Strategies for setting and running of small scale enterprises by women entrepreneurs of Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh

The present study was conducted on proportionately randomly selected 180 women entrepreneurs of Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh. The findings revealed that for enterprise establishment in general 5 to 6 steps were followed by the respondents. These were realization of the oppourtunity, obtaining training, consolidation of resources (infrastructure, machinery/equipments, raw material and finance), production on small scale, marketing and then expanding the unit. Localite sources were mainly used for realizing the oppourtunity. Raw materials were procured from local market as well as from other city/town/village. Traditional equipments, fixtures/machines were being used for carrying out the enterprise (91.6%). A majority of the respondents (66.6%) were using their own capital. The banks were found to be contacted least by women as their enterprise did not require heavy investments. All the respondents had started their enterprise on small scale and after few years (2 to 6), they had expanded their units. Training was obtained by nearly 70% of the respondents. Marketing of produce was done directly to customers by majority of the women (67.7%), followed by shopkeepers, middleman and through vendors/group members too.


INTRODUCTION
India is a country of villages.Rural areas are marked by resource crunch and poverty in general.Vicious cycle of limited resources, low capital, low productivity, low income and consequently a weak capital have perpetuates the poverty syndrome.Development of rural areas can bring about holistic national development, which is sustainable.Poverty alleviation can be addressed by generating employment opportunities and creating an entrepreneurial environment for the vast human resource.
Women form an important sector of our society.They constitute half of the population of the country.Rural areas encompass 80% of the total women's population.
Women perform multiple roles both in agricultural and household sector.They are the bread producer as well as feeder but even though her economic and social status is very poor in rural and tribal areas (Sudhakar et al., 2004).Socio-cultural roles have cast women in a secondary role for long time.Our society especially the rural society puts some stumbling blocks regarding women's mobility to earn something.Women's work remains outside the cash sector.She works from dawn to dusk.However, even then also the ignorant and worthless that is, men have been enjoying superiority over women.She has to depend on her male counterpart for meeting out any sort of financial requirement and it has been rightly remarked turn economic contribution to the ratio by Pandit Jawahar E-mail: duttbindia@gmail.com.Tel: 09816747761.
Lal Nehru that dependents are never free.Power in terms of money is the prime mover in the civil liberty.It is the core of self governance or adds to command over resources and interests.Women are the true companion of men.By birth she is gifted with equal physical and mental capacities as men.The trend of demeaning women consciously and unconsciously and restricting them to stereotyped roles need to be changed.The changing time has brought many new interests and responsibilities into women's orbit.The ever increasing price line and the needs of the family have necessitated women to take up gainful employment.The potent force behind these has been the call to initiate entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship is an exercise involving innovation and creativity, the will to go towards establishing an enterprise.It is the process of identifying, developing and bringing a vision to life.The vision may be an innovative idea, an opportunity or simply a better way to do something by leveraging resources and initiating change to create value.It is a said to be a self-employment of any sort, a process undertaken by the entrepreneur to argument her business interests.The entrepreneur is an individual or a group of individuals who is a single decision maker, key planner and role risk-taker, organizes, manages and runs an enterprise whereby he/she reallocates resources beneficial for the best interest of his/her venture (Debnath, 1999).All people who are gainfully engaged in work-manufacturing, distribution or service and other sectors are called as entrepreneurs.Government of India defines a woman entrepreneur as "An enterprise owned and controlled by women and having a minimum financial interest of women and having a minimum financial interest of 51% of capital and giving at least 50% of employment to women" (Bernardshaw, 1999).A rural women entrepreneur is a woman or group of women who undertake/organize and run an enterprise in rural areas for economic development of themselves and in Mokani et al. (2004) had categorised women entrepreneurs into 3 categories.The first category consists of women with educational and professional qualification who takes the initiative and manages the business.These women mostly undertake large and medium scale units; the second category consists of those women who did not have education or any formal training in management but have developed practical skills required for the small scale sector and choose that product with which they were familiar for example, garments, dolls, handicrafts, etc. and the third category of women entrepreneurs work in cities and slums to help women with lower means of livelihood.These women need government support in marketing as well as getting finance at concessional rates.Setting and running of an enterprise is a big mental and physical process.An individual thinking to start an entrepreneurial carrier has to follow a particular strategy for initiating and running of an enterprise.Strategy is the operational design, a style of action that the women entrepreneur follows for carrying out the entrepreneurial activity.Women more often than men may get confronted with the problems in deciding what enterprise they should take, how they should proceed, and what all resources are required, from where to consolidate resources (infrastructure, raw material, etc.); Who will help in getting them?etc.
The short term success of any enterprise can be achieved through shrewd intuitive decision making, successful portunism, personal sales ability, leadership and the like other qualities.But, the sustainability and long term profitability of enterprise is dependent on careful strategic planning and deligently carrying out the business plan.Manimala (1998) stated that for setting and running of an enterprise, an entrepreneur has to first of all search for new idea's, develop expertise, mobilise funds, organise for the initial production, marketing through net works, acquiring/developing people, building the corporate image, management of risk and management of growth.Agarwal (2003) mentioned the strategy followed for establishment of production based enterprises.For running this, there should be mother unit at Tehsil level which was linked to sub units consisting of 10 to 15 villages form where raw material for processing was collected.In mother unit trainings by institutions should be imparted to core women group which in turn train the network beneficiaries.The whole of the processing and product preparation, packaging and marketing was also carried out in this mother unit.Reddy et al. (1999) described that women entrepreneurs generally run small scale industrial unit/industry which is either related to services or business enterprise, managed by one or more women entrepreneurs in proprietary concerns in which she/they will individually or jointly have share capital of not less than 51% as partners/share holders/directors of limited company/members of co-operative society.
Ownership structure studies showed that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) owned by women enterpreneurs in India were mostly sole proprietorship.Proprietorship ventures are popular because of lower initial investments and availability of tax incentives.Some private limited companies and a very small number of partnership concerns, mainly along with relatives also exists (Ganesan, 2003).

