Gender export gap in Scotland: research

Appendix 9: Stakeholders – illustrative quotes

Theme 4.2.3.1 Pre-growth challenges

"The ecosystem in Scotland doesn't really talk about exporting… we spend too much time talking about investment. And actually, if you look at the reality of it, it's a small proportion of businesses that go on and raise investment. And we're not talking about other ways to grow their business. And sometimes you need investment to start exporting absolutely, but you can do it without raising investment. But no, there's, there's not much awareness" (ESO1).

“Women just don't really want to export… Don't know if I believe that. I just think they don't probably see the opportunities or it's really difficult for them to do because I think there's still quite a lot of barriers” (ESO5).

Pre-growth opportunities:

"That sort of role model thing is really, really important… I'm so keen to talk about women who have done well. Because I think that's just an inspiration for everyone… Case studies of women who are successfully exporting would be really useful to be able to showcase" (ESO1).

“So there seems to be a lot of opportunities for e-commerce online selling social media marketing” (ESO4).

Theme 4.2.3.2 Early growth challenges:

“I think part of the sectors that women typically focus on tend to be much more service related, which typically lends to being more domestic like, more focused in Scotland rather than international markets, that can be a bit of a barrier” (ESO3).

“Women are quite bad for deselecting themselves for things, so they look at the criteria for something. If they don't hit it all, they won't. They won't go for it” (ESO1).

“On the trading nation, Nigeria, I think appears as the only country. But that is really only because of the size of the population. Nothing actually happens and as the government, as a Scottish Government, we don't have a single person in the entire African continent as a representative” (ESO6).

“I think some women don't necessarily feel comfortable travelling to places they've never been before, which are maybe deemed or seem to be higher risk” (ESO2).

Early growth opportunities:

“This includes ensuring that options are available for people to participate remotely. Using digital technology and limiting the amount of face-to-face participation at times, which would be challenging for women to participate” (ESO4).

“Women will be in certain sectors, which might allude to being a bit easier for them to be accessing different markets through basically web and digital online platforms” (ESO5).

Theme 4.2.3.3 Growth Challenges:

"A lot of the stuff that we're doing is about trying to reduce the gap that women face when trying to raise investments. So, we know from the pathways report that there is a significant gap in terms of institutional investment going into female-led businesses" (ESO3).

“Someone has to have the skills to understand what the implications are for their business, where the opportunities may lie and where the greatest challenges may lie. That then comes down to resources. So particularly SMEs, you know, I mean, I don't know if you've ever tried to read a free trade agreement, but it takes a very long time!” (ESO2).

“But a lot of it's around building your networks communities because that's the kind of challenges that we see that women are facing is that they don't have the same kind of networks. They don't have the same reach into those groups because they've not been exposed to them” (ESO3).

Growth Opportunities:

“But service is also open to all new and early-stage exporters with growth potential. It's delivered digitally and managed by our team, and it will provide a pipeline of companies who will be able to access SDI and Department of Business Trade Services with the potential for more intensive support as they grow their export sales” (ESO4).

“You know that we do leave space, you know, to be for women to be joining our programmes that we advertise in the right place, that our language is appropriate, you know, and how we advertise and, you know, reaching out, we're building our networks of diverse organisations” (ESO3).

"We're kind of positioning ourselves there now has been a bit of a gateway into the ecosystem, so we often get approached by other organisations. You know, we're running this, we want to get more women on it. How do we do it?” (ESO1).