Global news | Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global

Archive for the 'Global news' Category

Why Women Don’t Start Businesses and How wegg® Can Help

In 2019, wegg® wants to help all women entrepreneurs, from the seasoned to the aspiring, achieve their business ambitions. We can help you go global, and assist with the obstacles that usually prevent women from reaching their full business potential.

What are some of the barriers women face when trying to start an entrepreneurial career, that wegg® aims to alleviate? Glad you asked.

In a recent report from The Economic Times, a group of women in India were polled on the reasons that they are not able to start their own independent businesses. The Times states,

“Of the homemakers who aspire to start their own business or pursue a hobby to make money, 69 per cent said the greatest barrier was lack of sufficient funds, 63 per cent said home responsibilities took up most of their time, 39 per cent said it was lack of guidance and 36 per cent reported that it was a lack in confidence.”

When the women were asked about what kinds of solutions would aid them in overcoming the aforementioned obstacles, the results were,

“62 per cent said it was financial/funding support, while 51 per cent said they needed self-confidence or counseling the most.”

Enter wegg®. We provide FREE monthly webinars that cover a varying array of topics. At these events, “wegginars®,” we have an entrepreneurial expert present on a business subject of their choice, combined with a participant Q&A. Anyone around the world can participate in these accessible events, and all at no charge. Get a head start on your resolutions this year, and let wegg® help you take your business to new heights.

Registration is open and free for Laurel Delaney’s 1/9 talk. She will present her annual global trade trends report 2019. Join us. Register here.

Happy New Year from Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global!

Published December 31, 2018 Announcement , Enlighten Me! , Global news , global women entrepreneurs , Inspiration , Leadership , Photos (magnificent) , Seasonal Leave a Comment
Tags: 2019, connect with you on January 9th, fantastic year, Happy New Year, impactful educational programs, thank you for your readership, wegg dance, wegg helps women expand businesses beyond borders, wegg sing, wegginar®, women entrepreneurs grow global

What a fantastic year here at Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global™! We’ve accomplished a lot in 2018 (check it out here) and we look forward to delivering even more impactful educational programs in 2019.

Thank you for your readership and active engagement to wegg®. We also thank our sponsors because without them, our progress would not nearly be as great. Oh, and need we give a shout out to our wegg team? Of course! Put your hands together and let’s applaud them too. They make wegg sing and dance and help women expand businesses beyond borders.

Best wishes for a new year filled with joy, pushing boundaries, good health and prosperity. Connect with you on January 9th at our next wegginar®!

Teach a Woman to Fish & Go Global, and You’ll Feed Her & Her Business for a Lifetime

Published December 10, 2018 Announcement , Barriers to trade , Business Development , Country specific , Culture , Economic growth , Education , emerging markets , Enlighten Me! , Environmental , Equality , Gender challenges , Global news , global women entrepreneurs , How-to , Innovation , Inspiration , International business , Social Entrepreneurship , Sustainability practices , Trends , Working abroad , World entrepreneurship , World Travel Leave a Comment
Tags: economic development, Economic growth, equality of sexes, gender equality, gender equality worldwide, global economy, global growth, global trends, go global, Rwanda, women entrepreneurs, women's issues, women's rights

Everyone knows the classic adage, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.”

But wegg® knows, “Give a woman a fish, and you feed her for a day. Teach a woman to fish and go global, and you feed her and her business for a lifetime.” This idea is the essence of wegg®’s mission: “to educate, inspire and nurture women business owners and entrepreneurs worldwide on how to go global, so they can run healthier businesses and create a new future for themselves, their families and their community.”

Our goal as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization is to teach the women entrepreneurs of the world how to take their businesses global, and we are always thrilled to hear about the triumphs of women entrepreneurs around the world. Recently, we read a New York Times article covering the reform of Rwanda’s fishing industry, from an exclusively male world, to a community of women entrepreneurs. Author Shannon Sims describes the change,

“The intense physical work and danger that comes with fishing on Lake Kivu, along with reinforcement from traditional gender roles, kept women from fishing for generations, tending to backyard farms instead. But in post-genocide Rwanda, that seems to be changing. Today, women form an essential part of the national market for Lake Kivu fish. Besides fishing on the lake at night, women also gather along the shores in the early morning to buy the fish the fisherwomen deliver. They then haul those fish home to their small villages, or sell the fish to cooperatives.”

