Doing business in India: Women perspectives

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to assess the opportunities and challenges faced byIndian women aspiring to carriers in the corporate world. From our western point ofview, we would like to draw an objective overview of the evolution of the womenperspectives in business. Being an exchange student in India for 3 months, we wantedto get a deep understanding of Indian culture(s) and traditions. As young women, weare particularly interested in the women status in Indian society. Finally, we havejoined an MBA program to build a managerial career, in France or abroad. Hence, wehave tried through this report to compare our path, challenges and opportunities withthose of our Indian counterparts. In order to grasp the reality of Indian women in the corporate world, we first had tostudy the position and the role of women in the Indian society. Since we were quiteunfamiliar with the status of women in India, we took time to evaluate every aspect oftheir condition. For three months, we have learned how different European and Indiancultures are, and to what extent. Yet in our analysis of the Indian society, we may havehad European misinterpretations of statistics and facts even if we tried as hard aspossible to stay objective.Second, we chose to emphases the women representation, challenges andopportunities in the Indian corporate world. After a statistic and analytic businessoriented overview, we highlight the factors hindering the women advancement andrepresentation in corporations. As women represent a valuable asset for corporations,we illustrate our demonstration with example of female success stories and advancedgender policies in companies.Then, we have made the most of our chance to study at IIMB among the future maleand female managers of India. Female and male students gave us their perception ofthe women status in the Indian corporate world.