Now in its second year, the Gender-GEDI report is an annual index measuring the conditions for women entrepreneurs across the globe. Announced at the 2014 Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network, this year's study revealed marked improvements in the UK as a place for fostering women entrepreneurship. But findings also show the UK is amongst the lowest-scoring nations when it comes to women entrepreneurs launching technology businesses.
We caught up with Dell's Sarah Shields to find out more about how the report was conducted, what it reveals, and what more can be done to help advance women entrepreneurship in the workplace, specifically when it comes to women-led tech businesses.
TechRadar Pro: What is the Gender-GEDI report and how does it measure female entrepreneurship?
Sarah Shields: The Gender-Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) is a really exciting study that measures the environments for female entrepreneurship in 30 countries – evaluating which factors are supporting women in starting their own business, and which are barriers.
The report, commissioned by Dell, measures these factors by analysing entrepreneurial ecosystems, business environments and individual aspirations across developed and developing economics. It spans multiple regions, and provides a systematic approach that means we can compare the environment for high-potential female entrepreneurship across countries.
The research is very important as it aims to guide leaders, policymakers and law-makers in identifying countrywide strengths and weaknesses with a view to creating more favourable conditions in their countries, enabling businesses founded by women to succeed and prosper.
TRP: What do the UK results show about the environment here for female entrepreneurs?
SS: We're on the right track! The results of the 2014 report show the UK is improving as an environment for female entrepreneurs, but unfortunately more needs to be done as we are still lagging behind European countries like France and Germany. The UK came in seventh place with a ranking of 54/100, placing it behind countries including the US (83), Australia (80) and Sweden (73). However, it was just one of four countries to have improved its ranking – moving ahead of last year's position by one place.
The good news, however, is that the UK was one of only five countries to achieve the highest score (100) for its SME training, indicating that ours comes out top in terms of being accessible to women and men alike, its availability countrywide, its affordability, and in taking into account women's time constraints such as childcare.
In further good news for us, the UK is a real hotbed for 'opportunity' startups, with a healthy amount of startups (71%) being founded to take advantage of an opportunity, increase income or fulfil personal aims – that's opposed to being started because of limited employment options.
To give a fantastic example from Britain's pool of 'opportunity' startups, entrepreneur Julia Grinham, a member of the Dell Women's Entreprenuer Network (DWEN), started up her bespoke shoe business, Upper Street, after being inspired by her sister's experience with made-to-order shoes and spotting a gap in the market. With no prior knowledge of the fashion world or how to make shoes, Julia is a case in point for UK women's appetite to build a business from a great idea alone!
On the 'needs improvement' list are tools to support female entrepreneurs establish an effective work-life balance after starting-up. For example, the UK lags behind European countries such as France when it comes to the availability, quality, and affordability of childcare, which is absolutely critical for women who are starting their own venture. The UK received a 60/100 score, while France, for example, achieved an exemplary 100/100.
When it comes to the number of female startups in the UK, we're seeing that there are only 4.8 startups for every 10 male startups, with the research demonstrating that these rates are even lower in the tech sector – we'd love to see this improve. This statistic puts the UK on par with other European countries such as France (4.4:10), but we lag behind the US (7.1:10).
TRP: What suggestions have been made for improving this entrepreneurial environment?
SS: Realistically, the UK needs to move towards using gender-smart policies to really accelerate high-potential female entrepreneurship. The focus needs to be on changing those cultural norms that continue to pose challenges for promising women entrepreneurs, and we need to accelerate those policies designed to support female entrepreneurs.
What's more, supposedly gender-neutral programmes need to be adjusted so that women can benefit fully both as recipients and as active participants. It's also hugely important that we work to fully integrate women into traditionally male-dominated labour sectors such as science and technology to open up broader opportunities for women across all sectors of business.
TRP: Why did the UK receive such a low score (0%) for female startups in the technology sector? How does this compare to other countries, and how can the UK improve on this score?
SS: The UK's score of 0% was based on results from a total female population of 13,294 respondents collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor's UK team. The average score for female startups in the technology sector across all countries was generally low across the board.
But there is hope! Just looking at some of the members of the DWEN network, you can see some great examples of UK women who have launched hugely successful tech enterprises like Karoline Gross, founder of Smartzer, a video-tagging business that adds an interactive layer to video content.
Karoline is a great role model for budding women entrepreneurs and given her previously limited technical knowledge, she really shows that you don't need an extensive background in tech to launch a successful tech enterprise! Networks such as DWEN, are really valuable in enabling women to come together, inspire and share best practices, and make the connections that will help them to thrive, whatever the nature of their business.
At Dell, we recognise that key to tackling the lack of women-led tech startups is to get girls interested in technology as a career from the outset. That's why we've worked with the likes of Belinda Parmar whose social enterprise, Little Miss Geek, campaigns to inspire girls and women to change the world through technology.
Getting more women 'digitally literate' is also an issue close to the heart of entrepreneur Kathryn Parsons, who co-founded Decoded to tackle the technology skills gap and help empower professionals. Kathryn encourages women to be code-literate in order to equip themselves with what she believes is the hybrid skill set of the future.
Raising awareness of UK role models such Karoline, Belinda and Kathryn will be key in inspiring women to see technology as a hotbed of business opportunities.
TRP: Has there been a significant change in the global results from the previous time this study was conducted?
SS: We've been able to expand our research this year from 17 countries to 30 which is great news – but this does make it a little hard to compare current results with last year's. That being said, since last year, only four countries have improved their ranking – the UK being one of them! But four countries did actually decline in their rankings (Malaysia, Egypt, Mexico and Morocco), demonstrating that many countries need to focus their energies on supporting basic improvements in the business environment to support women entrepreneurs and help create the next generation of women-led startups.
About Sarah Shields
Sarah is executive director and general manager, consumer, small and medium enterprise, at Dell UK.
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