The world has changed so much! Women are these days so powerful and they influence everything, particularly working life. We have to consider how women's income is on the rise, how women and men are gaining opportunities to choose who stays at home, and many more interesting ideas.
Writing as a marketer, I can say that if you need to understand women as a business person, you need to learn "womenomics".
Thai women have changed in their behaviour, their attitudes and their lifestyle. Trends affecting women include later marriage, choosing to be harder working, increased self confidence and adopting stronger leadership roles both in family and on the job. I have found many interesting stories about today's women in Contagious magazine and will share some relevant details with you.
"Womenomics" is an essential new term for strategists in fields as diverse as economic policy, branding, marketing, design, manufacturing and the corporate world. The raising of female employment to male employment levels will boost gross domestic product in the United States, the European Union and Japan by more than 10 per cent. This speaks volumes for the new strength of the female in the light of womenomics, which represents a body of social, economic, and cultural logic that puts today's females in pole position.
Consider the following:
-In 20 years from now, women will be the main earners in one in every four UK families. It's not simply training that has helped women's disposable income to shoot up by 50 per cent in the last 20 years. A study has found that companies with more women in senior management achieve higher returns on equity.
-Women also stand to benefit from the shift that is taking place in the way companies operate and business is done. In today's economy, which relies heavily on knowledge services and creativity, the currencies of highest value are collaboration, communication, teamwork and democratisation. These are viewed as female traits associated with the right brain, as opposed to the left brain which produces the skills of logic, systematic procedure and hard data.
-Women are good at building relationships. Building a community within a group is a basic female survival instinct that is hard-wired and continues to influence the way women behave. So the language of Womenomics is very much one of relationships, bonds and people.
-Women's ability to form relationships makes them excellent communicators. They are now pioneering a new wave of social networking known as the referral economy, where groups of women get together online to collectively endorse or denigrate products. The days of getting away with services that are rubbish are well and truly over, because women actually talk to each other.
-There are now a record number of women directors on the boards of the top 100 companies. There is still a long way to go. Many women are smart enough to channel their talents and skills out of the prehistoric corporate world and into their own progressive start-ups. Many companies have a serious problem: while they may be good at recruiting women, they are no good at retaining them. This is why female-run businesses will become the new powerhouses of the economy. That women are opting to do it their way is highly significant for the future.
While womenomics is driven by women - principally as consumers and the leading business players of the future - this trend is actually not all about women. Rather, it's about creating, marketing, branding and design opportunities that are more in keeping with the mood and movements of the time: in spirit, they are collaborative, creative, playful and intuitive. These are ideas that, perhaps, even men can appreciate.
Pongsak Sanitwongse na Ayudhya is a former managing director of Publicis (Thailand). Follow his articles in Hi! Managers on every first Friday of the month.