WE HUB, Q-Mart launch ‘WE Corner’ to scale up women led FMCG start-ups

WE HUB, India’s first and only state-led incubator by the Government of Telangana to foster and promote women entrepreneurship, and Q-Mart have inaugurated one of the first retail forward linkage support channel, “WE Corner” for women entrepreneurs in the FMCG sector. This one of its kind initiatives has been created to provide market, customer and supply chain access to women-led start-ups.

The initiative is aimed at enabling the FMCG startups who are part of  WE HUB to scale up their business, enabling them to market and sell their products. Their products will be showcased at a dedicated 6.5 feet height shelf space at Q-Mart Gachibowli store. 

The ‘WE Corner’ was inaugurated by Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary ITE&C and Shwetha Mohanty, IAS, Collector Hyderabad, Dr Rahul Verma, Director of Q-Mart, Ms.Deepthi Ravula, CEO of WE HUB.

The performance of products will reportedly be closely monitored and assessed during the next three-months and concrete feedback will be provided to Entrepreneurs to ensure their scale up as per customer feedback. WE HUB has worked with the selected start-ups to align according to the statutory requirements and market standards, the company statement said. 

Deepthi Ravula, CEO, WE HUB, said, “At WE HUB we have always worked with FMCG entrepreneurs to connect with markets and create forward linkages which will sustain the business. One of the key hurdles we always noticed for the smaller businesses was to gain access to retail channels. To tackle these issues and to support women-led SMEs and FMCG startups across Telangana, we are thrilled to partner with Q-Mart. WE HUB’s intervention has made this process more accessible to the entrepreneurs. This collaboration with Q-Mart is a start of a curated approach to enable focused efforts towards streamlining and standardization women led FMCG startups and SMEs in the state and help expand to Global markets’’

Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary ITE & C department said, “Congratulations to all the 12 entrepreneurs from across Telangana chosen by Q-Mart and WE HUB for this very unique initiative.  Our focus at WE HUB has been to create interventions like these to help increase the sustainability of women-led SMEs, particularly in these challenging times.” 

Shwetha Mohanty, IAS, Collector Hyderabad said “Entrepreneurs often struggle for market access and visibility, and I am glad to see initiatives like this taken up by WE Hub which will facilitate their process for succeeding their business. I congratulate the entrepreneurs, WE Hub and Qmart on the project.”

Rahul Varma, Director, Q-Mart said, “Q-Mart is proud to be associated with an initiative like WE Hub, which not only showcases the products but also provides a platform for women entrepreneurs from the young state of Telangana to reach out to discerning customers.  Q-Mart believes in giving customers a genuine experience of being served with the best assortment of quality products, and the products showcased by these entrepreneurs meet these expectations. We will share our experience and guide them in this endeavour.”

The benefits for WE HUB startups through this initiative include:

• Training to Women entrepreneurs whose products did not qualify to meet the market standards.
• Amplified consistency and reliability of the startups as suppliers in the local and international markets and extended the life span of these small businesses.
• Building of entire value chain to connect local enterprises to build their capacity to not only meet local needs but also expand into global markets.
• Enabling MSMEs in developing the whole supply chain of promising industries. 
• Standardization of women led SMEs in the state.

WE HUB through the initiative is helping its start-ups in implementing bar codes, digitizing of payments, packaging and labelling guidelines, structuring supply chain logistics, and creating processes to streamline businesses.

Since its inception, WE HUB has had 57 partners on-board, facilitated Rs 55 crore worth funding for its startups, and incubated 342 women-led startups, to build a culture of innovation and create impact in the ecosystem.