Introduction
Becoming an entrepreneur might be a dream for many. But, it can become a nightmare or an unrealistic dream for aspiring entrepreneurs, due to many barriers on the way. The “Barriers to Entrepreneurship” can be broadly classified into, Cultural, Social, Economic, Political, Environmental Barriers, etc. But, as we have entered 2024, we will highlight the most possible barriers to entrepreneurship and will look very closely into the impact of each which has kept many talented and capable individuals away and been an obstacle in entering into the world of entrepreneurship.
The most relevant and impactful barriers for todays youth, which must be overcome to shape the future of India’s global status and achieving status of a developed Nation.
The following Barriers and challenges have been found to be affecting the success of many aspiring individuals, who leave the hope in their entrepreneurial journey.
Challenges and Barriers to Entrepreneurship
All entrepreneurs will face some sort of barriers in their entrepreneurial journey. That can be a Limited Funds, Lack of Practical knowledge, Psychological pressure from society, parents, etc.
In order to become a successful entrepreneur you need to prepare yourself in advance with respect to the following barriers:
1. Lack of Practical Knowledge and Experience
Technical Education is the foundation and very essential for becoming an entrepreneur. But only education can not make you capable or competitive in any aspects of a business. There are individuals like Dhirubhai Ambani, who have made it without any degree or formal education.
So, except education, what else our youth must possess? The very important thing people fail here, is to acquire a proper relevant work experience where they can learn some practical knowledge and that can only be done through a Training, Apprentice, or a Job. Job is most preferred because there you will be taking responsibility and will be charged for any wrong doings.
Also, in a job, doing practically with given responsibility, people learn those things that are not taught in any training. In a job, you will carve your skills and perception and after that you will get that confidence, where you can do your job blindfold.
Youngsters, skip this step and try to take shortcuts which is a big NO. Taking a work experience is like solving a puzzle or building a block game. Where you will come to know which blocks to place first and how to move and arrange them. This will create a picture of all the necessary blocks and connectors, to solve that puzzle.
Creating this imaginary picture, is the key to successful entrepreneurship. This will make you understand block by block, how to source, place, move and arrange them to get it solved in given time, without any need of hint or helping hand.
Example, if a person having a Technical Education/Diploma or Engineering Degree in Textiles, joins a reputed mill or a textile factory, where he will be given proper training and knowledge of different manufacturing processes and machineries. Thereafter, he will be slowly and gradually learning the flow-processes, inputs and outputs from machineries and connected departments. And, in some time, he will understand the do’s and don’ts of the manufacturing process and factors affecting quality and production.
And later, after may be 6 months he will be given proper responsibility for producing quality product in the required quantity before the given timeline. This makes the person, tough, responsible, confident, self-learner, communicable and reliable.
This is what I want to highlight, and it is a barrier because freshers don’t get jobs in the field of their interest.
2. Language & Cultural Barriers
People in India speaks different languages and belongs to different regions and religions. This vast diversity in culture creates many challenges for an entrepreneur as outlined below:
- An aspiring entrepreneur may find difficult to convey his ideas and concepts effectively to the audience, investors, clients, customers, colleagues, etc. Sometimes may face misunderstanding and misinterpretations, and doubts in the audiences.
- Challenges in Sourcing/procurement and selling to a non-native market like in inter-state businesses.
- Challenges in building relationships with people from different culture and regions. Which may lead to opportunities being missed due to delay or inappropriate communication.
- These barriers lead to poor negotiation and failure in building trust and healthy business relations.
Therefore, giving importance to cultural diversity is very important as far as Indian population is concerned. Multi-cultural and Multi-lingual ecosystem within entrepreneurial development programs should be given importance.
3. Lack of Self-discipline
Youths in the 21st Century lacks discipline and focus. Being punctual, disciplined and hardworking is the most important quality which an entrepreneur must develop. Becoming an entrepreneur requires hard work being done on time with consistency. Easy and luxurious life have made life more indiscipline and ignorant.
The habit of delaying everything, as they are not so important. Similarly, people have the habit of giving varying importance and prioritizing things and peoples in their lives. This causes loss of motivation and develops an easy-to-live mindset.
4. Lack of Motivation
People being so distractful nowadays, that they need motivation every now and then. Youths are getting distracted to many things around them. Be it social media, bollywood films, reality shows, following ideal youtubers, urge to enjoy without any reason, and other lucrative business ideas. And sometimes, nothing but LAZINESS.
That’s why you will see many people takes a huge time gap to take the first step. It is found that, Youtubers like Sandeep Maheshwari have been putting immense efforts in youngsters to awake them and show the right path full of motivation. Many students and aspiring entrepreneurs has been groomed with success by these YouTube personalities.
Lack of motivation can be very dangerous, even for a well established business. there must be some source of motivation, or a goal to drive that hunger in your belly.
5. Regulatory, Compliance & Legal Barriers
In India, there are regulations at every stage for a business. And if its an interstate, complex business process, than there are so many legalities and compliances to be followed, that turns a business from horse into a tortoise. Also, there are many inconsistencies and poor implementation of schemes, laws and regulations. Fulfilling and crossing this barrier through different jurisdictions, kills many businesses.
