The Missing SHE Economy

At 40, Priti Rathi Gupta, Promoter and Managing Director, Anand Rathi Group, was enrolled in Owner/President Management programme at Harvard University where she made a business case for a financial management platform for women as part of a class project. The skepticism from fellow classmates surprised her. “They were oblivious to the varied needs of women — they earn less, live longer, and have a different outlook towards investing. They didn’t seem to understand the rationale,” says Rathi. She launched her university project — LXME — a digital financial planning plat form for women. In the last four months since its launch, it has got 5,000 users. Not just financial services. As consumers, women are under-served across sectors, be it auto, hospitality, fashion or sports. Most brands, say experts, have never thought about gender as central to their products and services. “Small sporadic experiments have happened in the Indian consumer brand space to cater to women but nothing exceptional. Mostly, it is positioning of the same product with a different communication strategy,” says Alpana Parida, former CEO of brand consultancy DY Works.

One reason for this is economic. “The fundamental problem is that women don't have control over finances. If 21 out of 100 women work, and 100 out of 100 men work, marketers will go after the (bigger) spender,” says Apurva Purohit, President, Jagran Prakashan.

The average disposable per capita income of women (`46,505 a year) is about one-third that of men (`1,87,868).“Due to this, products which help a woman live her life effectively and efficiently are low on priority in