Digitalization and e-commerce have created a whole new wave of entrepreneurship and women are part of the revolution. A new initiative for female entrepreneurs aims to provide them with the necessary digital training.
It has been quite a working life for Ines Spanier. The 52-year-old from the German state of Saxony worked in the former East Germany as an agricultural engineer for a huge, state-owned production co-operative. As you might expect, entrepreneurial freedom was not part of her job spec.
A future as a budding digital entrepreneur did not look very likely back then.
Yet she entered the e-commerce world a few months ago and sells her goods via Amazon, eBay and her own online shop. “Everything is so fast,” she says. She can barely keep up with the names of all the new staff working for her. She has just hired a student to help with the digital side of things, hot on the heels of two other new recruits a few weeks ago.
Read more: Female entrepreneurs tackle diversity problem
Her business is still agriculture. Her firm Farmtex specializes in producing different types of film and layering for the agricultural industry. She has done this for many years, but before it was with just a few employees and was conducted very much in the old-fashioned way. The digital world was not her realm but then one day she realized the opportunities it provided for her company.
“I knew I had to change something. To keep going the way we were was not going to be enough. It all seemed too boring but then I heard about the ‘Female Entrepreneurs of the Future’ project,” Spanier told DW.
Amazon’s interest
The initiative was launched by the Association of German Women Entrepreneurs, the international network group Global Digital Women, the Brigitte Academy and Amazon. Female entrepreneurs that employ less than 20 people can apply, and if selected, will receive extensive e-commerce training for six months or more. There are currently 18 female entrepreneurs taking part. “It is important to us that Germany takes a leading role in digitization. And we can all do this together. Women are perfectly prepared for entrepreneurship in the digital age, where creative ideas, experimentation and a strong focus on customers are important,” says Christian Blum of Amazon Germany, supporters of the project.
For more read the full of article at The Dw
