those challenges that explain the statistics which show that women in the UK are half as likely as men to be starting a business which means that the economy is losing out on the talents and potential of half of its adult population.
Of course, there are going to be issues that are common to all types of businesses regardless of gender but various studies have shown that there can be specific interventions which can boost female entrepreneurship in the UK.
A report from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has examined this issue in detail and suggested a number of policy interventions to help close the gender gap in new firm formation.
Improving access to finance remains a key issue for women in business and research continues to show that, for whatever reason, the ability to get the right funding for the business is a key challenge to them starting their own business e.g. women on average start their business with a third less capital than those of their male counterparts which can lead to difficulties later.
One way to deal with this is to have a specific campaign to ensure women are aware of all the different sources of finance available to them and to utilise successful examples of how female-led businesses have been able to access funds. Certainly, it is something that the new Development Bank for Wales could focus on as part of its promotional campaigns.
As with access to finance, the same is true for business support in general. Whilst the Entrepreneurship Action Plan for Wales, which ran between 1999 and 2005, emphasised the need for specific support to help women to start and grow their business, subsequent Welsh Government funding has mainstreamed support for every business. As a result, there have been calls for Business Wales to have a more specific focus on women’s entrepreneurship and business support for women.
Similarly, Careers Wales could have a specific part of their website devoted to information related to skills and training for women entrepreneurs and advice on embarking on a career in business.
There are also concerns about whether women are getting a fair deal when it comes to government procurement and there is a distinct lack of diversity when it comes to awarding public sector contracts. In this respect, there could be lessons learnt form the USA where the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Programme was established in 2011 to provide a level playing field for female entrepreneurs to compete. This allows them to compete for set-aside contracts or receive sole source awards in industries where women-owned small businesses are substantially underrepresented.
Whilst that may not happen immediately, it would be good if both the UK and Welsh Governments (as well as other public bodies) would at least measure the women-owned businesses registered with them to supply business products and services, the number of women-owned businesses on their preferred supplier lists and the volume of expenditure per annum with women-owned businesses. This would at least enable the scale of the problem to be identified before strategies can be put into place to deal with it, such as increased training for procurement.
Finally, there needs to be greater visibility of successful female entrepreneurs and owner-managers who can act as role models to raise awareness and encourage entrepreneurship as a career option for women of all ages.
In particular, role models have been shown to play an important role in inspiring young people to explore different career options and opportunities and there should be a greater focus on the excellent work of Big Ideas Wales which is encouraging more entrepreneurship within young people.
Therefore, there are some relatively easy changes that can be made to encourage greater participation by women in enterprise here in Wales. Fortunately, the Welsh Government is currently examining whether it should develop a possible Female Entrepreneurship Strategy for Wales. Let’s hope that they do as having more women becoming entrepreneurs will no doubt boost the Welsh economy over the next few years.