School of Business and Law

Department of Communities Project

Grant awarded by funding body: Government of Western Australia Department of Communities.

Research title: Empowering Women in Western Australia to Achieve Economic Independence Through Entrepreneurship

Year of Award: 2024

Funding: $75,000

Qty: 1

Research team Members:

• Dr Jalleh Sharafizad
• Professor Kerry Brown
• Dr Fleur Sharafizad
• Dr Violetta Wilk
• Associate Professor Janice Redmond
• Dr Aglae Hernandez Grande

Background

We are assisting the Western Australian Department of Communities to build and empower Western Australian women with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to foster their entrepreneurial talents.

ECU School of Business and Law is offering workshops and networking opportunities. These business workshops are developed and delivered by women for women.

If you are a woman looking to start, develop and/or grow your business and seeking clarity, confidence, practical know-how, essential tools, and dedicated time to focus on and nurture the growth of your business, you might like to consider attending the free workshops delivered by Edith Cowan University.

The Business Decisions and Growth Workshop - Draw, write, reflect (DWR) provides the foundation for the remaining workshops, by encouraging you to reflect on your current business plan, opportunities, and challenges. This will help you to create a vision for your business and develop strategies and practical steps to support you in achieving your business goals.

The Business Negotiation and Advocacy Workshop demonstrates the ground rules for negotiation and advocacy and identifies top 10 strategies you can use for win/win solutions. You will have the opportunity to practice your negotiation skills with some practical exercises in a fun and informative session packed with good ideas for trying out in your business (and daily life).

The Social Media Marketing Workshop will introduce you to the myriad of opportunities available to your business via social media marketing. The session will cover the following: Social Media Audit, Target Audience Persona Creation, Social Media Schedule Development, Basic Social Media Analytics and drafting of a Social Media Marketing Plan.

The Building Business Resilience Workshop aims to impart essential concepts and tools to help you enhance your business knowledge and strategic outlook. During the workshop, participants perform an internal analysis of their business, conduct a comprehensive gap analysis, and formulate an action plan to fortify business resilience.

The Networking for Business Success Workshop aims to enable you to grow your business network.  You will learn networking skills to grow your business in new ways, learn strategies to build your confidence in networking and provide you with tips and strategies on how you can become more effective at business networking and help promote the success of your business.

This series of workshops are presented by the School of Business and Law at Edith Cowan University. Participation will also connect you with other business owners on similar journeys and facing similar challenges, so you can learn from and assist each other. Workshops will be highly interactive and enable you to work on your business with the workshop facilitators.

These business workshops are developed and delivered by women for women. Each workshop is aimed at helping women to start, develop and/or grow their business by focusing on a core set of skills that women entrepreneurs need to succeed in business.

The Project

• Provide five complimentary workshops that consolidates vital insights, tools, and resources to empower aspiring women entrepreneurs or those currently managing micro or small businesses.
• Provide valuable guidance on identifying business opportunities, fostering growth, and enhancing operational effectiveness and efficiency of women businesses across Western Australia.
• Connect women entrepreneurs with other similar minded women entrepreneurs so they don’t have to go through their business journey alone.
• Provide two complimentary business events in Perth and Bunbury to enable women entrepreneurs to develop their professional support network.

Outcomes

• Support for aspiring women entrepreneurs or those currently managing micro and small businesses across Western Australia.
• Capacity building and upskilling opportunities for women micro and small businesses to grow and increase business resilience through workshops and education programs/packages.
• The development of resources and guidelines for women businesses to upskill and benefit from the findings of this research.

Workshops

If you are interested in registering in any of the above workshops, go to Executive Education, or please contact Dr Jalleh Sharafizad (j.sharafizad@ecu.edu.au).

Survey and social media

Do you want to be part of our research and help WA aspiring women entrepreneurs? Complete our 10-15-minute survey and/or participate in a confidential research interview. The interview takes approximately 30 minutes and can be done virtually, please contact Dr Jalleh Sharafizad for more information (j.sharafizad@ecu.edu.au).