We spoke with Endeavor Mexico’s team about their efforts within the entrepreneurial ecosystem to continue promoting the development of women in business and entrepreneurship.
According to figures from Endeavor Mexico, among the active companies in their Latin American network, over 120 women hold leadership positions in those companies. As part of their efforts to open the conversation about diversity and to encourage more women within their network companies, Endeavor created an initiative called EndeavALL. They also promote mixed-gender teams of co-founders and female panelists evaluating startups that apply for their selection process.
We believe that selection should go hand in hand with talent, abilities, career, and the desire to create a multiplier effect to inspire future generations.
Endeavor Mexico
However, there is still a lot of work to be done. In their latest study, “Venture Capital and Growth Equity Panorama in LATAM 2022,” Endeavor highlights a trend that investment in female teams has remained at low levels over the years. Less than 1% of entrepreneurs who received capital were women-led teams. Capital for mixed-gender teams decreased by 9% YoY.
In response, Endeavor indicates that various perspectives and actions must be integrated within companies to effectively promote inclusion and greater participation of women in the business and tech fields. In this process, key points to consider include:
Creating actions to increase the number of women in leadership positions.
Analyzing metrics such as socioeconomic data, education, work experience, and place of residence to promote strategies that help more women find opportunities for participation.
Establishing mentorship groups focused on women to address the challenges and opportunities available within the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Increasing capital invested in companies founded by women or with women in the founding team.
Endeavor has implemented various strategies to promote the inclusion of women in companies and technology entrepreneurship, including the EndeavALL initiative. They are committed to reinforcing their mission to change Mexico by promoting an inclusive, equitable, and diverse entrepreneurship environment where the person comes first, along with their #TeamCrazy philosophy. For Endeavor, diversity, and inclusion encompass the opening of opportunities regardless of where an entrepreneurial person is located in Mexico, their education, gender, or sexual orientation.
EndeavALL stems from the belief that the world is full of possibilities and opportunities, and that there are no barriers to contributing knowledge and sharing experiences with the world. In that sense, Endeavor recognizes, values, and promotes diversity because the greater the diversity of voices collaborating, the greater the transformation, social impact, and success.
In March, Endeavor launched its EndeavALLTalks: Female Founders Edition in Puebla, Guadalajara, Monterrey, CDMX, and Mérida, focused on generating conversations about how mental health, entrepreneurial capital, and technology impact “female founders” in their task of promoting high-impact companies.
In their community, Endeavor started its DEI Committee, consisting of four subcommittees: Geography, Education, Gender, and LGBTQ+. Through these subcommittees, they open conversations and listen to their #TeamCrazy about how the Endeavor community can encourage more actions for their tribe and expand them outward to the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Regarding recommendations that we can all implement to encourage more women to join the business and technology world, Endeavor shares what they have learned through EndeavALLTalks and emphasizes the importance of developing personal and collaborative initiatives to achieve this important goal:
Support and accompaniment among women are one of the best platforms to promote the breaking of the gender gap in entrepreneurship, but it is also important to encourage this support from those who hold leadership positions throughout the company.
Promoting more women to apply for STEM careers, encouraging mentoring of new generations, investing in new projects, or creating niche funds.
There is no better way to promote diversity and inclusion than to be examples of it within each company, both in recruitment areas and among colleagues, and in everyday life. DEI Committees are a learning and teaching tool for the team, for creating manuals and new policies that help expand diversity in teams.
The basis of success and innovation is diversity. And to achieve this diversity, it is essential to understand the existing gaps, know the biases and break them. Just as it is important to always keep a gender perspective in everything that is carried out within a company or entrepreneurship.
Creating more diverse and inclusive spaces requires daily work and commitment that allows for the creation of spaces where barriers are eliminated, so that women can fully develop, both in workspaces and in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Joining these and other initiatives is key to achieving this goal.
Reservamos SaaS eCommerce platform allows you to integrate your loyalty program and pamper your travelers.
The eCommerce platform developed by Reservamos SaaS allows you to tailor all kinds of initiatives to better connect your company with the digital traveler. A very useful marketing strategy to increase the frequency with which your users purchase their bus tickets online is through a loyalty program. This way, you can offer rewards and exclusive benefits that increase traveler retention and loyalty.
With the support of the Reservamos SaaS development team, Mexican company Grupo IAMSA implemented a loyalty program in its eCommerce and mobile applications across its various bus lines. This rewards program provides benefits such as preferential prices, priority boarding, and additional baggage, among others.
Through this integration, travelers can accumulate and use their points on purchases made through eCommerce and applications. Additionally, it is an opportunity for marketing and operations teams to create exclusive promotions and offers and establish a direct communication channel to share these benefits through notifications on both channels.
With a loyalty program, you can:
Increase the frequency of purchases for your travelers by motivating the use of accumulated points and taking advantage of offers.
Improve traveler retention by creating a bond with them and incentivizing each purchase.