This newfound emphasis of women on the business side of Rwanda’s fish economy has inspired the development of Projet Pêche, a fishing cooperative made up of 87 women, in Kibuye, a town along the banks of Lake Kivu. This collective has had a supremely positive impact on the lives of Rwandan women. Just listen to one woman, Bonifrida Mukabideri’s, account,

“A lot of women have used the cooperatives to fight poverty. Here in Rwanda we now have the idea that women and men can do every job…Now a woman can say: ‘I can build a house by myself. I can look after my family properly. And even if my husband dies, we can live a better life.’”

wegg® would love to help global women entrepreneurs like Mukabideri feed themselves, their families, and their communities for a lifetime…by fostering an expanding global business that thrives for generations. For more information on the resources wegg® has to offer women entrepreneurs, check out our education page.

Everything You Need to Know from Our wegginar® with Cristina Bandal

Published November 12, 2018 Announcement , Barriers to trade , Branding , Business Development , Capital (working) , Contributors , Cross border compliance , Culture , e-commerce , Economic growth , Education , Email marketing , emerging markets , Enlighten Me! , Exporting , Foreign office setup , global branding , Global news , Global trade , global women entrepreneurs , How-to , Importing , International business , Logistics/transportation , Management , Marketing , Networking , Outsourcing , Social Media and Network , Technology , Web globalization , wegg event , wegginar , World entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: exports, global economic growth, global economy, global growth, global marketplace, global markets, global online presence, Global Products, global reach, International business, international expansion, international market, international marketplace, international trade, international trade and commerce, Marketing, small business online community, UPS, women business owners, women entrepreneurs

This past Wednesday, wegg® had the pleasure of hosting the Industry Segment Manager of Retail and Consumer Goods for UPS, Cristina Bandal. Bandal lead one of our free online wegginars®, which provide monthly, accessible education to women entrepreneurs everywhere. Bandal’s talk covered how to overcome the obstacles that people face when trying to sell their products to the global market. She also answered the questions of wegginar® participants. Read their inquiries, and her responses, below:

What’s the single biggest challenge on why people don’t setup an online storefront? Setting up an international store may sound complicated if you are thinking of creating a country site – but with only a few enhancements, you can make international customers feel at home.
What are your thoughts on how to factor in taxes, (shipping and duty), to price my products profitably, yet make them affordable to my customers? With the solution available, your catalogue will provide the information needed to calculate a duty and tax, and offer a landed cost to your customers (and protect you from abandoned goods!)
How does our current trade war with China impact the information presented in this wegginar®? Whatever tariff regulations are passed are updated to protect the shipments.
Is there a way to target one foreign market when I launch my e-commerce site so that I can test the waters? YES!! You can choose what countries to target.
What’s the best way to setup a payment method, in your own currency or the customer’s? International consumers would like to see their own currency to avoid surprises. By using the UPS i-parcel solution, you are protected by allowing transactions to be processed through UPS, and provide fraud protection.

To read Bandal’s extended answers to these questions, and more, you can view the full presentation (PDF) from the wegginar®, here. wegg® was honored to have Bandal share her experience and knowledge with us.

If you were not able to participate in this month’s wegginar®, we already have registration open for our 12/5 talk with Andrew Molinsky, Ph.D. He will talk about how, “if you are not outside your comfort zone, you won’t learn anything.” Register here.

Women Entrepreneurship in the EU: The Numbers

Published September 3, 2018 Business Development , Economic growth , Enlighten Me! , Equality , Gender challenges , Global news , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation , Inspiration , International business , Micro-enterprises , Trends , World entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: entrepreneur, european union, female entrepreneurs, resources for women, small business ownership, Small Business Trends, statistics, women around the world, women business owners, women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurship, women in business, women in business statistics, women's issues

Screen Shot 2018-08-30 at 11.30.14 AM

On a global scale, women are less likely than men to start their own businesses. This is evident from the above graph, taken from the “Policy Brief on Women’s Entrepreneurship.” The data shows that in every EU country, from 2010-14, there were significantly less female owners of new businesses, than male.

Why is this the reality?

The OECD SME and Entrepreneurship analysis proposes that a:

“…key factor in explaining the gender gap is the social and institutional context [of the countries]. Paradoxically, national-level gender equality is negatively associated with women’s self-employment choice compared to men’s (Klyver et. al., 2013), suggesting that gender equality policies in the labour market may cause women to prefer employment over self-employment (Nielsen et. al., 2010). Similarly, more supportive work-family institutions are associated with larger gender gaps in terms of business size, growth aspirations, innovativeness and use of technology. This appears to indicate that it is important to look beyond simple proportions of women and men entrepreneurs to the motivations and quality of the business, with the hypothesis that greater gender equality may improve good quality businesses and business creation based on positive choices by women, while reducing poorer quality business creation based on lack of choice.”

