Women Get Ready, Get Set and Go Global

Today, women are starting businesses at twice the rate of men and becoming a major force both in the traditional and the new global e-business marketplace.

In November, The National Womens Councils Interagency Committee on Womens Business Enterprise prepared and presented to the 2000 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Conference a case study http://www.nwbc.gov/oecd.pdf on successful public and private initiatives for fostering entrepreneurship among women. It notes the significant role women have played in the recent economic prosperity and affirms the fact that "countries with high levels of economic activity and with the highest start-up business rates are the ones where women are well-engaged in entrepreneurial activity." More intriguing still, small businesses owned by women and minorities are focusing more intense efforts on exporting than those owned by non-minority men. The U.S. Small Business Administrations SBA Office of International Trade, in a statistical report released last year, indicated that "America’s small businesses are big players in international trade — and their role is growing rapidly." Export data analysis http://www.sba.gov/library/oitreport/oitnov99report.html shows that 97 percent of U.S. companies that export are small businesses and women own 40 percent of all small businesses http://www.sba.gov/news/speeches/alvarez112900.html.

Wanna Grow Go Global!

Women account for 30 percent of the businesses that export more than half of their products. "Women-owned firms participating in the global marketplace grow more rapidly than women-owned businesses that are primarily domestic," SBA Administrator, Aida Alvarez said. "They are more apt to develop a new product or service and expand domestically. At the SBA http://www.onlinewbc.org/, we have several programs in place to help women-owned businesses take advantage of the outstanding opportunities available through international trade."

Achieving Success a Woman’s Way

Could it be that businesswomen go globetrotting with their products or services more readily than men do because they adapt more easily to foreign countries and cultures “I think women [have a] natural ability to embrace their work and their businesses as a natural extension of their own family,” says Cherie Piebes, IBM’s Global Small Business Program Director for the Alliance Marketing and Women Entrepreneurs market http://www.ibm.com/smallbusiness/women. “Research has indicated that women tend to manage from a centralized focal point, while men manage from a hierarchical stance.” A more personalized style of business interaction makes women uniquely equipped to succeed on the international front, where quality personal relationships are key to success. Even though we realize that the ability to stick to a complex business agenda will win our colleagues confidence and respect, the emotional sensitivity and the capacity for relationship building that is largely attributed to women can be useful in any business negotiation. National Foundation for Women Business Owners http://www.nfwbo.org researchers put it more succinctly: “The fact that we are women, with different challenges and perceptions in the workplace . . . can finally be turned to our advantage, judo style.”

Listen and You’ll Understand

What really enables a woman entrepreneur to go global Here’s what two dynamic global businesswomen have to say. “It has been my experience that doing business in any part of the globe is all about listening,” says Deb Armstrong, President of majority