News
Advancing women-led enterprises with modern technology
Women-led enterprises are transforming the business sector through innovation and resilience. Many female entrepreneurs use modern technology to overcome traditional challenges and seize new opportunities.
Access to advanced tools and platforms has enabled women to streamline operations, reach wider audiences, and make informed decisions. This shift boosts individual businesses and contributes significantly to global economic growth. However, understanding how technology can empower women entrepreneurs is essential for fostering a more inclusive business environment.
Keep reading as we explore how modern technology advances women-led businesses, offering practical insights and future trends to support their growth and success.
How Modern Technology Is Empowering Female Entrepreneurs
Modern technology empowers female entrepreneurs by providing tools to streamline operations and enhance decision-making. Cloud computing, for instance, offers scalable resources that can grow with your business. Another is artificial intelligence, and how it can provide insights into customer behaviour and optimise marketing strategies.
Additionally, mobile technology allows business management from any location, offering flexibility. Embracing these technologies involves continuous learning and adaptation, which is why online courses and webinars are excellent resources for staying up-to-date with technological advancements.
Women-Led MSPs: Supporting Small Businesses With Modern Solutions
Women-led Managed Service Providers (MSPs) offer essential IT services that help small businesses thrive. These MSPs handle cybersecurity, cloud management, and IT support, allowing other businesses to focus on core activities. Successful women-led MSPs need to utilise robust tools to manage their clients’ needs effectively. Investing in MSP Remote Desktop solutions is crucial for ensuring seamless service delivery.
Look at the solutions for MSP from TSplus, which provides reliable remote access and desktop management tools. Staying updated with the latest technologies and continuously improving service offerings can help women-led MSPs support their clients more effectively. By leveraging their expertise, women-led MSPs can inspire other female entrepreneurs to explore careers in technology.
Digital Tools And Platforms Transforming Women-Led Businesses
Digital tools are revolutionising how women-led businesses operate. For example, some platforms make launching and scaling online stores easy, reaching a global audience. When launching an online store, utilising the power of social media is a must. Social media channels like Instagram and Facebook provide powerful marketing tools, enabling direct customer engagement.
Internally, project management software helps organise tasks and improve productivity. One of the best ways to make the most of these is to focus on understanding their functionalities and how they can be integrated into business operations. From here, regularly updating and maintaining digital platforms will help to ensure a smooth user experience.
The Role Of Online Communities And Networks For Women Entrepreneurs
Globally, the number of women-led enterprises is increasing, driven by factors such as improved access to education and supportive policies. As a result, there are now online communities and networks that play a crucial role in the success of women entrepreneurs. Platforms like Female Founders and Women Who Tech offer spaces for networking, mentorship, and knowledge sharing. These communities provide support, inspire confidence, and foster collaborations that can lead to business growth.
Joining these networks involves active participation, such as attending virtual events, engaging in discussions, and seeking out mentorship opportunities. Sharing experiences and challenges within these communities can lead to valuable insights and solutions. And, of course, building a strong network also opens doors to potential partnerships and collaborations, expanding business opportunities and resources.
Future Trends: Technological Innovations Benefiting Women-Led Enterprises
Several technological trends hold promise for women-led enterprises. Advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning are creating new business opportunities by automating complex tasks and providing data-driven insights. Blockchain technology offers secure and transparent ways to conduct transactions, enhancing trust and efficiency.
Remote work technologies are enabling more women to balance entrepreneurship with other commitments. Staying ahead of these trends involves continuous learning and experimentation. Subscribing to industry newsletters, attending tech conferences, and participating in innovation workshops can keep female entrepreneurs informed about the latest developments. Implementing these technologies thoughtfully can drive growth and competitive advantage.
Practical Tips For Women Entrepreneurs To Embrace Modern Technology
For women entrepreneurs looking to harness the power of technology, here are some practical tips:
- Stay Informed: Keep up with the latest tech trends and tools relevant to your industry through blogs, webinars, and online courses.
- Invest in Training: Participate in workshops and online courses to build your tech skills and stay updated on new tools.
- Leverage Social Media: Use platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter to market your business and connect with customers.
- Utilise Cloud Services: Opt for cloud-based solutions to enhance flexibility and scalability in your business operations.
- Seek Mentorship: Join networks and seek mentors who can provide guidance and support in your entrepreneurial journey.
The Future Of Women-Led Enterprises In The Tech-Driven World
The future is promising for women-led enterprises, with modern technology acting as a catalyst for growth and innovation. As more women embrace technological tools and solutions, they will continue to break barriers and drive economic progress. By staying informed, leveraging digital tools, and building strong networks, women entrepreneurs can ensure their businesses succeed in the tech-driven world.