One of the economic reasons that women might choose employment over the entrepreneurial self-employed path, is that self-employed women make less money than self employed men, on average. This finding is displayed in the graphic below:

Screen Shot 2018-08-30 at 12.06.00 PM.png

Other factors, such as lack of resources and training for women in business, are consistently cited as justification for the lack of women entrepreneurs in the global . market. This apparent neglect of a business education for women is highlighted in the graph below:

Screen Shot 2018-08-30 at 11.25.46 AM.png

As displayed by the image, at least thirteen out of the twenty-two countries in the EU showed a significant gender gap in perceived accessibility to business training. This is where wegg™ can help. Our mission is to educate, inspire and nurture women business owners and entrepreneurs worldwide on how to go global so they can run healthier businesses and create a new future for themselves, their families and their community.

We provide monthly resources for women entrepreneurs to become educated on current business strategies in order to go global. If you are interested in entering business, or growing the business you already have, wegg™ can help you. Please check out our website, to discover possibilities you did not even know existed.

_______________________________________________________

JOIN us for our morning wegg™ workshop on September 12th and hosted by Bank of America (135 S. LaSalle Street, 44th Floor). Julie Smolyansky, President and CEO, Lifeway Foods, will present “Follow Your Gut,” covering:

How global factors influence company values and mission
Why we should empower women entrepreneurs around the world
How to channel inspiration from travel experiences into marketing initiatives

Tickets $40 ($20 for students); includes Continental Breakfast. To learn more and to register, visit: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/weggtm-workshop-follow-your-gut-presented-by-julie-smolyansky-tickets-48655708534
__________________________________________

How Mastercard is Investing in Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Nations

Published August 27, 2018 Business Development , Capital (working) , Country specific , Culture , e-commerce , Economic growth , Education , Enlighten Me! , Equality , Gender challenges , Global news , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation , Inspiration , International business , Micro-enterprises , Strategy , World entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: Kenya, MasterCard, Nairobi, Small Biz Resource, small business ownership, small businesss credit, women, women around the world, women business owners, women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurship, women in business, women in the workplace, women's economic status, women's empowerment, women's issues, women's rights, women-owned businesses

bawgggg

In Michelle Martin’s recent Forbes article, “How Mastercard Could Close A $300 Billion Credit Gap For Women Entrepreneurs,” she reports,

“As of 2017, 70% of women-owned MSMEs [micro, small and medium-sized enterprises] in the developing world lack access to adequate financing, representing a $300 billion credit gap each year.”

This major finance inequality stems from MSMEs not having access to a digital record of transactions or the resources required by banks to obtain credit. Because of these issues, women entrepreneurs, in places such as Nairobi Kenya, are not able to gain the capital needed to purchase inventory in order to expand their enterprises. Expanding a business is critical to the success of a business, and makes it possible for the entrepreneur to potentially achieve success on a global level.

Thanks to Mastercard, this $300 billion credit breach is about to change. The corporation is launching technology, through the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth, to aide women owned MSMEs in these countries. Martin explains,

“In partnership with Unilever, Mastercard recently launched the Jaza Duka program in Kenya, where they created a first-of-its-kind digital lending platform. The unique platform tracks how much Unilever product a store owner has purchased over time and combines that data with an analysis by Mastercard. The results are used to provide a micro-credit eligibility recommendation to Kenya Commercial Bank, who can then provide an interest-free credit line.”

The venture is already being met with success. In one instance, a Kenyan entrepreneur named Lucy Njoki, has been able to increase her sales at her shop by twenty-percent, thanks to the Jaza Duka program.

To read Martin’s full piece, and an interview she conducted with one of the executives of this Mastercard program, Shamina Singh, click here.

This support of global women entrepreneurs is the kind of change that we here at wegg™ are proud to watch. If you or a woman entrepreneur you know is trying to “go global,” we would love to help you, too.

_______________________________________________________

How global factors influence company values and mission
Why we should empower women entrepreneurs around the world
How to channel inspiration from travel experiences into marketing initiatives

Unlocking the Full Potential of Women- led SMEs in Indonesia

Published August 20, 2018 Business Development , Country specific , Culture , Education , Enlighten Me! , Equality , Finance , Gender challenges , Global news , Global trade , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation , Inspiration , International business , Leadership , Social Entrepreneurship , Sustainability practices , World entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: global small business, indonesia, small business ownership, SME Toolkit, SMEs, women around the world, women business owners, women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurship, women in business, women's issues, women's rights, women-led SMEs, women-owned businesses, WSMEs

In a recent East Asia Forum article, “Unleashing the capabilities of women-led SMEs in Indonesia,” author Naimah Talib reports that 43 percent of the 26 million small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia are women led or women owned (WSMEs). Not only do these WSMEs make up for ten percent of the country’s GDP, they also lead to social development of the culture by empowering women economically. Besides these major benefits, support of WSMEs aids Indonesia in achieving the UN’s “Sustainable Development Goals”, specifically the tenets of ‘gender equality,’ ‘decent work and economic growth’, and ‘reduced inequality’.

