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Working women worldwide want access to technology
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September 28, 1998 by Kristi Essick |
From...
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(IDG) -- The majority of women business owners from Argentina to Ireland are concerned about not getting access to the right technology to assist in the future growth of their companies, according to a new study.
Out of a group of women business owners surveyed at two international conferences, 83 percent said they already use computers at work, but 79 percent expressed concern that they weren't getting adequate access to information about new technologies that could help expand their businesses.
The research was sponsored by IBM and conducted by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners (NFWBO).
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Responses from women from countries as diverse as Argentina, Canada, Ethiopia, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Senegal, Uganda, and the United States were included in the study, which was conducted over the past two years.
Most of the women said computers constitute a very important aspect of their business today, and they consider new developments in technology as key to their companies' future growth, the study said. Small business owners, in particular, feel technology can help them expand internationally.
In Canada, 100 percent of those women polled said they used computers, as compared with 95 percent in Argentina, 93 percent in the United States, and 60 percent in Finland, according to individual studies done in these countries.
In each county surveyed, more than two-thirds of the women entrepreneurs said that learning about new technology was "very important" or "extremely important," according to the study. In Argentina, 80 percent of the women surveyed made such an assessment, compared with 69 percent in Canada and 62 percent in Ireland, for example.
However, since most women have had little formal training in the use of computers, it comes as no surprise that they feel distanced from new developments in technology, IBM said in a statement.
Only 3 percent of those enrolled in technology career-training programs around the world are women, the company pointed out. IBM, for its part, plans to work with women business owners globally to understand their needs in order to market products specifically to them, IBM said.
The market is a lucrative one if technology companies can find a way to make their products well-known. According to the NFWBO, women-owned businesses generate revenues of $2.3 trillion annually in the United States alone, and account for one-quarter of overall business in the economy worldwide.
The Internet is a popular technology tool for many of today's businesswomen, but usage rates varied widely. Eighty-five percent of women business owners in Canada use the Internet for work, while only 50 percent do so in Ireland and 37 percent in Argentina. Overall, 51 percent of the women surveyed at the two international conferences use the Internet on a regular basis.
More information on the National Foundation for Women Business Owners can be found at http://www.nfwbo.org. IBM Corp., in Armonk, N.Y., is at http://www.ibm.com.
Kristi Essick is Senior European Correspondent for the IDG News Service in Paris.