increase their social initiatives and
give back to society in more meaningful ways.
The women surveyed in Women Want More
indicated they are most dissatisfied with financial services (73 per
cent), health care (71 per cent) and consumer durables (up to 47 per
cent).
Of the three, financial services is
the industry that frustrates women most. In general, women indicated
they don't have a desire to accumulate money for its own sake or
experiment with complicated financial instruments.
A majority of the women value money
as a means for caring for their families and themselves, improving their
lives and assuring long-term security. Many indicated they want advisers
and services that recognise their need for short-term simplicity and
long-term stability.
For the most part, women aren't
getting the financial management solutions they want. Instead, many
experience a lack of respect, poor advice, contradictory policies and an
obstacle course of red tape and paperwork.
Of the companies studied, very few
understand the significance of the female economy to their business. If
they respond to this economy at all, they do so by making small
adjustments to their product line or to their organisations.
Many see powerful trends as nothing
more than incremental shifts in existing patterns.
In general, these companies do not
look at the world and how it is changing through a woman's eyes. They do
not prioritise the way their female customers prioritise. They fail to
recognise that time is scarce for women or that easy access to
information is essential. As a result, few become a trusted brand or
adviser.
To better understand the female
audience, companies must reconsider how they do research, how they
develop products, how they sell and merchandise and how they add
services to their value proposition.
Companies must rethink how they
segment the female audience and how these segments react to changes in
consumer bahaviour.
To facilitate broader analysis of
what women want, we created six key female consumer segments -
fast-tracker, pressure cooker, relationship-focused, managing on her
own, fulfilled empty nester and making ends meet.
Each archetype is defined by income,
age and stage of life. Such segmentation proved useful for our research
and is now successfully informing the development and marketing of
offerings to women.
Understanding what women want can be
done through a four-R approach - recognise, research, respond and
refine.
Recognise the opportunity; research
how a product or service is being consumed; respond with new disruptive
innovations that create new categories, new segments, or entirely new
sources of products and services; and, refine ideas in a way that
creates lasting relationships with female consumers, builds connections
and continually improves the offering to strengthen those relationships.
Balancing 'work at work' and 'work
at home'
Women earn a substantial portion of
the household income and yet they still do the bulk of the housework and
home management. As a result, it is not surprising that women in every
corner of the world are starved for time and many are stretched.
BCG's research has shown that women
are struggling to balance the 'work at work' with the 'work at home'. At
the same time, they have high standards and even higher expectations of
themselves.
These expectations - combined with
the responsibilities women shoulder for caring about good nutrition,
education, health care and making money for the family - create
tremendous stress.
The situation is no different in
South-east Asia. Despite support from extended family members and
relatively affordable domestic help, women in the region - like their
counterparts worldwide - face the pressures of multiple roles and
responsibilities. The total number of working women globally is expected
to increase by 90 million to 1.12 billion in the next three years.
Today, 58 per cent of the global workforce is comprised of women, and
this group of one billion working women earn US$10.5 trillion.
Approximately 100 million of these
women account for more than a third of the world's earnings - although
it is a fact that on average women continue to be paid less than men and
are more likely to be in part-time positions.
Women hold approximately 50 per cent
of university places throughout the world. Apart from the number of
graduates entering the workforce, there is a global increase in the
number of women going to work in full-time and part-time positions.
In South-east Asia alone, Thailand's
job placement rate for women has risen from 52 per cent in 2002 to
almost 60 per cent today. For Malaysia and Singapore, the female
workforce participation rates are close to 50 per cent and 51 per cent
respectively.
The facts cannot be ignored, and
increase in significance as companies recognise the importance of the
female economy.
By systematically targeting this
market and understanding women's dissatisfactions, companies can
holistically, rather than incrementally, participate in and profit from
one of the most important commercial opportunities of the century. Women
will benefit from and appreciate the outcomes too.
- 2009 October 29 BUSINESS
TIMES
Vaishali Rastogi is a Partner
& Managing Director at BCG Singapore (rastogi.vaishali@bcg.com),
Nor Azah Razali is a Principal at BCG Kuala Lumpur (razali.nor.azah@bcg.com)
and Tongjai (Pam) Thanachanan is a Principal at BCG Bangkok (thanachanan.tongjai@bcg.com).
The survey results from What Women Want were recently published in the
book titled 'Women Want More: How to Capture Your Share of the World's
Largest, Fastest-Growing Market' by Michael Silverstein and Kate Sayre