METHODOLOGY
The present study was conducted with an objective to study the "prospects and appraisal of rural women entrepreneurial activities in Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh".This was an exploratory research which required extensive field work on the part of research investigator to capture the qualitative and quantitative data from women entrepreneurs.The study was conducted purposively in the state of Himachal Pradesh, as it is the better performing states in India, in terms of achievements in gender equality and decline in poverty (http://hpforest.nic.in).In view of the objectives of the study, villages) where there was the possibility of getting women entrepreneurs pursuing different type of trades.

Selection of Panchayat Samiti and villages
Initially, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and various non-government organisations, which were directly involved in rural development, were contacted for the selection of Panchayat Samities.These institutions had records of the entrepreneurial activities being run in all the 14 Panchayat Samities of the district.Thus, from the available records, five Panchayat Samities (each from north, south, east, west and central area of the district) exhibiting maximum and varied number of entrepreneurial activities for women were selected purposively and from the selected Panchayt Samities, 37 villages were further selected purposively for the accomplishment of the present study.Further, from the selected villages, a sample of 180 women entrepreneurs who were engaged in the entrepreneurial activities (10 identifies activities) since last three years was drawn, as it was believed that this time period is sufficient to judge the profitability and sustainability of the enterprise.To draw the required sample, proportionate random sampling technique was used, that is, 50% of women entrepreneurs from each enterprise were drawn through lottery method (Table 1).
For accomplishing the present investigation, interview schedule was prepared for gathering information from women entrepreneurs.
In the study, an effort was made to find out the strategies followed for establishing and running of an enterprise which includes questions related to the steps followed by the entrepreneurs right from idea generation till marketing of the product like from where one got an idea of enterprise establishment, obtained training, how they proceeded for consolidating resources and running of an enterprise.For data analysis, frequency and percentage were used.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of the study brought out the real fact that practically women in rural areas of the study district were carrying out small scale entrepreneurial activities in three modes.Approximately, all the enterprises namely, sericulture, mushroom cultivation, tailoring, weaving, embroidery, knitting, vegetable, dairy and food processing were carried out independently by majority (73.4%) of the women entrepreneurs followed by few enterprises like embroidery, weaving, bamboo and knitting in mixed ownership by 18.3% of the women entrepreneurs and very few respondents that is, 8.3% were carrying out the entrepreneurial activities like tailoring and food processing in group/co-operative modes.The strategical detail of these three modes of ownership was described in the form of flow charts in Figure 1.In case of 'individual owners', there were total of 132 entrepreneurs.Of these, 62.1% had received training prior to their engagement in the activity.They were involved in sericulture, mushroom cultivation, tailoring, weaving and embroidery enterprise.While 37.9% respondents engaged in vegetable cultivation, dairy, food processing, preservation and knitting did not perceive the need for training as their long engagement in the activity/traditional activity had made them quite efficient to run the activity.They had directly been engaged in the process of enterprise establishment after realizing opportunity.All the respondents followed the remaining steps of enterprise establishment (consolidation of resources, production and expansion of the unit and marketing of the product) in more or less similar manner.
