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The Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG, Atlanta, GA) is a truly global company. It offers more than half a million rooms in 3,500 hotels, including Intercontinental Hotels and Resorts, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites.
Karmetria Dunham has been the group's diversity and inclusion supply chain manager for about a year; she was brought in when supplier diversity was first adopted as a formal initiative. "I've been a supporter of supplier diversity in past jobs, but never the main person," she says.
When she arrived, minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) and woman-owned business enterprises (WBEs) were already providing IHG with a range of products and services.
Internal education
One of Dunham's first initiatives was a series of lunch-and-learn programs for IHG folks with buying authority or an interest in the idea of supplier diversity. The meetings include a forty-five minute presentation and Dunham says the response has been positive.
She also sends out internal communications on IHG's supplier diversity accomplishments, including a letter from the president. This, she says, helps people see the importance of the program.
External outreach
Dunham has developed a relationship with the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) and serves on the board of the Georgia chapter. She's also active with the regional affiliate of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). With both these entities, she attends conferences, serves on panels and goes to trade fairs. "It's a way of communicating our program to minority business owners," she says.
IHG has also created a website, www.ichgplc.com/supplierdiversity, where interested MBE and WBE suppliers can explore doing business with IHG. Suppliers who register with the company will be contacted if appropriate opportunities are available.
Meeting the goal
Mentoring the group's women and minority suppliers is an important part of the job. "We train suppliers on how to do business with corporations, whether it's skill levels or information that they need to provide, and how to make strategic approaches to the companies."
Both IHG and Dunham firmly believe that supporting MBEs and WBEs "supports the communities in which we serve. Offering these companies procurement opportunities keeps us competitive and gives us access to good businesses.
"We've met our goal for the first year, and we're very excited," Dunham declares.
"As the program matures we'll obviously want to set our goals even higher because we'll know what we need to do to make it happen."
IHG and Nested Technologies
Nested Technologies (Atlanta, GA) has been one of IHG's IT suppliers for five years. Curtis Foster, owner and president of Nested, started his company in April 1999 and began negotiations with IHG later that year. "We went into contract in January 2000 and things have continued since then," he says.
Foster is in the ideal position to work with IHG, because "My background is in the hotel industry," he says. He has a degree in business admin from Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA).
Working in "a myriad of different positions" in various hotels over the course of seven years, he came to understand the opportunities to be found in the technology and automation needs of the industry.
"What the market really wants"
While he was working as a reservations manager at Intercontinental's Crowne Plaza Ravinia (Atlanta, GA), he taught himself programming and created a system to help with new corporate reporting requirements.
Then he offered to sell the product to the corporate office. "It was the classic entrepreneurial faux pas," he says with a laugh. "I thought I knew what the market really wanted, but the market wasn't interested."
They were, however, interested in working with him on other automation challenges. In true entrepreneurial style, Foster jumped at the opportunity. He set up a consulting business with himself and a group of contractors who could work as needed.
"We moved into a consulting role and it really worked out well for us," he says. "We were able to make customized solutions at a rapid pace. We find that develops a much stronger relationship with our client than just trying to sell a product."
Into supplier diversity
Foster was a supplier "just like any of the other vendors," he says. "Until Karmetria told me, I hadn't even realized that we were one of IHG's largest minority-owned vendors. I knew that they were setting up an organization to oversee this but I hadn't had any direct interaction with them up to that time."
With Nested's five-year history of success with IHG, there's no need for this supplier to be mentored by the supplier diversity group. But Dunham has persuaded Foster to look into the certification organizations.
"Karmetria has helped us see the opportunities those people have for minority-owned vendors," Foster says. "We are going to get certified through one of them and do some networking there."
Client satisfaction
From the beginning, "We've been very lean and aggressive in obtaining business and completing the projects we get," Foster says. "It's part of our mission statement that any project we take on has to exceed the expectations of the customer. We'll deliver projects in a matter of weeks when our competitors are bidding on months of work."
Nested, Foster stresses, is "always willing to go the extra mile." At the same time, he says, he takes care of his people. "We make sure that our contractors have the best working conditions and an appropriate amount of time off.
"Preserving the relationship we have with our current client is more urgent for us than going out and pursuing others," he notes. "It all comes from service, which has been engrained in my head from being in the hotel industry so long.
"Our goal is to deliver top-notch service relentlessly. Whether it's on the weekend or evening or any time, we want to be there for the client."
"One bit better"
"Our clients will be quick to let us know the moment we're not doing it right," Foster notes with a smile. "Being a minority-owned firm, we are keenly aware that to compete in this marketplace with minorities and non-minorities we have to always do it one bit better."
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