When Thistle Hotel in Johor Baru opened its doors last July, it introduced one floor exclusively for women — the 12th floor. The Ladies Floor is serviced by only female staff for both room service and security.

General manager Philip Skitch says the response to the 12th floor has been positive. “Ladies really do appreciate and enjoy the finer details in rooms on the Ladies Floor,” he said in an email interview last month. These “finer details” range from the lavender hues of the rooms to lavish bathing products such as loofahs, yukata with matching slippers, eye masks for tired eyes and four different kinds of tea.

“Industry reports have shown that the number of female executives travelling alone has increased considerably, which creates an opportunity for hotels to provide services tailored specifically for this audience,” says Skitch.

Thistle is just one example of companies that are making the extra effort to meet the needs of the female market which, according to Boston Consulting Group (BCG), is poised to grow. In a major global consumerism study released late last year of over 22,000 women in 22 countries, BCG found that women feel vastly underserved by the products and services that are available. That translates into huge opportunities lost because according to the consulting firm, women control about 67% of the overall US$18.4 trillion in global discretionary spending, and that figure is set to rise.

“In Malaysia, there’s growth [in the number] of women entering the workforce but with more education, women are also taking better-paying jobs. So, you have a two-fold effect that’s driving that,” BCG New York partner and managing director Kate Sayre said in an interview during a visit to Kuala Lumpur early last month.

Sayre co-authored the book Women Want More: How to Capture Your Share of the World's Largest, Fastest-Growing Market with BCG partner Michael J Silverstein. The book is based on the global study which, as Sayre explains, grew out of some client work that the consulting firm had been doing.

“We keep hearing these themes over and over, particularly that women are taking on more challenging jobs and bigger roles at work, but that their responsibilities at home haven’t diminished,” she says.

Based on the survey, BCG postulates that the opportunities offered by what consumer goods experts Sayres and Silverstein dub “the female economy” will be bigger than the rise of China and India. But most businesses, it seems, are not tapping into these opportunities, with the result that there is a lot of dissatisfaction among women consumers out there. According to the survey, the three categories which draw the most ire from female customers are financial services (73%), health care (71%) and consumer durables (47%).

Sayre says the real frustration when it comes to these three categories is the difficulty in making the right decision as it involves doing a lot of research. But in the first place, women — who tend to be starved for time because of the many roles they have to juggle — don't have time to sit down and do the necessary research. And even if they did, the information they unearth might be conflicting.

“It’s the importance of the decision and similarly, we see this in investments, such as [planning for] retirement. There is a lot of anxiety. ‘How do I balance giving the children all the tools they need to be successful but at the same time, save for my family’s future?’ It’s a very difficult and emotional decision because they’re both important,” says Sayre.

That realisation was behind ING Insurance Bhd's decision to introduce its INGeasi for Women plan in July 2008.

“INGeasi for Women is designed with simplicity in mind, providing women with tailor-made solutions coupled with simple choices to meet individual needs,” ING Insurance head of branding and corporate communications Geraldine Wong explained in an email interview last month. Within the first month of the product’s launch, the insurance company received close to 1,000 new applications. ING is not alone in targetting women. In May 2008, RHB Islamic Bank became the first bank in Malaysia to offer privilege banking for high-net-worth women when it introduced its Az-Zahra plan, which offers services ranging from home financing to hire purchase and investment. A spokesperson for RHB Islamic says the financial product has been well received.

However, the financial sector needs to look not just at products but services. Almost half (47%) of the women in the BCG survey listed managing household finances as the top challenge in their lives. But Sayre says when it comes to investment, advisers are primarily men. She cites the case of one of the woman surveyed for the book who said that the financial adviser she and her husband had would only talk to her husband. Ditching the financial adviser was one of the first things the woman said she did as soon as she got divorced.

Although there has been growing awareness in the financial sector about the need to customise financial services for women, it is difficult to undo years of practice, says Sayre. But some companies are taking steps to change this.

Last July, local insurance company AmAssurance launched its “What Women Want” campaign with road shows in Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor, Kelantan and Sarawak to increase the number of female agents. At end-December, the company had succeeded in recruiting 600 female agents. It expects to recruit another 400 by March 31, 2010.

AmAssurance CEO Ng Lian Lu says the idea was due to the track record of female agents, but adds that it is “only when women are equipped with knowledge and the skill of financial planning, can the financial health of the family be secured and protected”.

The automotive sector is also a source of dissatisfaction among women. According to Sayre, 85% of car purchases involve women in the decision-making process. But the sales pitch for cars tend to incorporate a lot of information on technical aspects.

“What women are concerned about are things like ‘Am I going to be able to get kids in and out of the car easily, is it safe, and what kind of fuel economy does it get?’” she says.

According to Sayre, BMW ranks high in preferred car brands where women are concerned, not so much for prestige but for practicality. Women in the survey chose BMW because of its brakes and the association of that with safety, says Sayre.
BCG Kuala Lumpur principal Nor Azah Razali, who sat in on the interview with Sayre last month, says the survey finding was interesting because she herself owns a BMW.

“I own a BMW but it’s not [because of] the brakes. It’s just a solid car. I can ferry my kids around,” says the mother of six-year-old triplets. “I think it’s partly the design as well. Women are also attracted to the design. It’s not so much the technical aspect, and I don’t understand that. [It’s] the look and the feel, it just feels safer.”

The Automobile Association of Malaysia (AAM) understands the emphasis women drivers place on safety. In May 2008, it introduced the Shape Lady’s membership programme which offers free nationwide on-the-spot minor repairs, 24-hour road assistance nationwide, breakdown care programme, accident care programme and coverage against snatch theft, among other things. The accident care programme ensures that its members are not taken advantage of by unscrupulous tow truck operators after being involved in an accident.

“Lady drivers form a very big population of drivers and we felt that it was timely to introduce a product that would address their specific needs when they are on the road,” says AAM marketing manager Vinod Kesavan.

Women make up 25.8% or about 80,000 of AAM’s 320,000 members and the response to the Shape Lady’s membership programme from existing AAM members who have opted to convert their membership to the Shape Lady’s programme, or applied for it on behalf of their spouses or daughters, has been encouraging, adds Vinod. 

Sayre says the global picture shows that over the next five years, women’s earned income will go from about US$10.5 trillion (RM35.1 trillion) to US$15 trillion. “It’s a tremendous increase in just the next five years.”

Companies that fail to address the female market “risk not tapping into a huge amount of [money] spent today but also most of the growth in income”, she says. “So it really is [a case of] ignore it at your peril, particularly in some of the segments like financial services where you have a pretty good shift on the horizon.”



This article appeared in Manager@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 790, Jan 25-31, 2010