By Rome Jorge
The Female Foundry Accelerator Program—developed by Dentsu Aegis Network in partnership with the women empowerment initiatives such as Female Founders, Women Unlimited and Facebook’s She Means Business—mentors, develops, and finances female-founded tech-focused start-ups across Asia to accelerate their business plans and produce concrete results. And it is program based on real needs and opportunities.
Denstu Aegis Network—a part of of Dentsu Inc. made up of ten global network brands: Carat, Dentsu, Dentsu media, iProspect, Isobar, mcgarrybowen, Merkle, MKTG, Posterscope and Vizeum and supported by its specialist/multi-market brands—shared with adobo magazine an authoritative report on the issue of female Asian entrepreneurs entitled “Hear Her Voice: Amplifying the Voice of Female Entrepreneurs in South East Asia” that cited several salient facts.
According to the World Economic Forum:
In Southeast Asia 56% of online women are self-employed merchants.
In Vietnam 69% of these women are engaged in informal work and only 31% are formally employed.
In Singapore 89% of women are formally employed but remain hindered in corporate advancement.
According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 2015:
In ASEAN countries 66% of people view entrepreneurship as a positive career choice, in contrast to 62.4% globally.
Dentsu Aegis Network’s own proprietary Consumer Connection System (CCS) Female Entrepreneur Study, built upon its initial research in 2015 with a new study in 2016 that posed specific questions to over 1,500 female entrepreneurs aged 18-64 in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The ongoing study had several insights:
In Southeast Asia 41% of these female entrepreneurs are employing 1-5 staff with the goal to expand in the next 12 months.
In Southeast Asia over a third of female entrepreneurs are reselling products as a main source of income.
In Southeast Asia 83% of female entrepreneurs conduct their businesses through social media.
In Southeast Asia over 90% of successful female entrepreneurs would mentor future entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey.
In Vietnam 85% of female entrepreneurs are millennials.
In Indonesia 93% of female entrepreneurs are urban.
In Indonesia 42% of business transactions are done through mobile.
In Indonesia over 25% are earning more now than they did when they were employed and the most successful start-ups are making close to US$1million a year.
In Thailand over 50% of small owner-operated online businesses are taking place on Facebook.
The CCS Female Entrepreneur Study listed the hindrances to women business starters:
Took a long time before seeing profit 34%
Being a solo operator 24%
Working long hours 18%
Difficulty finding people with the necessary skillset 15%
Lacking knowledge and support 14%
The CCS Female Entrepreneur Study queried its respondents about their business plans for the next 12 months:
Sell items online 46%
Take a course to learn new skills 31%
Develop a website 31%
Develop a social media site 30%
Take a course to improve skills 26%
Get financial backing 22%
The white paper acknowledges, “Grab, Luxola, Orami, and Rappler are all female-founded businesses underpinned by technology that have raised the tech ecosystem as a whole in South East Asia.”
Ruth Stubbs, global president of iProspect, a partner of Denstu Aegis’ Female Foundry, notes, “By 2030, 80% of the global middle class will live outside the developed world; today these markets are home to the poorest and most disadvantaged people on the planet. This confluence will be one of the biggest disrupters to business as we know it.”
Marie Gruy, head of research, Carat Asia Pacific, observes, “This growing movement towards online selling, led by women, not only empowers women to have a voice in how they run their lives but ultimately a much wider and positive impact on local economies and communities.”
Bonnâe Ogunlade, regional associate insight director of Carat Asia Pacific, attests, “This white paper shows that women in emerging markets are becoming more empowered by technology to support themselves and their families by starting up their own businesses, but that they are still facing challenges in many areas. With this, we’re armed with the knowledge to work with our clients to connect with these women in more meaningful ways and to help these female led start-ups drive success for their businesses.”
Grounded in these data, the Female Foundry Accelerator Program has moved ahead with several ongoing initiatives such as a two-month course for female-founded businesses with a focus on tech based in South or Southeast Asia that already have a sustainable long-term business plan and have already secured seed funding on how to effectively scale businesses from September to October 2016 that culminated in a demo-day in early December that opened up possible second-round funding from a panel of five venture capitalists tat included Dentsu Ventures, Monk’s Hill Ventures, NSI Ventures, Seed Plus, and TNF Ventures.
Interested Asian female entrepreneurs can find more opportunities at http://femalefoundry.asia and can follow the hashtag #HearHerVoice on social media.
#HearHerVoice from Dentsu Aegis Network on Vimeo.