Increase the average ticket value by making purchases that add points to the program.
Obtain valuable information about each traveler, including their preferences, purchasing habits, and behavior in the purchasing process, and thus improve traveler satisfaction.
Increase loyalty to your bus company, recommendations, and greater positioning of your company in the market.
The Reservamos SaaS eCommerce platform adapts to your company to implement initiatives that increase sales and connect more effectively with your travelers. Additionally, with the constant support and follow-up of our development team, we guarantee the success of each implemented initiative.
This year, the United Nations defined the following theme for International Women’s Day: “For an inclusive digital world: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” At Reservamos SaaS, we wanted to reflect on this topic and speak with prominent women who are part of the bus sector, and who are changing the game of innovation and technological development. We spoke with them about the impact of women’s participation in accelerating innovation and technological development, and how they are driving growth in the sector through their ideas, talent, and vision.
Their example and trajectory demonstrate that the presence of women is key to forging new paths toward a more equal and technologically advanced future.
How can we contribute from this sector to achieve a more inclusive digital world?
I believe in education focused on innovation and technology, linked to initiatives that promote gender equality in the digital world, which has few professional women and, at the same time, opportunities in a field where the workforce is scarce.
Who is your role model? Which women do you admire and why?
I have admiration for several women I have met throughout my personal and professional life. My mother, grandmother, cousins, friends, and colleagues at work… Women with different stories of victories and overcoming obstacles that teach me and inspire me!
I will mention two influencers that I follow and from whom I learn a lot, Camila Farani and Nath Arcuri. I like the content but mainly their purpose of spreading knowledge and supporting other women to achieve their dreams.
What advice would you give to other women who are starting to work and want to reach leadership positions in their companies?
Women need to occupy spaces, and also assume leadership positions, in the pursuit of equality in companies. It is necessary to fight for a diverse corporate environment, with men and women in equal proportion, that allows different perspectives that result in balanced and successful management.
We have to know that it is possible to contribute with our competence and singularity, respecting our beliefs, values, and competencies, which will not always be the profile/model of men/masculine, but equally powerful and transformative.
From this sector, how can we contribute to achieving a more inclusive digital world?
As a first step, we must raise awareness and accept people’s capabilities and skills regardless of gender. As a society, we have many stereotypes that we use to pigeonhole activities just because that’s how it has always been. Fortunately, this gap has been opening up a little more, with greater acceptance and dissemination, leading to a bit more equity.
I consider women’s groups that come together to develop and train in digital activities to be a good initiative since they can serve as support and provide women with the confidence to establish themselves in the workplace and personal life. Media dissemination and social networks, given the era we are in, will continue to function as the most adaptive tool.
Who is your role model? Which women do you admire, and why?
Carol Shaw, is known as the first professional female video game designer. She worked for Atari and Activision and created the game River Raid for Atari 2600 in 1982, with more than a million units sold.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in your career due to your gender, and how did you overcome them?
In my case, I studied Computer Systems Engineering, and the mere fact of studying engineering, where the term “engineer” was traditionally used to refer to male students, was a challenge. It was only recently that the term “engineer” has been recognized as gender-neutral.
Taking courses related to circuit programming was challenging because it required soldering some parts and having contact with electrical current, for example, since some activities were defined as exclusively for male students within the same degree program.
A key part of overcoming stereotypes is having confidence in oneself and accepting that one is not born knowing everything. Both men and women can learn any type of knowledge and skills. As individuals, we must learn to respect ourselves.
This year, the United Nations defined the following theme for International Women’s Day: “For an inclusive digital world: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” At Reservamos SaaS, we wanted to reflect on this topic and speak with prominent women who are part of the bus sector, and who are changing the game of innovation and technological development. We spoke with them about the impact of women’s participation in accelerating innovation and technological development, and how they are driving growth in the sector through their ideas, talent, and vision.
Their example and trajectory demonstrate that the presence of women is key to forging new paths toward a more equal and technologically advanced future.
From your sector, how can we contribute to achieving a more inclusive digital world?
Thanks to the advancement of new technologies, it is increasingly necessary to have digital spaces where users are fully integrated. Users today need to interact with our services in the fastest and most efficient way possible.
We must move towards generating digital content and offers that are increasingly inclusive and diverse.
For GTP, advancing the digitization of our services and products is a commitment to our customers.
The passenger transportation industry must be able to contribute to digital, labor, and social inclusion, where everyone has access to a more empathetic and collaborative world.
Who is your role model? Which women do you admire and why?
I greatly admire Malala Yousafzai, because, since the age of 11, she has been fighting for women’s rights, and dared to go to school, a place forbidden for women in Pakistan. It was at that moment when she was shot in the head and was close to dying.
On October 10, 2014, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and she is an important activist for children’s rights and the youngest winner of this prize.
How can we encourage professional development and training for women in the business and technology fields?
Promoting and strengthening spaces for women’s career progression is essential in every organization, especially in this industry where the role of women was very excluded for many years.
