Women Entrepreneurship - Entrepreneur - Case Study - Research Paper - Entrepreneurship -

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“WOMEN ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A CASE STUDY OF
ASKFORASSISTANT OF PUSHPALATHA.R IN BENGALURU”
Author
Prof. Manjunath B Kabadi
Assistant Professor
Sai Vidya Institute of Technology
Rajanukunte, Bangalore – 64
E – Mail id: - Manjunath.bkabadi@saividya.ac.in
Contact: - +91 7019236110
Co – Author
Prof. Vasavi R
Assistant Professor
Brindavan College
Bangalore - 63
E – Mail id: Vasavii2014@gmail.com
Contact: - +91 8197034997

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LIST OF TABLES
TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE NO.
Table 1
Conceptual framework based on challenges faced by one
women entrepreneur
9
LIST OF FIGURES
FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE NO.
Figure 1
Business Model in approaching client –
Ask for Assistant
10

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ABSTRACT
Women entrepreneurship; an importance to be given in the present economic liberalization
and development for a country. Women play a main role when it comes to looking after her
family that in turn leads to nations and general society. Subramania Bharati ; a Tamil writer
and a great poet had reminded about the ancient Vedas in one of his songs, Puthumai Penn in
other words women of Future India. According to Vedas, “Every Place where women are
treated with respect, there God Himself dwells”. There are many successful women
entrepreneurs in India. And government of India has taken initiatives such as Mudra yojana
Scheme for Women, Mahila Udyam Nidhi Scheme, Stree Shakthi Package for women
entrepreneur. In India, the Women play a key role in society, but still there are no proper
entrepreneurial skills because it been untapped. And the main reason is women in society
have still lower status. Now women are becoming more powerful with more knowledge and
education in every field. Women are not constrained only to home based activity; they are
well equipped even in business with respect to IT services too. AskForAssistant is one such
IT service sector in Bengaluru owned by a Women Entrepreneur Pushpalatha.R that stands as
role model. In this paper we are trying to entitle how important a Women entrepreneur is in
making herself identify with respect in this society and also understand factors and the
challenges faced by entrepreneur in starting up the business.
Keywords: Women Entrepreneurship, Factors, Challenges.
INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship is not that easy task. It is dealing with something new innovated product or
services rendered with available resources. Entrepreneurship is a process of utilising the
available resources in an effective and efficient manner to render a product or service with an
innovation or new idea in it. Entrepreneur generally bares high risks while starting up
business. Women are now started to be a Job-Maker and also a Home-Maker. As women
have entered to the business, the demographic character and the business have been changes
its perspective. Women based businesses and enterprises are been focused to improve the
economy and society in which they live in. Women being an Entrepreneur not only improve
the economy of country; it also gives an identity of the women in the society with more
respect that she earns. This is also an inspiration or Role model for other Women who have a
dream of their own business.

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Any business to start up holds a high risk and sustainability in this competitive world.
There are many challenges women entrepreneurs face to sustain their business in long term
with good profits. In every sectors we now can see women with high post and also with own
business. To all their efforts many factors are to be focused on such as, qualification,
knowledge, experience, financial supports, family supports, males with broad mind
especially who are playing main role in an women life. In IT sector, the services for the
clients who target other country is another business where the women are concentrating on
mainly because it has the work from home facility. With increase in technology and other
infrastructure facility the business of IT servicing has been mad easier. But the difficult task
is get sustained in this competitive world. This case is about women entrepreneur
Pushpalatha.R, Owner of AskForAssistant in IT Servicing in Bengaluru, India.
LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Yogita Sharma, (2013), in their study concentrates on how to make awareness that
would make us understand about the rationale of diversification. It concluded that
women face lot of problems such as barriers in society, more production cost, male
dominating etc. It also identifies the various government initiatives that support the
Women entrepreneurs.
2. Hemanthkumar P. Bulsara, et al., (2014), in their study the aim was how the
innovations in business would help the women entrepreneur successful in their
business in Surat, India. Paper concludes that women entrepreneurs require lots of
awareness about entrepreneurship i.e. moulding their trait and skills to match the
current trends.
3. Pushpa G. Malagittimath, et al., (2017), aimed on studying about an women
entrepreneur and her journey of success in the business in Shivamogga district, India.
This study revealed some factors that a women entrepreneur should acquire to be
successful such as innovation, risk taking, very determined, leadership quality, etc.
4. Hemantkumar P. Bulsara, et al., in their study concentrated on one women
entrepreneur; challenges faced etc. this paper came up with a conceptual framework
with the factors describing the challenges faced by the entrepreneur such as Economic
factors, Social factors, facilitating, mobility, competition etc.