The advantages of backing WSMEs are clear, but why are there limitations on the growth of these organizations? This is the question that Talib proposes. She illustrates just some of the difficulties women who head businesses face. Talib explains,

” …common difficulties for expansion [for WSMEs] include limited access to information about financial support, lack of business and entrepreneurial skills, lack of professional networks and limited government support and services at the local level. Financial support is available for WSMEs, but female entrepreneurs tend to lack information about these options. Female entrepreneurs find that information about government funding programs is often limited, difficult to access or unclear.”

One of Talib’s main arguments suggest that Indonesian policymakers fail to effectively provide WSMEs with the necessary resources to solve these issues. Talib writes of the necessary reform,

“Three areas require greater attention: increasing the accessibility of information, strengthening the institutional capacity of the Creative Economy Agency and improving government services at the local level.”

To read more about the specific solutions posed to the pressing issue of the neglect of Indonesian WSMEs, read the article here.

_______________________________________________________

How global factors influence company values and mission
Why we should empower women entrepreneurs around the world
How to channel inspiration from travel experiences into marketing initiatives

Oxfam Helps Woman Start Jalawla, Iraq’s First “Women’s Only” Plant Nursery

Published August 6, 2018 Business Development , Country specific , Culture , Enlighten Me! , Environmental , Equality , Gender challenges , Global news , global women entrepreneurs , Innovation , Inspiration , International business , Leadership , World entrepreneurship Leave a Comment
Tags: Iraq, Jalawla, Oxfam, Plant Nursery, women around the world, women business owners, women entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurship, women in business, women's empowerment, women's issues, women's rights, women-owned businesses, Zainab

weggggggg

A recent article by Oxfam recounts the inspiring story of Zainab, the first woman in Jalawla, Iraq to sell plants at the town market.

In December 2015, Zainab opened her own plant nursery on the side of her house in Jalawla, Iraq. It was destroyed by ISIS one week later. When she returned to Iraq in 2017, her desire to have her own plant business was still within her. She then ” enrolled in an income-generation project run by Oxfam and funded by the United Nations Development Programme, which distributed $575 grants to 235 people—more than half were women—to relaunch their businesses.” Oxfam’s help has ensured the reestablishment of Zainab’s plant nursery, and it now exists as an agriculture sanctuary for “women only.” On the impact Zainab’s innovative business has had on her community and her personal well-being she says:

“I’m the first and the only woman to open a nursery in [my town]. After the women in Jalawla saw me opening my business, they were encouraged to open their own businesses…When Oxfam told me they would help me reopen my nursery, I became very happy. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Oxfam brought my dream back to me.”

Helping women entrepreneurs, like Zainab, are what organizations like Oxfam and wegg™ exist for. Read more about Zainab’s revolutionary success, and how Oxfam helped make her dreams real, here.

_______________________________________________________

Why go global? How do you start? Where can you find customers? How do you get paid? Find out these answers and learn other best-kept secrets to expanding a business globally.

JOIN us for our first weggchat™ (#weggchat) Wednesday, August 8 from 11:00 a.m. — 12:00 p.m. (noon) Central time on “Take Your Business Global!“ and facilitated by Laurel Delaney, President of WEGG and founder of GlobeTrade.com. Laurel will field questions and add insights on how to take a business global. Small business owners can join the conversation by using the hashtag #weggchat to chime in with questions and answers.

Event is free of charge but you must use tchat.io or twubs.com to follow the conversation using the hashtag #weggchat. See you there!
__________________________________________

Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global

Archive for the 'Global news' Category

Why Women Don’t Start Businesses and How wegg® Can Help

Happy New Year from Women Entrepreneurs Grow Global!

Women Entrepreneurship in the EU: The Numbers

How Mastercard is Investing in Women Entrepreneurs in Developing Nations

Oxfam Helps Woman Start Jalawla, Iraq’s First “Women’s Only” Plant Nursery

wegg® Mission

Donate Your Gift Card to wegg!

Giving Assistant

Enter Your Email Address

Connect

wegg Feed

Partners

Resources

Social Good

Webinar Recordings

World

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Ask a Question

Find an Opportunity

Honors & Awards

Copyright Notice

Archive for the 'Global news' Category

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

Share With The World:

Like this:

wegg® Mission

Donate Your Gift Card to wegg!

Giving Assistant

Enter Your Email Address

Connect

wegg Feed

Partners

Resources

Social Good

Webinar Recordings

World

Recent Posts

Categories

Archives

Ask a Question

Find an Opportunity

Honors & Awards

Copyright Notice