Meta to offer business tools to 5 lakh women-led businesses under Ficci initiative

Meta, the parent umbrella of social media company Facebook, has joined the women empowerment division of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (Ficci). Under the new partnership, Meta says that it will offer its business growth tools to 5 lakh women entrepreneurs taking on their own small and medium enterprise ventures.

Under the partnership, Meta will offer the selected women entrepreneurs access to the Facebook Business Coach, a self-learning platform that offers starter resources to early-stage businesses. The company will also offer access to the ‘Grow Your Business Hub’, an online platform that offers online tools for digitising and expanding micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

Meta will also offer selected businesses with access to the company’s Commerce Partners Programme. The latter will help businesses build direct-to-consumer marketplace access, get retail partnerships and subsidised pricing of Facebook’s business tools.

Meta claims that of all businesses using Facebook in India, more than half of them make at least one-fourth of their sales through the social media platform. The company seeks to use this user base in India for women-led small ventures, in partnership with Ficci’s ‘Empowering the great 50 percent’ women empowerment initiative.

In a statement as part of the announcement, Ajit Mohan, vice president and managing director of Facebook India, said, “The pandemic has been an economic crisis for small businesses across the world. Women led businesses have been particularly affected due to lack of resources. We’ve seen that when supported with access to the right tools and resources, these women led businesses turn out to be more economically resilient.”

Sanjeev Mehta, Ficci president, further added, “Achieving a common vision of building a gender inclusive nation with focus on women led development calls for aggregated efforts and multistakeholder partnerships. India Inc stands committed to this cause.”

The initiative by Meta is also a part of the company’s previously existing ‘She Means Business’ initiative to support women entrepreneurs.