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OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY
The main objective of the paper is to study one women entrepreneur, her journey in the IT
sector and what were her challenges working in IT sector in Bengaluru, India. The main
source of data was Primary which was collected through the Personal interview from the
women entrepreneur in the company premises at Bengaluru. The secondary source of data
was collected from various other sources such as the newspaper, journals, articles, company
website, internet etc.
A CASE OF ASKFORASSISTANT OF PUSHPALATHA.R
INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurs are being the innovators and the job creators. This is the era of boom in the
innovation in business. The competitions are high and especially in the service sectors
because it’s not patentable. IT sector is now in boom. The IT serving in India has huge
competition. And Bengaluru city being the IT hub; it’s a challenging task for a women
entrepreneur to start up a business. This paper concentrates on how was the journey of
women, Pushpalatha.R of AskForAssistant, who has successfully started up the IT Service
sector in Bengaluru.
BACKGROUND
Entrepreneur’s life; their background would always not have a consistent in their success.
Pushpalatha.R; with native KGF, completed her education in Bengaluru. Being a PUC
dropout convinced her father to join Diploma in Computer Science. Being in a middle class
nuclear family with 2 siblings (Sisters), there was huge financial constraint in family. Keen in
her quality of studies, she was recruited in an IT Service industry from her college campus.
Post marriage it was indeed very difficult to continue the work at company. With her
experience and knowledge in IT services, she started to surf on different ways to start up an
own company.

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BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
Post Marriage, there was hurdle in starting business because of less financial support. Her
interest was in research, she wanted IT servicing for the researcher. The Aim was to support
the researcher who was seeking services at their budget. Identifying this as the opportunities,
she came out with different ways to support these researcher and at start she targeted the
women researcher, as women she had faced lots of financial constraint to show her
knowledge to the world. This made her think to help these researchers from her services.
Labour were not much required as she handled only small single projects from different
clients from various country. In 2012, official the projects were started.
TECHNOLOGICAL SKILLS REQUIRED
After knowing the clients, the challenge was in communicating with best means which
required infrastructure facilities like emails, websites, video calls, high speed internet,
computers, good backup systems for securing data of client. Websites had to be customised;
hence she learnt tools that support the webpage like word processors and other web
programming languages. For getting the target client and to stay connected with them in
professional way, LinkedIn was indeed a very supportive social networking site for growing
up her business. Pushpalatha.R always believed in acquiring continuous knowledge and
applying them to the business.
UNIQUENESS IN SERVICING
As her client were already segmented based on needs of clients, it was a challenging task for
her to convince the client with the services provide by her company. She took a self-training
through the help of various websites in servicing the client’s at the best. The USP of the
service was customised service at the client’s budget and timely delivery of service with high
quality. The empathetically servicing of client’s made the client happier and more satisfied
building the relationship between the company and clients. The best part is the referral of
client’s to others about the company which made the positive world of mouth.

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CHALLENGES
After success of 2 projects, the client acquisition had been very difficult. At some point of
time, the growth was nil. This is the time where an entrepreneur usually steps out of business
with a fear in loss of business. Pushpalatha.R had also faced the same situation for
sustainability AskForAssistant. After her maternity period, she had a gap from her business.
The client acquisition had become still more difficult. The mental pressure would be high at
this stage for a women entrepreneur to look after both family and business. The solution
Pushpalatha.R always believed was Patience and Hard work to prove her without
compromising her the family responsibility.
DEALING WITH EMPLOYEES
Human resource is abundant in India. With respect to skilled employees, there is a huge
human resource available. In turn to help the society, people with decent qualification and
basic knowledge of computer skills were hired and trained them well depending on the
projects. Providing employment for needy people was the main purpose.
FAMILY - WORK LIFE BALANCE
Pushpalatha.R dint want to compromise with personal and social life. Being a mother; she
dint want to sacrifice her duty as a mother to her child. Her parents/siblings gave her a great
support and motivated her that built her self-confidence. Balancing Family – Work life is
great challenge for women entrepreneurs in India. This usually makes an entrepreneur feel
more self-imposed burden. Hence to overcome this challenge, she made her office location
near to her residence. This made more convenient in balancing her Family and Work life.
More over additional to this, her spouse is being a great support for this start up and is
working for the same company that can be termed as motivation for a women entrepreneur.
As a women entrepreneur, they require a satisfied job which gives support as well as good
respect in society.