In group and cooperative mode of ownership, there were 15 respondents.Out of these, 9 respondents engaged in tailoring were working in group and 6 engaged in food processing and preservation unit were venturing on cooperative basis.Both these groups, although were following the similar steps as that of individual owners; however, the variation was found in the way of running   and government organizations in the form of necessary inputs namely, infrastructure, raw material and machinery/equipment at the initial phases of enterprise establishment.After few years (3 to 6), the groups themselves had started purchasing their own machines and raw material from revolving fund.In case of tailoring, the production and marketing was done by the group.Whereas, in food processing, the group members procured the raw material by themselves from their own or neighbouring farms.This was then semi-processed in the group.Thereafter, the product was taken and handed over to the mother unit and the final processing was done there by the hired labour.The group members on rotational basis were carrying the product to the unit.The money was received by them as per the quantity of produce handed over to the mother unit.The share of income was distributed equally in case of tailoring group and as per the quantity produced in case of cooperative members.This mode of ownership thus was beneficial for the rural women as it involved less risk, even the women who were not much educated and had no financial source for investment in the enterprises also got a chance for leading their families.In mixed form of ownership, there were a total of 33 respondents.Under this strategy, the selection of activity and training about product preparation and raw material procurement was done in group.During trainings, the exposure visits were arranged for groups to the places where they could get the raw material of good quality and at cheaper rates.The resources (raw material, machinery/equipment) were consolidated from the money collected in group with the help of government and non-government organisations, initially.The share to be contributed was decided as per the group norms.Then, the procured resources were distributed equally among the group members who started doing the production individually on small scale.At the initial phases, the linkages were being established by government and non-government organisations regarding marketing of the produce and later on the group members themselves decided the strategy of marketing.Those respondents who could do marketing on individual basis continued it individually and in case of fairs the marketing was done though group members either on rotational basis or the interested and potential women of the group carried out the product to the marketing place and were paid honorarium as per the norms of the group.
Out of all the three modes of ownership, this mode was found to be the most viable and workable for enterprise running because it had tried to overcome group conflicts and gave a chance to even the hesitant women to move out of the four walls of the house which was not possible for the women individually.The necessary support was also provided by the government and non-government organisations at the stages wherever it was needed.The findings were in consonance with Reddy et al. (1999) who also described that women entrepreneurs generally Dutt 39 run small scale industrial unit/industry which is either related to services or business enterprise, managed by one or more women entrepreneurs in proprietary concerns in which she/they will individually or jointly have share capital of not less than 51% as partners/share holders/directors of limited company/members of cooperative society.Ownership structure studies by Ganesan (2003) also showed that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) owned by women enterpreneurs in India were mostly sole proprietorship.Proprietorship ventures are popular because of lower initial investments and availability of tax incentives.Some private limited companies and a very small number of partnership concerns, mainly along with relatives also exists.In depth analysis further stated that the women entrepreneurs generally run their enterprises in a step by step phase.Generally, they follow 5 to 6 steps for running an enterprise.These steps were: (i) Realization of oppourtunity, (ii) obtaining training, (iii) consolidation of resources, iv) starting production on small scale, v) marketing of the product, and vi) expansion of the unit.
The findings of the study were in line with that of Manimala (1998) who stated that the entrepreneurial process involves: (i) Searching a new idea, ii) expertise development, iii) mobilising funds, v) organising for the initial production, (vi) marketing through networks, vii) acquiring/developing people, (viii) building the corporate image, xi) management of risk and x) management of growth.

