On May 6, 2020, Gillian Riley, President and CEO at Tangerine Bank and Executive Sponsor of The Scotiabank Women Initiative had a conversation with Elaine Kunda, Founder and Managing Partner at Disruption Ventures. For entrepreneurs, there are many layers of uncertainty around the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their businesses and how they navigate and eventually survive the crisis. Business leaders acknowledge the need to pivot when it’s time to adapt and their ability to innovate is critical to the long-term success of their companies. Women have always encountered challenges in managing their businesses. In this video, Gillian and Elaine discuss the current obstacles and additional challenges women face while continuing to lead their companies through the pandemic.
Women-led businesses already face unique challenges, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the ripple effect on the economy has put added pressure on these entrepreneurs, who are now trying to navigate a dramatically altered landscape. Physical distancing measures, necessary to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, have dealt a blow to sectors which rely on in-person interactions, such as travel and tourism, restaurants and personal services, where women are more prevalent. These extraordinary circumstances have prompted The Scotiabank Women Initiative and other women-focused organizations to boost the amount of practical resources and programs — such as free access to business and legal advisors — to help these entrepreneurs down an uncharted path.
22% of Quebec women-led businesses worried about survival: survey
It’s still too early to know the full impact of the pandemic on the Canadian, and global, economy, but some statistics point to a heavier burden on women. A preliminary monthly GDP estimate by Statistics Canada for March pointed to a 9% drop, the largest one-month decline ever recorded. Women-owned businesses are more prevalent in many of the sectors that saw major declines.
“Emerging evidence on the impact of COVID-19 suggests that women’s economic and productive lives will be affected disproportionately and differently from men,” the United Nations said in a recent report. “Across the globe, women earn less, save less, hold less secure jobs, are more likely to be employed in the informal sector… In many countries, the first round of layoffs has been particularly acute in the services sector, including retail, hospitality and tourism, where women are overrepresented.” The Scotiabank Women Initiative, whose mandate is to support Canadian women-owned, women-led businesses through three key pillars; Access to Capital, Mentorship and Education is collaborating with other organizations across the country including Disruption Ventures, Visa, Forum for Women Entrepreneurs, Réseau des Femmes d'affaires du Québec (RFAQ) and Femmessor to help women entrepreneurs.
One such collaboration is with Femmessor, a non-profit organization supporting women entrepreneurs across Quebec, to provide those businesses that have been impacted by COVID-19 free access to advisors on various topics ranging from legal matters, e-commerce, as well as available relief programs. Sévrine Labelle, executive director of Femmessor, said a recent survey it conducted showed how heavily women-led businesses have been impacted. The poll of 1,080 female entrepreneurs in the province found that 22.3% of respondents say their business will have difficulty surviving COVID-19, and 49.4% are actively looking for financing. Two out of three businesses were operating at 50% capacity, and one in five women entrepreneurs are concerned that their business would not survive the crisis. “It’s quite worrying because we have been working so hard for 10, 15 years to build up a significant amount of women-owned businesses. It feels like we might lose some of those years and might have to start over again after the crisis.”
Pivoting your business to the new reality is key
It’s key to pivot your business to this new and still-evolving normal, Riley said during her conversation with Kunda. Riley pointed to examples such as restaurants moving to a takeout model or retailers posting and selling their wares via social media. “It's really, really important to think about how your business can adjust in this environment and really adapt to the new reality,” she said. This new context has also brought innovation to the forefront, as people have been forced to dramatically change the way they work over the last few weeks, and digital adoption is key.
Read the full story on Scotiabank Perspectives.
