SUPPLIERDIVERSITY
Creative & Collaborative = Growth
Long known for collaborating, women business owners also bring to
the changing 21st-century marketplace inventiveness, interconnec-tivity and community service that will be key to their growth and
their corporate business partners’.
As president and CEO of the Women’s Business Enterprise National
Council (WBENC), I operate at the hub of a network of 250 corporate
members and nearly 10,000 women’s businesses that are vetted as
certified women’s business enterprises (WBEs). What we do is bring
WBEs to the table with corporations with the goal of building business
together, and we have expanded the scope with a global certification
system that includes Europe, Canada, India and China.
I’m excited that recent research has validated what we experience every day: Women’s businesses are the growth engine of the
economy. The passions and work styles of women have rippling
beneficial effects to their clients, employees and communities.
WBEs devote tremendous energy to create innovative and profitable
solutions that aid their clients and, in turn, their clients’ customers
and shareholders. But women also are mindful of the universe in
which they live. They watch over the health and welfare of their
employees; they contribute meaningfully to their communities; and
they mentor other women.
Under the leadership of Pamela Prince-Eason, chair of the
WBENC board of directors and vice president of worldwide
procurement at Pfizer (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy
Companies in 2010), the playing field in contract acquisition for
women is being leveled.
To encourage corporations to seek bids from WBEs, we certify
that our business pool is at least 51 percent woman/women owned,
operated and controlled. We also provide resources, executive
education and training to help WBEs compete. These efforts
culminate on a national level at the annual “Women in Business
National Conference and Business Fair: The Opportunity
Connection,” an educational/networking event to be held in
Baltimore June 22–24.
Corporations such as Pfizer benefit from WBE networks. Through
its structured supplier-diversity initiative, Pfizer engages, mentors
and retains strong relationships with women-owned suppliers to
ensure they deliver products and services that met the pharmaceutical company’s rigorous standards and expectations. Pfizer, which has
appointed a dedicated supplier-diversity leader to work with
WBENC-certified firms, strives to ensure that both parties are
employing best practices, from the first meeting through the bidding
process and over the course of the business relationship. I
GAINING MOMENTUM
Today, most of the country is focused on
new jobs, and we can look forward to
finding them among women-owned firms.
What characteristics help define women’s
businesses? How can corporations best
partner with them to maximize benefits?
WBEs are highly resourceful, flexible,
innovative and hard working. Above all, they
seek to provide world-class quality products
and services that meet the needs of
clients. The Guardian Life Small Business
Research Institute study confirms that
women entrepreneurs tend to:
; Engage in strategic/tactical facets
of their businesses
; Be proactively customer focused
; Incorporate communities and the
environment into their business
plans
; Be receptive to input and guidance
from internal and external advisers
; Create opportunities for others
How is WBENC creating opportunities for
buyers and women suppliers? Some
resources include:
; A searchable Internet database of
certified WBEs
; An online matchmaking portal
designed to facilitate one-on-one
meetings
; A corporate scorecard for WBE-process improvement
; Soon to come: web-based contract-posting capabilities for Tier I and
Tier II supplier-diversity
opportunities
To encourage professional development, WBEs are also offered
executive education and scholarship
opportunities, sponsored, respectively, by IBM (No. 8 on The 2010
DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for
Diversity® list) and Bank of America
(No. 9 in the DiversityInc Top 50).
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