Banks are set up to give loans to manufacturing businesses and women had a hard time getting start up loans since most of their businesses are service oriented. Since this research has been published, Wells Fargo set up a 10 billion-dollar loan service exclusively for women to grow businesses with more collateral. Women are starting and taking over businesses at a great rate for a wide number of reasons. Some of them are left businesses by their husbands while others branch out on their own after their children are raised or a spouse leaves them. Women are also exiting large corporations because of the glass ceiling.
Young women are more entrepreneurial as a result of role modeling by older women.
The internal policies and programs for women at IBM are inextricably linked to the company's success in this marketplace. Women business owners describe their businesses in family terms and see their business relationships as a network. These programs were established to benefit all employees but they are of critical importance to women, who typically have greater need for flexibility. In 1995 IBM launched a diversity task force to study the needs of its women employees. A direct result of the task force was IBM's development of a structure to address women business owners as a unique market segment with tailored communications and market strategy.