Do You Have An Immigrant Women Strategy?

According to Intuit Inc.'s Future of Small Business Report, Immigrant women are one of the fastest-growing segments of small business owners in the United States and can expect to be a sizable portion of small business owners by 2017.

Immigrant women are starting businesses at a rate 41 percent higher than native-born women.

Why are they starting businesses:

• For flexibility to raise children
• To avoid barriers that come with traditional jobs
• Because their skills do not translate well into corporate America

Immigrant women are "prone to taking risks," said Farhana Huq, of CEO Women, a San Francisco nonprofit that helps low-income immigrant women start businesses. "They really just put themselves on the line."

Language skills and relationships from home countries also give immigrant women advantages that help them find suppliers and customers.

Does your company have a strategy to sell to the increasing number of immigrant women owned businesses?