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MARKETING
The marketing for a company is very important that helps to reach the target clients from
various countries. For this company there are neither separate marketing departments nor
separate funds for marketing. As it was service sector, her way of marketing was by
providing the best service to clients and gets a referral to other clients. The positive word of
mouth is where the satisfied client would spread good information about a company. And the
data was much secured and safe in this company which made the clients have a trust factor on
the company.

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ANALYSIS OF CASE STUDY:
The below table shows the Conceptual framework based on challenges faced by one women
entrepreneur;
Factors As Perceived by Entrepreneur
• Mobility Difficult No – to really
Reason – Office Located near residence and
mail and Video call were used in
communicating to clients.
• Self Confidence was Lacking Yes – to some extent
Reason – Client acquisition was difficult at
start
• Information was Lacking Yes – to great extent
Reason – IT hub Bengaluru
• Problems in Marketing Yes – to great extent
Reason – No separate Marketing department
and funds
• Infrastructure was lacking Yes – to great extend
Reason – At the starting stage of company
• Financial Constraints Yes – to great extent
Reason – Middle Class and more family
responsibility
• Less Family support No – Not really
Reason – Family/Sibling encouragement and
Spouse commitment towards to company’s
growth.
• Fear of Social Attitude Yes – to some extent
Reason – Gender Bias
• Family – Work Life Balance easier Yes – Great Extent
Reason - Office Located near residence and
Spouse encouragement and commitment
towards to company
Table 1: Conceptual framework based on challenges faced by one women entrepreneur

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The Business model of their company is pictorially represented as shown below;
Figure 1: Business Model in approaching client – Ask for Assistant
SUGGESTIONS AND CONCLUSION
Women are playing an important role in the society for development of country also. As
mentioned in the Vedas, “Every Place where women are treated with respect, there God
Himself dwells”. And this case study it holds good. Thought there are many factors hindering
women entrepreneurs such as Mobility Difficult, Self Confidence was Lacking, Information
was Lacking, Problems in Marketing, Infrastructure was lacking, Financial Constraints, Less
Family support, Fear of Social Attitude and Family – Work Life Balance easier; women
treated with respect and encouraging them make a society good. The gender bias would also
reduce. The important thing to be noticed here is support and motivation for a women
entrepreneur from her family and society.
The managerial implication from this case study would be that the women are to be taken as
in for decision making as well as part of business work force because this is the main
resource that is still being untapped. It in turn would make the huge contribution towards the
development of the country.

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REFERENCES:
• S. Manjunath, M.P.Hrishikesh, Santhosh Kumar A.V, 2015, “Entrepreneurship and
Ethics”, Himalaya Publishing House, edition 1, pp 30 – 60.
• Yogita sharma, 2013, “Women Entrepreneur in India”, IOSR Journal of Business and
Management, p-ISSN: 2319 – 7668. Vol 15, Issue 3, pp 09 -14.
• Hemanthkumar P. Bulsara, Jyothi Chandwani, Shailesh Gandhi, 2014, “Women
Entrepreneurship and innovations in India: An Exploratory Study”, IJO, Vol 2, pp 32
– 44.
• Hemanthkumar P. Bulsara, Jyothi Chandwani, Shailesh Gandhi, 2014, “Women
Entrepreneurship in India: A Case Study of Rink’s Creation of Rinku Lakdawala”,
EJBM, ISSN 2222-2839(Online), Vol 6, pp 124 – 133.
• Pushpa G. Malagaittimath, Veeranna K C., Harisha, M and Gopala GT, “Case Study
on a Successful Women Livestock Entrepreneur in Shivamogga District of
Karnataka”, IJLR, eJSSN:2277-1964, Vol 7(5), pp 284 – 289.
• http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol.%2021%20Issue10/Version
11/D2110112428.pdf
• http://www.journalijdr.com/sites/default/files/issue-pdf/Download%201001-013.pdf
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/ask4assistant/