Realization of opportunity
Every entrepreneur starts with the identification and selection of an idea/activity.Before taking up any enterprise, the person may have several questions in their mind: whether the product which they are thinking about is in demand or not?Are there enough buyers available or will it give them sufficient profit?Sometimes women may be unable to even think of establishing an enterprise unless she gets some information about it.Hence, source of information to start with, are pertinent at this stage.Table 2 depicts that majority of the respondents (77.8%) gained an insight from localite sources, which included -neighbourers (46.1%), friends and relatives (20%) and family members (11.6%).This shows that still in rural areas, localite sources are perceived as more powerful sources of information as they have long lasting and wider effect on the community and people also have faith in these resources.Here, the principle of seeing is believing also fits very well.Hence, these sources acted as guiding force to carry out the activity.Further, it is evident from Table 2 that nearly one fourth of the respondents (27.8%) venturing the activities in group and mixed forms were influenced and motivated by government and non-government organizations that were working in their area through organization of mobile  Rani (1996), reported that friends and relatives were able to motivate 12.2% women entrepreneurs to enter in an enterprise.Whereas, very few entrepreneurs (0.3%) were motivated by government agencies.

Obtained training
Training is one of the key inputs for developing competencies among the learners.Training can help in providing information about the product, production method, procurement of raw material and skills needed to run the enterprise.Table 2 presents information about various aspects regarding which trainings were received by the respondents.It is clear from the table that in general, 60 to 100% of the respondents of all the three types of ownerships engaged in sericulture, mushroom cultivation, tailoring, weaving and embroidery, knitting, food processing and preservation and manufacturing of bamboo articles had obtained training to acquire proficiency about product knowledge and its preparation as reported by 15 and 69.4% of the respondents, respectively and about raw material procurement by 18.8%.Like in case of tailoring, knitting, embroidery and weaving, during training, field visits were organised to Ludihana, Amritsar and Kullu.

Consolidation of resources
Consolidation of resources was another important step followed by the respondents.This included infrastructure, raw material, machinery, equipment, manpower and money managed by women entrepreneurs.

Infrastructure
In the present study, infrastructure facilities basically included the building where the activity had to be carried out.However, during investigation, it was found that, out of 10 entrepreneurial activities, building was required for running nine enterprises.While one activity that is, vegetable cultivation was carried out in the field.The other facilities like electricity, water were available in sufficient amount and generally did not have any particular significance for the activities as reported by the respondents, except in case of vegetable cultivation.An in depth glance in Table 2 indicates that the majority of the women (75.9%) were carrying out the activity at their own home.Followed to this, 12.3% were carrying it in rented buildings.Very few that is, 8.1 and 3.7% had constructed their own room and carry it in Mahila Mandals, respectively.The findings were in line with the study of Kumar (2004) who reported that out of 120 women entrepreneurs in Haryana state, almost 50% of women entrepreneur were managing their business from homes and one-third from rented building.Preference of location further reveals that most of the women entrepreneurs want to operate their business near the market followed by their homes.

Procurement of raw material
Table 2 further depicts that 42.7 to 49.7% respondents were bringing raw material from own village/local market and other city/town/village, respectively.These were mostly individual owners namely, sericulture (worms, mulberry leaves, cardboards and news papers), mushroom cultivation (compost bags, polythene and formaldehyde), vegetable cultivation (seeds, fertilizers and pesticides), dairy (feed, fodder and medicines), food processing and preservation (products), tailoring (cloth, threads, book ram and other accessories), knitting (wool), weaving (one ply) and embroidery (threads, suits, shawls and other accessories).These figures also included a very few respondents from mixed ownership who were engaged in manufacturing of bamboo articles (bamboo, cloth and colours) too.It was quite astounding to note that women running the craft based activities in groups were making efforts to bring raw material from far away places that is, from other state.For example, tailoring groups were bringing the raw material from Delhi by either visiting in a group of 2 to 3 members or by seeking the help of roadways transporters, by giving order on phone to the wholesalers form where the material had to be brought.Another group of women running weaving and embroidery units in mixed from were procuring the raw material from Amritsar and Kullu by visiting personally in group.Similarly, women from the knitting group were procuring the raw material from Ludhiana.Thus, the percentage of respondents bringing the raw material from other state and other district was 13.3 and 1.7%, respectively.From the aforementioned findings, it could be interpreted that the type of enterprise and the mode of ownership has a direct relationship with the availability of raw material.The person running the enterprise individually mostly procured the raw material from their own periphery.Whereas, group entrepreneurs were able to procure from far away places to get the material of good quality and at cheaper rates.This might be because the groups have good mobility.They can also take investment risks.

