Delhi, Bengaluru Among Top Global Cities For Women Entrepreneurs: Study

Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai are featured among the top 50 in this list, indicating these cities provide a beneficial business environment for women entrepreneurs, as per Dell Technologies' new study.

The study highlighted that Delhi has demonstrated significant improvement over its score in 2017 by offering a skilled workforce and cost benefits, making it a preferred city for women-led businesses. 

Interestingly, Mumbai is a new entrant to this list and Bengaluru is one of the top ten cities in the world, which provides accessibility and inclusive policies.  

Delhi has the highest momentum score compared to 2017, the base year. Momentum score provides insights into how a city is progressing compared to its history, and that of others. Factors such as growing population, low cost of living, and availability of skilled workforce have resulted in significant improvement for Delhi’s score.     

The study mentioned that Delhi also benefits from a skilled workforce, ranking sixth in the share of the population with tertiary education.

"The talent pool available across genders also adds to the potential for future growth. Delhi has the vision to become a “startup destination for the world” by 2030 with its recent Delhi Startup policy," it added.

Some potential areas of improvement include increasing the labour force participation rate among women which stands at 16.1 percent and is significantly lower than many global cities. Without greater representation in the workforce, the barriers for women in Delhi seeking to start and scale a business will remain high. 

Delhi’s first-place ranking overall and in terms of momentum respectively highlight the importance of developing the talent pool and ability to leverage access to a qualified workforce. 

Talking about Bengaluru, it added that the city provides market size, cost, access, and policies that can benefit and accelerate the growth of women entrepreneurs.

Bengaluru has a momentum score of 58.5 and falls under the “Cities on the radar” category of progress. This category is a list of 13 up-and-coming cities that have the potential to host some of the cities’ women entrepreneurs.  

Swati Mishra, Director, GM, Small Businesses, Dell Technologies India said, “The pandemic has tightened the correlation between talent and technology. Women entrepreneurs view technology skills as vital but compete with understanding to be able to navigate through the digital age."

Mishra added that the report establishes technology's inclusive role to connect all aspects of business and Dell Technologies is committed to supporting and advancing women entrepreneurs around the world to network, build capabilities, and scale their businesses.