Networked Intelligence: a new medium of human communications is emerging - interactive media and the Internet, are enabling a new economy based on the networking of human intelligence. In this digital economy, individuals and enterprises create wealth by applying knowledge, networked human intelligence, and effort to manufacturing, agriculture and services. In the digital frontier of this economy, the players, dynamics, rules and requirements for survival and success are all changing [1].
In many developing economies, more and more women are making the livelihood choice, of becoming self-employed in the small-scale business sector, as a business owner or partner. These women entrepreneurs are usually social entrepreneursfirst and foremost. Their choices and business motives are driven less by profit earnings and more from the need to earn essential income so as to carry the costs of providing for the health and welfare of their immediate communities. The majority of these women bear numerable community responsibilities beyond the household, in for instance the local orphanage, the local faith institution, environmental awareness groups and local advocacy groups. Increasingly, these women need to build on existing informal community-based networks to extend their reach out to business intermediary agencies, to wider markets and to engage their competitors, in order to secure their business livelihoods. This means that women need a range of support provisions to connect the big picture with their business objectives; to draw on leadership resources for effective execution, and to connect strategic communications and networking with their daily activities.
Building strategic alliances for conducting business or for influencing business policy needs to be understood in the context of the national and international market economy and the negotiating position that women find themselves in.
ICTs- Revolutionising global trading system
While national contexts vary, global competition in production and trading has never been fiercer than it is today. The converging and ever-evolving information and communication technologies (ICTs) have revolutionised the global system of trade and business transactions. It has, amongst other things, greatly facilitated the fragmenting of production processes once performed in a single country into multiple stages of production and distribution in several countries spread across the globe. There is growing recognition in this competitive climate that all parties are increasingly inter-dependent and stand to benefit from improved collaboration and partnership.
This may seem like a contradiction, how can collaboration and competition go hand in hand, surely the two are at odds with one another? In truth, todays partnerships and alliances are characteristically flexible, fast changing and adaptable, open to all manner of negotiation, the political environment and the vagaries of the market. In the face of competition, business partnerships are fragile, existing for only as long as they remain commercially profitable. At the same time, the range of partners that form a production or distribution cluster is broader, engages new actors, and by extension opens the door wider to small businesses.
Business networks and communications infrastructures are intensifying competition in an unpredictable manner through enabling the decentralisation of many aspects of supply to manufacturing and service industries. The miniaturisation and modularisation of products, intermediation and disinter-mediation of processes [2], combined with cheap mobile capital has an enormous impact on the value-add specialisation in the supply chain. The presence of new supply alternatives with radically different economics now take the traditional supplier squeeze to a new level. Where one is positioned in the supply chain is directly linked to ones skill set and ability to negotiate - that often leaves women at the lower end of the value-chain with a low chance of upward mobility.
And yet, trade and development in the context of globalisation is as much female-led as it is export-led. Policymakers and business leaders alike are acknowledging the profit value of womens involvement in business; they simply cannot afford to ignore the creativity of the sector and this critical section of the productive labour force. Large corporations are increasingly producing, sourcing or distributing from developing nations and this often involves working with local partners and small enterprises as part of their value chain [3]. They do this not from any sense of philanthropy towards the small business owner, but from a clear understanding that engaging with small businesses usually means reduced costs, improved and competitive supply quality, increased market access, and minimal direct responsibility for local employee relations or terms of employment. In other words, in todays competitive market, it is to the distinct advantage of large corporations to outsource production to a range of entrepreneurs who can deliver quality at low cost.
This fragmentisation of production processes has enormous implications for women, as new possibilities of employment are opened and women overcome traditional barriers to enter the market economy. Yet, despite the increased number of women in the workforce and the acknowledgement of womens needs and potentials in small businesses, the fact remains that gender disparities continue to work against womens remuneration levels, conditions of work, access to training and overall economic empowerment.
Strengthening womens business networks through ICTs
This is where networking for advocacy becomes extremely important women need to pro-actively support each other and engage with the decisions around policy to ensure that the business environment supports their activities they need to present this with a collective voice. In other words, working in isolation is no longer viable. Developing spheres of trust, influence, good will, buy in, collaboration, partnership, and above all, the sharing of knowledge, are the fundamental foundations for womens economic and social empowerment.
Women are turning away from mainstream networks and developing their own professional and business networks, which play an important role both in the commercial and in the policy arenas. These networks range from marketing cooperatives and professional associations to international virtual networks of businesses. As ICTs open up channels for communication and commerce, more of these networks take on a cross-border and international character, even if from initially humble beginnings.
Women-only networks are not enough on their own however; these networks are just the beginning of women organising themselves into vocal and vested economic interests. It is especially important that women combine their negotiation power to develop strategic alliances with intermediary agencies, mainstream institutions and trade bodies to ensure that their social, information and commercial interests are addressed. In pushing the frontiers of commercial partnerships and creating new alliances with national and international business entities, women can strengthen their negotiation position firstly in the domestic market, and then in the international arena, including in the World Trade Organisation negotiations.
In conclusion, womens business networks are an important step to strengthening of womens negotiating positions and advocacy for common strategic goals. At the same time, women need to make inroads and participate in other mainstream business networks locally and nationally, to lobby for resources, media and other support mechanisms for women. As women become more successful in pooling resources and clustering their business interests, they are better able to position themselves as viable business partners in the global arena with bilateral trade interests and agencies. With real trade experience, businesswomen can directly tackle the implications of international trade agreements on their business activities, and can access national networks that negotiate on their behalves at the bilateral and WTO levels of trade negotiations. The overall impacts on community, environmental and social development, could arguably, be more positive than they have been to date.
Endnotes
[1] Tapscott, Don: 1997, The Digital Economy, Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence, McGraw Hill, New York
[2] Disintermediation is the process of one company being removed from an industry value chain by another company reintermediation is the process of one company entering an industry value chain with a new way of providing value to the other participants in the value chain.
[3] The World Business Council on Sustainable Development offers examples of large corporations partnering with small enterprises including Pentland and Nike in Vietnam, SC Johnson and pyrethrum growing in Kenya, and Delta Corporation (food & leisure) outsourcing to SMEs in Zimbabwe.
[4] The World Trade Organisation evolved from the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), an agreement between the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The WTO has the legislative power to compel member states to strike down national laws and programs it deems barriers to free trade. Under the WTOs system of corporate-managed trade, economic efficiency, reflected in short-term corporate profits, dominates other values. Transnational corporations are able to benefit from these trade agreements at the expense of national and local economies, including workers, farmers, women, indigenous peoples, health, environmental and safety issues. The Dispute Settlement Body of the WTO is furthermore, dominated by men, and the negative impacts of WRO trade policies on women and their families is systemic. Further information is available on websites such as Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, Womens Environment & Development Organisation, Womens Edge Coalition, The South Center and International Gender and Trade Network.
About the author: Nidhi Tandon is the founder and principal of Networked Intelligence for Development (NID) based in Canada. She focuses on extending the opportunities of the Internet and other ICTs to women, to community organisations and to governments and businesses in developing economies, through providing capacity building, including training and raising resources.
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