In China, there are a large group of women entrepreneurs who have not received formal business education and lack funding and social resources. However, the 'Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program' is changing all that by helping many of them learn more about business and financial management and launch a business project.
The Program
Three years ago Goldman Sachs established its 10,000 Women project, a US$100 million, five-year program to provide 10,000 women in underserved parts of the world with management education, access to capital, networks, and mentors. It operates through more than 80 academic and nonprofit organizations. To date it has reached 5,000 women in more than 20 countries.
In 2011, MIT Sloan joined the 10,000 Women project through the MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program, a collaboration with the School of Business and Tourism Management of Yunnan University in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province. Three Yunnan faculties spent time at MIT Sloan for training in areas of entrepreneurship and action learning. A team of MIT Sloan faculty and administrators is assisting with the design of workshops and laboratory courses that the Yunnan faculty will teach to a cohort of 300 women entrepreneurs.
Case Study: Shang Meiling
Shang Meiling is one of the 300 Chinese women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the program. Not only has her vegetable growing business seen increased profits, but she has also used the knowledge she learned through the program to help her fellow villagers.
Born in a small village in Jianshui County in the Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Shang's early life was a struggle. Although she worked hard in school and did well, she had to drop out after junior middle school to help her poverty-stricken family with farming work.
Despite this setback, Shang was determined to continue educating herself in some way. Through TV programs, books, and broadcast programs, she mastered advanced techniques in cultivating and marketing vegetables like onions, peppers, purple sweet potatoes and many others. She gradually gained local fame for her skill in growing onions.
It was then that it occurred to Shang that the individual farmers in her area could all benefit from a sort of cooperative through which the vegetables could be pooled and sold wholesale for higher profits.
To find out more, she listened to radio programs about vegetable cooperatives and how to sell by signing large sales contracts beforehand.
In December 2007, Shang and the other local farmers formed a cooperative named Miandian Town Vegetable Growth and Sales Cooperative. They also set up the Miandian Town Fruit and Vegetable Association.
With the help of Shang's years of experience in growing and selling vegetables, the cooperative succeeded in signing many contracts with several vegetable trade enterprises in the Honghe prefecture. The scale-management model brought abundant profit and the cooperative soon expanded quickly, with 260 more farmers joining in.
Expanding Sales Channels through the Internet
Despite their initial success, in 2008, vegetables in Miandian County faced a very poor market in sales. A 30-kilogram sack of onions could only be sold for 3 to 4 yuan (US$0.49 to 0.65).
Shang tried different ways to revive sales, but was unsuccessful. Then she watched a TV program about Internet businesses and hit upon the idea of marketing the vegetables online.
Shang sought the help of the local county's Sales and Marketing Cooperative to connect them to the 'Honghe Prefecture Farming Products Information Web' so that they could post information about the vegetables online. At the same time, Shang worked on strengthening relationships with older customers.
Thanks to her tireless efforts, Shang received more than a dozen calls or emails within a month, asking about their products and some making an offer to buy their products directly.
Shang later decided to choose the online sales model after comparing offer prices and purchase amounts. Her decision helped her to sell more than 5 million yuan (US$815,500) worth of onions for the first time.
In order to diversify the business, Shang's cooperative introduced many other kinds of vegetables through the information web.
Taking It to the Next Level
With the development of her vegetable business, Shang began thinking long-term about how to further optimize the agricultural industry's structure and meet the demands of rural economic development. To do this, she felt it was important that she learn about modern business management and agricultural development. .
In came the 10,000 Women project, which provided Shang with an opportunity to receive free high-quality training courses on women's entrepreneurship.
"After attending the training program, my business concepts have greatly improved. I also learned a lot about team building and financial management," said Shang. She added that the most important thing is that she made a lot of friends through the program who have given her many ideas on how to expand her business.
After the training, Shang created a plan to optimize her business's industrial structure. Developing profitable economical crops has become a priority of the optimizing process.
Based on her new knowledge on modern business management and her trips to agricultural bases in east China's Shandong Province and southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, she chose Brazilian mushrooms as the new product to be introduced.
Since then, Shang's cooperative has developed a Brazilian mushroom growing base of more than 200 mu (33 acres) with an estimated annual growing capability of 540 tons by 2014. Profits are expected to reach more than 3.24 million yuan (US$ 527,796), with each farmer earning 3,000 yuan (US$ 489) each year.
Shang is just one of the women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the 'Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program'. Many other women entrepreneurs' stories are also as impressive as Shang's. It is to be hoped that similar programs will be launched in the future to help even more Chinese women achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.
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