We have the “GTP Academy”, a platform for free courses and training, where our employees can access online content, with the aim of offering learning and growth opportunities within the company.
It is necessary to create development opportunities within companies, encourages the attraction and retention of talent, and empower our teams, who are the main asset of our companies.
From your sector, how can we contribute to achieving a more inclusive digital world?
People who strategically work with products for the digitalization of services in general often say that everything is designed to be inclusive. However, unlike retail, I see very little empathy with the public that traditionally uses transportation, which is specifically my area of specialization. Stereotypes are constructed of the customer that still seems distant from the passenger. There are some prejudices that need to be overcome, such as discrimination based on age. I believe that deep immersion in the daily life of bus stations would competently cover all audiences.
On the other hand, it is necessary to understand that a good digital or traditional service is continuous, and for that, security must come first. The passenger’s safety needs to rely on the quality and supervised service because they are not in a position to evaluate such security at the time of boarding. And legal security for the entrepreneur who will only make long-term investments if they have this perception of the company’s environment.
Who is your role model? Which women do you admire and why?
I have many women and men who inspire me, but in honor of them, I would always and continuously mention Luiza Helena Trajano, who, for me, was the manager who best-understood inclusion and the idea of sharing within the Brazilian scenario. In our association, it is worth mentioning that over two decades ago, ABRATI chose a woman for the Vice Presidency, Sandra Oger, as well as Thereza Christina Villela, a lawyer who has worked in the transportation environment since the 1980s, being a pioneer in women who opened a valuable path that I cannot help but recognize and thank for paving the way for me.
How can we promote wage equality and gender equity in the business and technology environment?
Training and above-average performance may not be the fairest way, but at the moment, it is the only way for women to have their value recognized. In the future, I believe this will change, but for now, what I can say to everyone is to study, be curious, and dedicate yourselves more and better so that your recognition is infallible. If not, change your environment, and seek out other women to offer you support and help; life reserves surprising situations.
From ABRATI’s point of view, how can companies and society in general support women to overcome the challenges of gender discrimination in the workplace and technology environment?
ABRATI was one of the first transportation associations to have the participation of pioneers in the board of directors, directors, and auditorium of entity members. Our desire is for passenger transportation to become an increasingly opportunistic and growing sector for women, and for that, ABRATI functions as a network of support and encouragement.
We share 5 tips to increase the organic traffic of your bus brand
For the bus sector, visibility in search engines (SEO) has become a priority, especially after the competitiveness in digital channels has increased due to the digitization caused by the pandemic. Therefore, here we share 5 tips to increase the organic traffic of your bus brand.
Make good use of your content
If you have a blog, use it to publish keyword-rich articles about the destinations you have available, services, and any other information relevant to the traveler, as these will help you rank better in search engines. Google’s first principle is “Focus on the user and everything else will follow”; the goal of this tool is to solve the user’s search intent and help perform a specific task. This means that as long as you have your traveler in mind and solve the doubts about what he is looking for with the content of your page, your brand will be well positioned.
Intention is king
Travelers look for some pretty specific things when they want to book a trip. This is the perfect opportunity to optimize your pages through long-tail keywords; These are very specific search phrases that meet the user’s search intent, and while they have low search volume, they have little competition and typically higher conversion rates.
Use Google tools
Make use of the same tools offered by the most used search engine globally, Google. For example, Google’s image tool is one of the most useful ways to drive traffic to your site. This is why the images on your page must have names with keywords and tags that will help search engines identify them. Or there is also Google Trends where you can see the most searched topics and terms around your destinations or services.
Beyond the keywords
Currently, Google has gone beyond pure keywords to a more advanced understanding of articles and pages and has therefore identified certain “entities”. These “are not simply a person, place or thing, but also their characteristics, which are connected by relationships. An entity is any element of the document that is distinct and well-defined.” In simple terms, this means that while you should start with your base keywords, you should also do some research on the topic. Look at the first page of your search results: what are they talking about? You also make content about those same entities and make it better and more relevant.
High-quality link building
Ultimately, you need to consider the entire process for a traveler to complete a purchase on your site, from seeking inspiration and ideas to actual trip planning, booking, and finally experimentation. These four “micro-moments” define four key opportunities for your bus business to be discovered in search engine results. During the inspiration and planning stages, your potential travelers are likely to look outside the site for what they perceive as “unbiased” information, and a link from a trusted site would put you in a good position. A strong digital PR campaign is essential for many reasons, including gaining visibility on high-traffic and relevant sites. The challenge for the industry is to speak to potential customers in a relevant way to each stage of the buying experience, not simply by placing sales messages on the web.
Remember that more than 50% of people search only on mobile, so if your site is not mobile-ready, all this effort will be in vain. All Google algorithm updates point to improving the user experience as their main objective; if you focus on this point, you encourage your travelers to stay longer on your website, and in the end, this will lead to higher conversion.
