Woman entrepreneur should take advantage of digital platforms: Irani
| Date :22-Sep-2020 |
Business Bureau ;
Inaugurating the “e-portal - www.vialewudyojika.com” of the Lady Entrepreneurs’ Wing of Vidarbha Industries Association (VIA) recently, Union Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani said that every woman entrepreneur should take advantage of digital platforms like whatsapp, twitter and facebook for advertising their products. Inaugurating the portal she also stressed on the importance of guiding the entrepreneurs and said that the greatest challenge lies in teaching design and marketing skills. “This is even more important looking to the lessons we have learned in the current pandemic situation,” she added while expressing her views in the on-line inaugural session - “Women Empowerment through Entrepreneurship,” which was conducted under the Chairmanship of Manisha Bawankar, VIA - LEW.
Irani expressed her gratitude towards former Maharashtra Minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule for providing her with the opportunity to be a part of VIA LEW programme and for launching the multi-vendor e-commerce portal. She said most of the women get satisfied only by building a good product launching platform. “However, there is a need to shift the goal post to think beyond and take the products to new heights by co-operation amongst like minded women entrepreneurs coming together to make different products ultimately forming parts of one big product,” she observed. Commenting on innovation, se said the products, services or concepts of the entrepreneurs should be different from the rest and should have good quality. “It should also be competitive with lucrative pricing so that people would be inclined to buy it, thereby expanding the horizon of business,” she said.
On digital platforms she said women entrepreneurs should be supported with design facets on the website so as to make their portal attractive and visible. She quoted an example of Instagram wherein it has a wide base related to fashion, home accessories and eatables and how sensibly it is designed to be attractive. She also stressed the importance of having the web portal in regional Marathi language along with Hindi and English so that all the women entrepreneurs’ could easily understand and monitor their web space aptly.
She felt that a multitude of opportunities would open up once the portal gets started being the first step and Vidarbha can start the whole engine of growth for women entrepreneurs. She said that the women talent should be linked digitally to make growth multifold and expressed her happiness and gratitude towards all the members of VIA LEW team for providing the opportunity to the women entrepreneurs to show their talents through the launching of the digital platform. Earlier, Manisha Bawankar gave the opening remarks and welcomed the guests. In her welcome address, she mentioned that VIA LEW had provided a platform to lady entrepreneurs to exhibit their hidden talents and to display their products in UDYOJIKA for the last 24 years, but, due to current pendamic situation conducting UDYOJIKA was not possible.
However, she expressed her joy in starting the help desk online facility and gateway to world trade centre facebook page for the members to promote their products on the social media page, and launching of multi-vendor e-commerce platform www.vialewudyojika.com in its Silver Jubilee year, which will help empowering women from local to global. Madhubala Singh, Project Director of e-portal vendors, and instrumental in designing the portal which is a unique platform in connecting people globally and to continue udyojika in new form, gave the detailed information of the digital portal. These include separate URL codes to every vendor, wherein, the vendor will be admin of their own store, upload their products, search, store banners, and go global from local. Suresh Rathi, President of VIA, also expressed gratitude towards Chandrashekar Bawankule, for supporting the cause of VIA. Rashmi Kulkarni, Treasurer, of the forum, introduced the guest speaker and conducted the proceedings, Prominently present were VIA EC members, VIA LEW Executive committee members and others. Poonam Lala, Secretary, VIA LEW proposed the formal vote of thanks.