'Corporate houses should buy products of women entrepreneurs'

The number of women entrepreneurs and quality of their products are rising in the country but they still lag behind in terms of selling their products to corporate organisations.

The women entrepreneurs cannot supply their products due to lack of networking and knowledge about supply chain. A platform by Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Foundation can play a major role in bringing a solution to this problem.

Speakers said these at a roundtable on Monday (11 March) organised by SME Foundation, Innovision and Prothom Alo in association with the Women Entrepreneurs Financial Initiative (We-Fi). Entrepreneurs are invited to register and display their products by installing the app named 'smef' from the Google Play Store on their phones or by visiting the website of SME Foundation http://wsmesuppliersplatform.smef.gov.bd/.

The corporate organisations are invited to purchase the products of women entrepreneurs and financial institutions including banks are urged to provide loans to women.

At the roundtable on ‘Possibilities and challenges of connecting women entrepreneurs with corporate businesses’, the speakers said corporates can buy gift items for Eid-ul-Fitr and Pahela Boishakh from women entrepreneurs.

A project started in 2019 is going to end at the last quarter of this year. Works such as awareness building, connecting entrepreneurs and corporate houses, training the entrepreneurs, creating a marketplace and business assistance center have been undertaken under the project. So far, 278 entrepreneurs and 29 corporate houses have registered under the platform. Registration is free but the entrepreneurs will have to show business documents, must have three years of experience and three full time employees.

SME Foundation’s chairperson Professor Dr. Md Masudur Rahman said the foundation is trying to connect entrepreneurs with the corporate houses so that they get to know about market demand. Women entrepreneurs’ capacity building in marketing their products in the local market can help them attain capacity to sell products in the international market.

World Bank’s senior private sector specialist Hosna Ferdous said a global study in 2015-16 revealed that Fortune 500 companies buy products worth USD 1 trillion annually and women entrepreneurs supply only one per cent of these products.

She said this platform can create awareness on bridging corporate organisations and women entrepreneurs. The financial institutions should come forward to provide loans to women entrepreneurs.

Trust Bank’s managing director Humayra Azam said women should be given 25 per cent of the total loan in the SME sector. Training can be provided on how to avail loans from SME foundation. The foundation can also help them avail loans by sending a list of entrepreneurs to the banks.

Dhaka University’s Women and Gender Studies’ department’s Professor Dr. Tania Haque said women entrepreneurs often face negative comments while selling products online.

SME Foundation’s managing director Salahuddin Mahmud said the campaign on the activities of the platform should be accelerated to increase the number of women entrepreneurs.

SME Foundation’s general manager Farzana Khan said alongside buying products round the year, corporate houses can buy gifts for Eid and Pahela Boishakh.

Swarnalata Roy, president of Sylhet Women's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the platform can create good opportunities for entrepreneurs in remote areas. To maintain quality on this platform, different types of entrepreneurs should be included at different steps based on product quality.

Sadruddin Imran, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Innovation, a private organization associated with the project, said as many as 1,200 small and medium women entrepreneurs are targeted to bring to this platform.

Farhana A Rahman, CEO of UY Systems Limited, shared her own experience that in 2007, two of her orders were canceled due to being a woman.

She said such attitudes towards women entrepreneurs should be changed.

Bikroy.com’s CEO Eshita Sharmin said women entrepreneurs should be active on various online platforms.

Prothom Alo’s youth programme coordinator Munir Hasan, Aarong’s senior manager Fahad Rahman and Bene Bou’s founder Farhana Munmun, among others, spoke at the roundtable conducted by assistant editor Firoz Choudhury.