“There has to be
a top-down
[diversity] directive,
and it has to be
understood at the
level of the
sales clerk.”
tions in America,” explains Mathews. “And yet a grocery store in one of
the neighborhoods where everyone speaks Arabic featured a Passover
display in the front window. That told me that someone at the corporate
headquarters understood the importance of diversity, but was not in
tune with what was going on at individual stores.”
To help attract a diverse work force at the corporate level, some retailers are sponsoring events, such as the Black MBA Conference and the
Hispanic MBA Conference. Others are participating in mentoring and
internship initiatives, such as the Business Leadership Program (a summer program at the University of Colorado in which diverse high-school
students develop multicultural marketing campaigns).
There’s also the need to hire front-line sales associates who can bring
a multi-lingual dimension to customer service. Understanding the culture of the community where that store is located will help attract new
clientele. Once the best talent is recruited, diversity training at all levels
is essential. “There has to be a top-down directive, and it has to be
understood at the level of the sales clerk,” insists Jerome D. Williams,
Ph.D., a professor of advertising at the University of Texas. “Otherwise,
you end up with the clerk who is asking white customers for one form
of ID and asking people of color to produce two.”
Such initiatives help create a welcoming environment, build a positive
reputation and increase sales. Research shows that diverse customers
are more likely to shop at a place that they feel relates to them. On the
other hand, “if people of color have a sense that a store doesn’t like to
do business with Latinos or blacks, it will get communicated to 15 relatives and friends,” says Santiago. “They close the door forever.”
Today, consumers are no longer homogenous—and even within certain groups, there’s diversity. For instance, a second-generation Cuban
Zones Meets the Needs of Diverse Customers
No two businesses are alike, especially when
it comes to their information technology
needs.
That’s why Zones, Inc. has designed
ZonesConnect, a dedicated e-procurement
site, to meet the needs of diverse businesses, from large enterprises that require an IT
supplier with national capabilities to small and
midsize businesses as well as the public sector. A reseller of leading IT products with a na-
tionwide reach, Zones is also a certified Mi- Firoz Lalji
nority Business Enterprise (MBE) and a certified Corporate Plus member of the National Minority
Supplier Development Council, Inc. The combination of
MBE certification and ability to provide best-in-class customer service across the country is increasingly important to enterprise-level customers moving toward a
more diverse supply chain without sacrificing quality,
price or service.
“Companies today want their supplier relationships to
mirror the diversity in their work forces and their customer base,” says Firoz Lalji, Chairman and CEO. “We
can help our customers meet that need. While our MBE
status has opened doors for us, particularly with corporate clients who understand the value of supplier-diversity initiatives, our ability to service these customers na-
tionally is what has kept them doing business
with us.”
The ZonesConnect e-procurement site is
an example of Zones’ focus on customer
service. With features such as purchase-authorization management, the site was
designed to streamline the procurement
processes and meet the order-fulfillment
needs of Fortune 500 companies with sophisticated supply-chain requirements. Those
same tools can be used to lower procurement costs for smaller businesses and educational customers, even if their own systems aren’t
state-of-art.
And just as Zones helps its customers meet their
diversity requirements, Zones also is intent on ensuring
that diversity is part of its business plan.
Headquartered in Auburn, Wash., and incorporated in
1988, Zones, Inc. is a single-source reseller of IT products
from leading manufacturers, including HP, IBM, Lenovo,
Microsoft and more. Zones is the nation’s largest reseller
of IBM servers. As a Corporate Plus MBE, Zones can
provide nationwide world-class fulfillment for large
enterprise clients as well as the small to medium business sector. Buying information is available at
www.zones.com, or by calling 800-258-2088.