Machinery and equipment
The machinery and equipment required for an enterprise depends upon its nature.In the present study, since most of the entrepreneurial activities were of agro-based nature, thus only small tools and fixtures were needed.Like for sericulture and mushroom cultivation, bamboo racks were prepared.For vegetable cultivation and dairy, small implements like khurpa, sickle, phoda, containers and chaffcutter were required.Whereas, in craft-based activities, special machines and equipment (like tailoring and interlocking machines, weaving looms, ada for embroidery) were required.The information pertaining to this aspect has been presented in Table 2. Data in Table 2 show that initially and even after long years of running an enterprise, a majority of the women (91.6%) possessed their own tools/machines/equipments. Some of the respondents (8.4%) engaged in group/cooperative for running tailoring and food processing units were provided machines and equipments by non government and government organizations, respectively.

Arrangement of manpower
Rural women in Himachal Pradesh are quite laborious.They are usually engaged in small scale entrepreneurial activities which they can manage on their own or with the help of their family members.They go for using unskilled labour only in case of those activities which require heavy works.In the present study, it was found that only 28.9% women engaged in mushroom cultivation, dairy, manufacturing of bamboo articles and vegetable cultivation were hiring the unskilled labour.Kataria (1995) also reported that nearly 50% of the respondents had no involvement of other family members in their income generating activity.Rest of the respondents (52.1%) took the help of their family members.

Financial assistance
It is surprising to note from the table that a majority of the respondents (65%) were using their own capital, followed by 43.8% of the respondents carrying it even by the raised finances whereas the number of respondents managing it through borrowed capital was 9.4%.The findings of the study were in consonance with Kaur and Bawa (1992) that majority of the women entrepreneurs (54%) had started their businesses with their own personal savings or by getting financial assistance from their spouse.Followed to this, 23% of them received finances from their parents, 14% from relatives and friends and only 10% from government agencies and nationalized banks.Similar to this, Das (2000) has also reported that more than 50% of women used their own funds or borrowed from their spouse/family to set up their business.

Production and expansion of the unit
In the study, it was found that 2 to 6 years is a sufficient time period for judging the profitability and viability of the enterprise.After this time period, respondents can become quite resourceful in terms of ways of doing the activities, ways of marketing, etc.The findings were in consonance with that of Rani (1996) who stated that women entrepreneurs got themselves engaged in those activities which requires lessor gestation period that is, of about 2 years.Table 3 shows that mode of production for majority of the respondents (92.7%) depends on manageability and only 28.8% of the respondents were carrying it in order/demand basis.

Marketing
Regarding marketing channels, Table 4 illustrates that out of the total respondents, 67.7% were marketing their products directly to the customers by contacting them or vice-versa.Nearly 30% were doing marketing through the shop-keepers (29.4%), middleman (28.2%) and vendors/group members (21.1%).A very few respondents (7.2 and 3.3%) were carrying their produce to wholesale market and handing to the cooperative for earning income.The findings are in consonance to Rani (1996) who reported that majority of women entrepreneurs (66.8%) were selling their products directly to the customers as they were mostly engaged in small enterprises catering to the need of specific market segment.Gillani (2004) women entrepreneurs operate in "comfort zone movement", that is, they tend to operate only among clients already known to them.Thus, a more extensive network is lacking and expansion into a larger scale is not considered with enthusiasm.

Figure 1
Figure1(a, b and c).Strategies followed by women entre

Selection of the district Kangra
District was selected purposively as there were maximum number of self help groups formed in this district(NABARD, 2000), various government organisations namely, Agricultural Technology Management Agency (Government of India), Department of Horticulture, Department of Industries, District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) and non-government organisations like Society for Environmental and Rural Awakening (ERA), Samridhi, Centre for Rural Development (CORD), Association of Social and Hill Advancement (ASHA) were working for women development in the district and had promoted various entrepreneurial activities for women and the State Agricultural University (SAUs) is located in this district and actively engaged in transfer of technology to men and women of this area.

Table 2 .
Distribution of respondents as per the steps followed for running entrepreneurial activity (N = 180).

Table 3 .
Distribution of respondents by mode of production and product disposal (N = 180).

Table 4 .
Distribution of respondents according to marketing channels followed (N = 180).