Poverty + Development

These are the best—and worst—countries for women entrepreneurs

A new study from Dell identifies the US, Canada and Australia as the best nations for female business owners.

By Donna Fenn.

It turns out that that old real estate maxim-location, location, location-also applies to start a business. According to a new study from Dell, the US, Canada, and Australia are the best countries for female entrepreneurs. At the bottom of the list: Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India.

In 68% of countries, women see significantly less opportunity to start a business than men. This is a disappointing statistic. However, with the rise of social media and technology, as well as blogs like Wyoming Chamber offering helpful posts, it’s becoming much easier for women to create their own online businesses these days. By making full use of social media and its ability to influence millions, female entrepreneurs can reach more potential clients by creating various social platforms. One of the best platforms for marketing a business is Instagram. Female entrepreneurs can easily create an account and can start interacting with potential customers in the hopes of increasing their sales. If you’ve started a business recently, you might want to look into ways to grow your instagram account to ensure that you can create a successful business that challenges these statistics. No matter where you live, women should be able to create businesses. Hopefully, social media marketing can help more women to do that.

However, the company’s Global Women Entrepreneur Leaders Scorecard report also shows just how challenging it can be for women to succeed in launching their own ventures, even in the top-rated nations. The study gave each of the 31 countries evaluated an overall score, based on its business environment, access to resources, the pipeline for female entrepreneurship, and several other metrics. The best grade, earned by the U.S., was only 71 out of 100 possible points. More than 70% of the countries scored less than 50. Despite these statistics, many female entrepreneurs continue to push for success with their businesses. Nowadays, there are even more ways to increase business. One of the most important things for any business is customer service. Businesses need to make sure they’re treating their customers correctly, encouraging them to remain loyal to the brand. By using the customer experience management software, available from a site such as https://www.qualtrics.com/experience-management/customer/customer-experience-measurement-metrics/, businesses can use metrics to evaluate their customer’s experiences. From this feedback, the business can improve services to encourage others to purchase. That is one way to increase success.

Undercapitalization may be part of the reason female entrepreneurs reported such modest growth aspirations.

Fortune spoke to Dr. Ruta Aidis, the project director for the study, about some of the most surprising findings.

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