Home-based businesses – the new trend in entrepreneurship

The phenomenon of home-based businesses is growing steadily across the world. These micro-businesses or SMEs are an important part of the private business sector.

Home-based business form the core foundation for anyone who has an entrepreneurial mindset and is eager to test the market. Any business whose primary office is the owner’s home regardless the size or the nature of its activity is defined as a Home-based Business (HbB). Home becomes an incubator of the economic activity, which the individual establishes by and for himself to initiate his business, whether for a temporary period until getting his HbB mature followed by converting it to a non-home business. Now the question is: How can I turn my hobby into a home business?

Many factors fuel this new business format:

Personal freedom that allows flexibility of working hours
Less financial risk as there is no need to inject a lot of cash
A flexible way to maintain a work-life balance
Direct ROI: the harder you work, the more money you make
Less stress and more work time, less commute time
Reduction of overhead costs
The ability to scale up or scale down
Test out business ideas (50% of all new businesses fail)
Aging population and early retirement

Seemingly there are 1458 potential HbBs in Qatar, according to the Ministry of Labor & Social Affairs and the Social Development Center. To support these businesses, Qatar government focuses on strengthening the private sector and encouraging entrepreneurship; and wants also to provide high standard of living and adequate opportunities to generate a income for all residents, as it is part of Qatar National Vision 2030. It is also worth noting that this initiative may be a great opportunity for women – who can’t work or don’t want to work outside their homes – to participate in economic progress.The fact that home businesses are growing rapidly, it indicates that many individuals have found more benefits than disadvantages to continue operating these businesses.Hence, last December, the Ministry of Economy and Commerce decided to legalize household businesses. This announcement has been received very positively by Qatar residents.

To obtain a license to run a small business at home, the owner must be at least 18 years of age and a resident of the house from where the business will run. The annual licensing fee is QAR 1,020. The license holder can engage only in direct sales to the public from home. Furthermore, only one house can register per license and the license holder is not legally allowed to recruit any worker from abroad. HbBs permitted by the Ministry include sewing, cooking, creating antiques and gifts, preparing and packaging gifts, designing cards and gifts by hand, arranging natural and artificial flowers, and electronic services, packaging and binding school textbooks, preparation of perfumes, beauty products, coffee, spices and meals.

Based on two QDB reports “Home-based Business Owners in Qatar” and “Mechanisms for Home businesses advancement in Qatar” released in October 2015, with a sample size of 33% out of 1458 potential HbBs, 86% are operational, 95% are run by women, 84% owners are 30 years old and above.It is interesting to note that 46% of HbB owners hold a job at the moment, while 43% have never been employed at all. 52% of business owners holding a job represent a younger population, aged under 40 years old. Also, 62% are over 40 years old and have never held a job. Those statistics are crucial in highlighting the factors or reasons to launch a HbB. When we take a look at the classification of business activities, food preparation (28%) ranks at the top, followed by handmade products (26%) and sewing (24%).

Concluding on a positive note, 71% of previous HbB have expressed a desire to start a HbB again, which strongly reflects the success of this new trend.

For further details:

http://qatar.smetoolkit.org/qatar/en/content/en/54439/Home-Based-Business

Credit: Anne Sophie/ QBIC

URL:http://www.qbic.qa/homebasedbusinesses/