System C has completed the national rollout of BadgerNet Maternity across all seven NHS Health Boards in Wales. This is the first time any UK nation has unified its maternity care under a single digital record and patient-facing app.
With approximately 26,000 babies born annually in Wales, BadgerNet connects maternity information across organisational boundaries in the country.
Expectant parents can access their records, maternity appointments and key updates digitally through a single app, wherever they receive care while clinicians have secure access to the right information at the point of care.
The national three-year agreement across all Heath Boards replaces a patchwork of separate local systems and eliminates the need for paper hand-held notes.
Anthony Tracey is director of digital at Hywel Dda University Health Board, the final of the Welsh Health Boards to go live with BadgerNet.
He said: “The rollout of BadgerNet across Wales is a vitally important step forward in modernising our maternity services and providing a consistent service across the country.
“By giving expectant parents direct access to their information and enabling clinicians to share data more effectively, we are strengthening safety, transparency and consistency in maternity care nationwide.”
For expectant parents, the single digital maternity record transforms how they engage with their care.
Instead of carrying paper notes and repeating information at every appointment, parents can access key details, appointments and updates digitally, supporting more informed conversations and shared decision-making.
The result is greater transparency, fewer administrative frustrations and a more joined-up experience throughout pregnancy and into the postnatal period, regardless of which health board they fall under.
For clinicians and Health Boards, the joined-up approach reduces duplication and streamlines handovers across teams and sites. Information is digitally captured once and made available securely wherever it is needed, helping to minimise errors, reduce time spent tracking down notes and support more efficient multidisciplinary working.
At a national level, linking maternity data across Wales creates a foundation for safer, more consistent care.
Aggregated, standardised information enables earlier identification of trends and variation, supports evidence-based policy decisions and enhances long-term service planning.
With a comprehensive view of maternity activity and outcomes across the country, Wales is now better positioned to raise standards for parents, babies and families.
Guy Lucchi, managing director of healthcare at System C, added: “Delivering a truly national approach across all seven Health Boards is a significant achievement for Wales.
“One shared system means information flows with the patient, not the organisation.
“That reduces duplication, supports earlier identification of risk and frees up valuable clinical time.
“Crucially, linking maternity data at a national level provides powerful insight to drive improvement. Health Boards can benchmark, plan services with greater confidence and ensure resources are targeted where they are needed most, while expectant parents benefit from clearer communication and a more connected experience of care.”
Perimenopause misinformation on social media is putting women at risk of unintended pregnancies, unnecessary medication and missed diagnoses, experts have said.
Awareness of menopause and treatments such as hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, has been raised by efforts including a prominent documentary by Davina McCall.
But as a growing number of women encounter misleading information on social media, there are concerns that some could be led to false conclusions that can obscure real underlying health difficulties.
“Everyone thinks they’re menopausal,” said Dr Paula Briggs, a consultant in sexual and reproductive health.
“So we are seeing younger and younger women asking for HRT when what they need is hormonal contraception, as they’re still fertile.
“I work in an abortion service and we’re seeing more women over 35 now who believe themselves to be menopausal and are gobsmacked when they become pregnant.”
According to the British Menopause Society, more than 80 per cent of women will be menopausal by the age of 54, meaning they have not had a period for 12 months or more, with about 5 per cent reaching menopause before the age of 45.
But menopause is not a sudden stop. Instead, women go through a transition known as perimenopause over months or years.
During this time, hormone levels fluctuate and can cause symptoms such as changes in menstrual patterns, hot flushes and difficulty sleeping.
Briggs said misinformation around perimenopause is concerning.
“I look at things like Instagram to see what they are exposed to and I am horrified,” she said, citing examples of women in their 30s being told to demand HRT if they are unable to sleep or are struggling with migraines, and to switch GPs if denied.
Or women being told they should seek testosterone treatment.
“I’m not anti any of these things in the right person, but females produce their own testosterone lifelong, even women without ovaries, so the idea that everybody has to demand testosterone is bonkers,” Briggs said.
Dr Channa Jayasena, an expert in reproductive endocrinology at Imperial College London, also raised concerns.
“It’s great that there’s better [public] awareness [about perimenopause]. And I think many doctors are completely unaware about how debilitating the symptoms of perimenopause can be,” he said.
“But the flipside of that, I think there’s a risk that some women are being mislabelled as having perimenopause when they have other things that are wrong.”
Prof Janice Rymer, chair of the British Menopause Society, agreed.
“[If you are] having regular periods naturally, then you’re not perimenopausal, end of story. You’ve got good hormone levels,” she said.
