Interview with Shahnaz Parveen Songita, Bangladeshi women entrepreneur
Female entrepreneurs make significant contributions to economic growth and to poverty reduction around the world. According to the data from World bank, female entrepreneurship is also increasing in developing countries. There are about 8 million to 10 million formal small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with at least one female owner.
Actually, our business partner, Palli crafts, is also women-led company in Bangladesh. In my memories in Bangladesh for few weeks, I still remember that I was shocked to see how women treated differently from the culture I was raised. Therefore, I was really interested in her personal story and how we can support her and other women who are in the same situation. In this article, I would like to share her answer for my questioneeer.
Could you tell me your personal story?
When I was kid, my mother started to work with renowned organizations ICDDRB and Concern. From childhood, I had an interest in being independent , having a job. There were ups and downs in my life after my mother’s death in 1989, I was a college student at that time . I got married in 1993. At that time I was a 2nd year University student. Hardships started after my marriage because of love marriage. My husband passed his Masters and got a job as an accountant. When I was a student of Masters that time my daughter was born.
I heard that the Brac Aarong Export department was looking for management trainees from one of my relatives. As my mother worked for NGOs and for women, I had a soft corner to work in an NGO. After many interviews, I was selected for the post. I joined there in 1996, November 2nd. This was my first job and first application for a job. My daughter was one year old. My office was open from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm. I had to wake up early in the morning, prepare my daughter’s fooding and my lunch. I learnt many ethics and professionalism, fair trade and received several training.
Aaron decided to discontinue the Aarong export department due to local business pressure. Then I started my job on 1st April 2018 at Aranya Crafts Ltd. After working three years, I thought and believed that I could do business with a new emphasis on Fair Trade and to work with the artisans directly. Artisans and Entrepreneurs are very closely related. Artisans have basic skills and a willingness to approach selling products through entrepreneurs like us. We give training during work processes on quality and upgrading the skills as well as fair trade principles and basic health education, etc. To build a sustainable business then there are definite steps to maintain business.
How do you see the situation in Bangladesh for women entrepreneurs?
According to a 2016 study by the International Finance Corporation, women-owned businesses constitute just 7.2% of the eight million businesses in Bangladesh. Women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh face problems like inadequate capital, marketing, illiteracy and lack of knowledge to start a business, availability of training program, gender discrimination mainly. However, balancing business and family life, fear of failure, travelling to source out raw materials are also crucial problems for women entrepreneurs.
There are many obstacles to be a successful entrepreneur, but Bangladeshi women are coming forward to do business especially with boutiques and handicrafts lines.Bangladesh government and few organizations are coming forward to help the entrepreneurs. It is easy to get funds from banks if you have a good liaison with upper class people or having the property. High rate of interest is also a crucial point. Around half of the entrepreneurs (49%) felt that they would go for NGO loans (higher for cottage and micro enterprises). To have a continuous working force, order and maintain artisans , it is difficult to establish a business. Nowadays women entrepreneurs are doing business through Facebook pages or social media. They work hard and introduce tools what they can think of.
According to the article from world bank, There are high enrollment rate for secondary school though, women who can get higher education is still low. As a graduate from Dhaka University, how do you see countires education? and how should be improve to give women more oppotunities?
Girls’ education is improving a developing nation’s quality of life. Improvements to girls’ education will provide a country with a more knowledgeable workforce, healthier families, less early-life pregnancies, early marriage, lower wage gaps between men and women. A woman’s years of schooling is significantly associated with one of two self esteem indicators and with freedom of mobility.When women are provided with equal rights and equal access to education, they go on to participate in business and economic activity. An increase in the proportion of people with higher education is reducing wealth or income inequality gradually.
I wonder what kind of startup support is well know for Bangladish ?
BSCIC and SME Foundation are having training for the entrepueres. Over 50,000 potential entrepreneurs have so far received training in the last three decades since 1985.
I didn’t get the training from these above organizations. I have had 24 years of employment experience in this line, so I can start the business. However, I received training on marketing, supply chain, quality assurance, leadership, etc from CBI, RETURN TO SENDER, PEOPLE TREE, Brac, etc.
If there are startup accelerator program, would you be interested in? In addition, what kind of support do you want to get from them the most?
I would say first is promtion support. Especially, I feel we need hands on support for difital marketing to compete with other boutiques and handicrafts lines from Bangladesh and around all over the world. We don’t see the small area, our buesiness could be world wide. Of course we all need finance support. To develop a new business at every step, you need financial support. To do government legal papers, very lengthy and to do swift work then have to pay extra money to move forward. First of all, there is an amount to start a business like to have a trade licence, RJSC, EPB, BANGLACRAFT, and to open an account you have to pay an amount in a Bank etc.
For example in my case, first we gave the amount from our savings (gratuity and provident fund) at the early stage.When we received the orders, we had to pay a normal 50% advance of the cost price of the order amount, that time we also used our savings. We gave the payment to the producers within one month of goods delivery. It is our policy. Later on, we found that we have to spend a huge amount for audit, tax and VAT. Now there is a rule that whoever is doing export and not sourcing the goods or raw materials locally, not using Utillization Declaration (UD) and Letter of Credit (L/C), then we have to pay TAX 2-3% on producers’ cost. The producers do not want to pay the tax amount and if they paid, then they add the amount to the costing. Again, we have to pay VAT on shipment value for the same reason. We are doing handicrafts business and all orders are not so big. Thats why it is not feasible to open a L/C. Another thing, our buyers are not practiced with L/C. We rented a packing department and also we are paying VAT on rent.
We have to work hard to manage our company. We are still not able to engage managerial staff still now. We have appointed quality assistants and packing assistants.The Years 2018–2019 had no profit, and even following year was still little. We tried to run with our savings as there were not many orders to cover the expenditures. However, the year 2020–2021 was going well.
Lastly, if you have any message to those who trying to start business as women like you?
Should believe that I can do, I can achieve! Raise your Voice! To be honest, passionate to work, think about your capacity and what you can do best, do SOP, think about financing on the basis business, know the legal regulations of government, do a business plan with expenditures, use free social medias to explore the business and etc.
I deeply impressed by her knowledge, passion and efforts. I hope you also get some kind of take away from this article.
