Great Women: Integrating Micro-Entrepreneurs Into the Regional Value Chain

The Great Women (GW) brand faced several challenges as it scaled and evolved from a social impact mode to a regional multi-stakeholder platform. The challenges included a distortion of its core values and mission, inadequate funds for expansion, franchising issues, and scaling. Several recommendations are critical for the brand to create networks that empower women micro-entrepreneurs by connecting them to potential stakeholders in the supply chain.

Franchising is one of the most viable ways for GW to fund its regional expansion. Other alternatives would be collaborating with the NGOs and donors. However, franchising has several risks that GW can deal with through compliance with proper documentation, a pre-delivery inspection of goods to promote quality control, and compliance in tagging and packaging. Investing in corporate social responsibility and promoting a green lifestyle and sustainability will help the brand to scale the enterprise to achieve its social mission.

References

Thomas, H., & Appasamy, L. (2018). Great women: Integrating micro-entrepreneurs into the regional value chain. In Asia’s Social Entrepreneurs (pp. 78-89). Routledge.