According to the Silver Spring, MD based National Foundation for Women
Business Owners, the number of women-owned businesses in the United States
has more than doubled during the past 12 years. Employment in women-owned
businesses has increased four-fold since 1987 and sales have grown five-fold,
demonstrating their escalating impact on the economy.
The foundation ranks Mississippi 38th out of the 50 states in the number of women-owned firms as of 1999, 37th in employment and 42nd in sales. Its report says that Mississippi currently has 62,600 women-owned firms employing some 149,000 people and showing sales of more than $15 billion in 1999. Those numbers reflect a 40.6 percent growth rate for women-owned firms in the state between 1992 and 1999; the sales increase is 77.4 percent.
According to the Delta Council's Delta Data Center, there are an estimated 8,977 women-owned firms with no paid employees in the 18 Delta and part-Delta counties of Bolivar, Carroll, Coahoma, DeSoto, Holmes, Humphreys, Issaquena, Leflore, Panola, Quitman, Sharkey, Sunflower, Tallahatchie, Tate, Tunica, Warren, Washington and Yazoo. Firms with paid employees in those counties totals 1,568, reporting an estimated $5 million in sales for 1999. (Delta Data Center is a joint venture between Delta Council and Mississippi State University to improve the economic condition of the Delta by providing real-time access to critical data sets to economic development officials and community leaders.)
In the nation as a whole, most women-owned firms are in services and retail trade. In Mississippi, nearly half (46 percent) of women-owned firms are in services, and 22 percent are in retail trade.
The greatest growth in the number of women-owned firms, says the NFWBO, is in the non-traditional industries -- construction, wholesale trade, transportation/communications, agriculture and manufacturing. In Mississippi from 1992 to 1999 the greatest increase has been in construction (67 percent); followed by manufacturing (66 percent); and wholesale trade (65 percent). Growth has been below average among firms in retail trade (24 percent).
Beverly Fratesi, director of the Delta Data Center and a seven-year veteran of economic development, says that some Delta business women also are entering such non-traditional fields. Two businesses immediately come to mind, she says. "In Leland there are two women who manufacture their own products and also have retail store fronts, Dirt Road Pottery and Jiminey Creek. One of those I know also conducts Internet sales," she says.
One of the most impressive figures the NFWBO supplies is the number of employees in women-owned businesses. The number, it reports, has grown more than four times in the past decade. Mississippi's employment increase from 1992 to 1999 has been 76 percent.
Delta Data Center figures say that women-owned firms employ some $97 million in the Delta and support an estimated annual payroll of $97,362. DeSoto County, with the largest number of women-owned businesses at 1,995, has 188 firms with paid employees. Washington County has the largest number of women-owned firms with paid employees -- 239 firms employing some 2,114 workers. Washington County also ranks number one in payroll for these firms.
Another point that the NFWBO makes in its survey is that women entrepreneurs are active in the marketplace, accessing capital, buying technology, using the Internet to expand their businesses and establishing retirement plans in much the same way as their male counterparts.
There are, for instance, resources for capital that are geared specifically for women business owners. One such group is Women Incorporated (www.womeninc.com), a national, California-based nonprofit organization designed to improve the business environment for women through access to capital, credit, business discounts, products and financial services.
Where women business owners differ from men, says the NFWBO report, is in how they lead their businesses. The organizations research shows that women entrepreneurs are more likely than men business owners to place value on business relationships as well as factual information, are more likely than men entrepreneurs to seek out the opinions and input of others, and are more reflective than their male counterparts when making decisions.
Furthermore, the report says that business women are the primary decision-makers in their households two-thirds or more of the time when purchasing such things as television/cable services, telephone services, insurance policies and clothing. More than half the time, they select Internet service providers.
What all this means in the scheme of things, according to the NFWBO, is that women-owned firms will continue to increase in numbers and economic strength. Business women both owners and employees are changing the landscape of business, and it is becoming increasingly valuable for customers, policy makers and business-to-business marketers to understand and benefit from these similarities and differences.
The following articles will illustrate the state of women-owned businesses in the Delta.