Rymer added that there is a perception that any symptom affecting women between the ages of 40 and 60 is due to perimenopause or menopause and that HRT is required.
“I think HRT is completely wonderful,” Rymer said. But, she added, “it’s not for women who don’t need it,” noting that in such situations it can cause heavy bleeding.
Briggs said a key concern arising from misinformation around perimenopause is that women are stopping contraception, thinking it is no longer needed.
Jayasena suggested that could be because of messaging around how fertility declines with age.
“I think we’ve got a real awareness about the timelines for optimum fertility and optimum response for IVF. IVF stops working well beyond the age of 42. It’s easy to translate that to an assumption that you can’t get pregnant naturally, when actually you can,” he said.
Experts have also raised concerns over a pushback against hormonal contraception, something that is particularly acute among younger women, even though demand for HRT is growing.
While they stress contraception is not a one-size-fits-all issue, Briggs noted there are many progestogen-only contraceptives, which use a synthetic version of the hormone progesterone, that can be used alongside HRT to protect against pregnancy while managing symptoms associated with perimenopause.
In addition, she said, there are modern forms of the combined pill that are safer for use in women experiencing perimenopause than traditional combined pills, as they contain a natural form of oestrogen.
Essentially, said Jayasena, “it’s a mini pill plus a bit of HRT.”
Dr Zara Haider, president of the College of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, said misinformation is a significant issue, particularly around fertility and hormone use.
She said: “We still see women stopping contraception too early because they assume they can’t get pregnant, when in reality contraception is needed until menopause is confirmed or until age 55.
“There’s also been a lasting impact from outdated or flawed studies around risks like breast cancer, which has understandably made some women cautious about hormones.
“At the same time, it’s positive that public conversations, including high-profile campaigns, have helped bring menopause into the mainstream.
“The challenge now is making sure women are getting accurate, evidence-based information to make informed decisions.”
An early PET scan after one cycle of chemotherapy may help predict how aggressive breast cancer responds to treatment, a study suggests.
Research led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London and King’s College London suggests that an early scan taken after one cycle of chemotherapy could help predict how well a patient’s cancer will respond to treatment.
The study focused on patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of the disease in which cancer cells lack receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, as well as the HER2 protein.
Patients with TNBC are usually treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery. While many respond well, residual disease at surgery, typically around six months later, is associated with a significantly poorer prognosis. Identifying people sooner who are unlikely to respond remains a major clinical challenge.
The research explored whether using PET imaging shortly after treatment begins, rather than relying only on MRI scans later in the treatment process, could provide earlier insight into how a patient’s cancer is responding. Twenty-two patients were recruited, with fourteen undergoing FDG-PET scans before treatment and after the first cycle of chemotherapy.
The findings, published in Clinical Cancer Research, showed that changes seen on PET scans after just one cycle of chemotherapy were strongly associated with subsequent response, including whether there was no detectable cancer, known as a complete response, by the end of treatment. Importantly, early PET response showed stronger associations with treatment outcomes than standard mid-treatment MRI scans in this study.
Being able to identify patients who are not responding well at an early stage could allow clinicians to adjust treatment sooner or consider alternative approaches. These findings may also support future strategies to better tailor treatment intensity to individual patients.
The study also compared two types of PET tracers, FDG and FLT, to determine which was most suitable. While both met the study’s technical criteria, FDG-PET was selected for further evaluation due to its better image quality, greater consistency and wider use in clinical practice.
The research also explored how imaging changes after just one cycle of chemotherapy relate to the body’s immune response to treatment. Biopsies taken before and after the first cycle of chemotherapy showed that an increase in immune cells within the tumour was strongly associated with both early PET changes and improved treatment outcomes.
The researchers emphasise that these findings now need to be validated in larger studies. Future work will aim to confirm these results in broader patient groups and explore more accessible imaging approaches, such as ultrasound, alongside PET and MRI.
Sheeba Irshad, professor of cancer immunology at King’s College London and lead of the Breast Cancer Now KCL Research Unit, said:
“In patients who had PET scans both before treatment and after the first cycle, we found that this early scan could predict whether they were likely to achieve a complete response by the end of treatment. These findings highlight the potential of early imaging to guide treatment decisions, and now need to be validated in larger, modern clinical trials.”
Andrew Tutt, professor of breast oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:
“Research that helps us determine early who is already benefitting from standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy and who might benefit from clinical trials to find better treatments is vital. This study shows that FDG-PET may have great value in this regard. We hope to be able to design studies that further investigate and validate these findings.”
The study was supported by funding from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.
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