Data protection regulations and cyber security measures, is what todays digital startups have to focus on.
Lengthy and tiresome processes of acquiring costly permits and licenses, their renewals and corruption and bureaucracy, kill dreams of many entrepreneurs.
For startups and small businesses, the young entrepreneurs fails to do a proper study based on the regulatory compliances which is very important to avoid any last minute tensions.
6. Fear of Failure
This is the next and most widely responsible barrier to entrepreneurs, where they fail, actually miserably fail to overcome their internal fear of failure. This might be related to over expectations from them that creates sense of fear and lack of self-confidence. This makes them very failure conscious and disrupts their risk taking ability.
What people will say? What you were thinking? How much loss you made? You Failure! Such disturbing thoughts will never allow him to concentrate on his work. Not with everyone, but this can be a huge problem with someone who are Introverts.
7. Infrastructure and Logistic Challenges
There are cottage industries, skillful artisans in villages, and traditional markets, where people find difficulty in transportation. Development of Industrial centers and manufacturing hubs in some states has solved this problem to a great extent.
Just like China, we can make use of our land and population in becoming a world manufacturing capital. Many Indian entrepreneurs will be benefitted if proper infrastructure facilities are created. Logistics, mainly the courier and shipping facilities has been improved a lot after ecommerce boom in India. But still the processes involved in courier and shipping is very unexpected and intolerable, due to frauds, thefts, misplacements, and malpractices.
Drone delivery is under trial but that wont replace current human based courier deliveries, due to location and structure, in highly congested and populated cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, etc.
8. Non-supportive Bureaucratic Culture
Starting a business in India, requires money and backing support, along with some political and business connections. Otherwise you will end up being tossed between offices and departments of administrative offices. This unwanted bureaucracy which most of the time ends up in form of huge expenses and donations, is because of corruption and bribery.
The youngsters should be supported in their journey, to create or make something better and futuristic. This non-supportive nature are even faced by them at homes and societies.
9. Cut-throat Competition
There is cut throat competition in almost all the fields, and therefore people find it difficult to break the first phase of entering the market. Entering in such a competitive world, require sharp business mind along with better communication and leadership skills, and financial knowledge.
Nowadays, people are thinking just about ideas, and not about their implementation and success rate. People end up copying ideas with minor tweaks, and call it by a different name. Like Ola and Uber, Zomato and Swiggy, Snapdeal and Flipkart, and many other small startups.
Beating competition requires serving customers with a better deal and price, along with a satisfying experience, which makes them come again and again. Best Customer service has many advantages, it reduces the overall marketing expenses because after a certain time, people will start promoting and advocating your product/services through word of mouth.
Also, since there is no expenses involved in attracting repeat customers. You will get genuine feedbacks and ideas to serve them and improvise in your services.
10. Customer Preferences & Market Dynamics
Nowadays customers has wide range of products and its availability in the most interior part of India, thanks to Ecommerce. Due to number of options in any product ranges and ability to compare product details, prices and customer reviews, customers have become more choosy and unpredictable.
Although the demand and sale has been at the highest level, but the unpredictable customer preferences which has been changed a lot, in last few years has created another challenge to new comers, specially in Retail and ecommerce sector.
The shift from a more preserved and traditional nature of Indian business market, to a most competitive and lucrative one, has attracted many western and European brands to India. This has influenced the overall perception of Indian Market in the global business world. The Indian market has become more dynamic and evolving fast to cater to upcoming technologies and trends.
11. Lack of Access to Latest Technology
Although the humankind has made a huge development and growth in technology, but the new and young entrepreneurs has very limited access to it. Technologies like UPI based digital payments, Drone Services, SAAS based services, AI and robotics, Advanced Medical Healthcare, are such technologies which every new comer has not access to.
Development of R&D Centers & Technology Expansion centers across the country, where such technologies will be shared to the younger and more capable next generation entrepreneurs.
12. Poor Support from Government in emerging fields
Government has started many skill development centers and schemes in the under developed industries like Textiles and Handloom, Agriculture, Handicrafts, etc. But competing the world leaders and escaping from their dominance will require investing TIME, TALENT and TECHNOLOGY in latest innovations in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, High Ballistic Micro Controlled Missile Technology, Military Defence Systems, 3D Printing, Quantum Computing, Internet of Things (IoT), Digital & Robotized Healthcare Systems, Blockchain Technology, etc.
Proper and thoughtful consideration of above points and sharing technologies with budding entrepreneurs will open new horizons and new future of India.
Conclusion
The young and enthusiastic and motivated force of entrepreneurs can change India’s position in the global world. With the coming years people will look India as global leader in almost every field, due to the upcoming generations which will be full of ideas, technologically sound and full of talent. But as said above there are some possible barriers to entrepreneurship which should be taken care of.
Mainly the personal psychological pressure from parents and society, which makes them incompetent due to fear of failure. High degree of motivation and goal oriented technical education system can bring the desirable changes and can break the toughest barriers of all time.
Find your passion, and create a fire in your belly and burn every barrier into ashes. That’s the spirit!!
