Staples (Framingham, MA), the office superstore, breaks down its business into North American retail, international and North American delivery. Staples Contract, a division of the North American delivery business, is Staples' fastest growing segment, with double-digit growth for the past seven years, says Tara Spann, director of diversity initiatives for Staples' North American delivery. The contract division serves both mid-sized and Fortune 1000 companies.
Staples is a relatively young company, founded just twenty-one years ago. It has always included M/WBEs in its product supplier mix, Spann notes. Its formal supplier diversity program began in 2001, spurred on by demand from contract division customers.
Spann works closely with Staples' strategic sourcing and merchandising departments, but reports to the president of North American Delivery.
Mentoring is smart business
"It's really just smart business for us to support the growth of M/WBEs, as well as veteran-owned businesses, HUB-zone companies and physically challenged organizations," Spann says. "It helps to provide innovative products for our customers. We feel it's imperative for us to do business with M/WBE suppliers if we want to remain competitive."
It also helps build the capacity of the small businesses so they can service Staples' customers.
Many of Staples' M/WBE suppliers, Spann notes, "have been doing business longer than Staples has been around. They are often well established locally, but we help them grow and develop so they can do business nationally."
Staples mentors its M/WBEs in key business areas. "Our expert associates have visited their sites and showed them how to develop and streamline their own processes. The result helps us, helps our customers, and of course spurs the M/WBEs' own organic business growth."
Many of the small companies actually compete with Staples at the local and regional level. But, "Helping these businesses grow, makes us both more competitive," Spann believes.
The virtual team
Spann does her work without a staff of her own. "I call on the expertise of people in various departments like legal, customer support systems, IS, credit, tax, contract marketing and more," she says. "I've developed a corporate minority business development team of champions and provided training and development so that everyone is well aware of the importance of supporting diversity.
"This is my virtual team and dedicated staff," she says. "We incorporate diversity into our everyday responsibilities."
Staples has "definitely seen an increase in diversity spend over the past three years as customers demand more products and solutions. If we can help our diverse suppliers grow their businesses, become more competitive, perhaps add manufacturing to distribution, that is how we measure our success."
While there's no formal requirement for Staples suppliers to have a supplier diversity program of their own, "We help them develop one," Spann says. "We share best practices and resources so they can develop programs within their own organizations. We do that to benefit both our suppliers and our customers."
Recruiting diversity
Staples is a member of NMSDC and WBENC as well as many of their regional affiliates. "I am a board member for the Chicago MBDC," Spann notes. It's one of the largest regional councils and puts on a huge business fair.
"We participate in about twenty-five national and regional expositions and award banquets annually, so we meet a lot of new M/WBEs." NMSDC, WBENC and/or SBA certification is required to do business as an M/WBE with Staples.
"If diverse businesses contact me cold, I ask them to register on our database (www.staplescontract.com/mwbe) and navigate them through the different business units to the best buyer associates to help them."
The Roxbury Tech vision
Beth Williams is CEO of Roxbury Technology (Roxbury, MA), a company that produces remanufactured laser cartridges. "In 1999 my father, who was a local distributor of toner cartridges, and Tom Stemberg, founder and CEO of Staples, met on a golf course," Williams explains.
"My father shared his vision about opening a manufacturing facility for laser cartridges in Roxbury," which would be a welcome new employer in Boston's inner city. "Tom said, 'This is a big commodity for us. I see this as something that could happen.'"
But the elder Williams died unexpectedly in 2002, before his dream company became a reality. "I was not part of the company when my father died," Beth Williams says, "but I believed in my father's vision and wanted to fulfill his legacy.
"Staples' Tom Stemberg called me when my father died, and after he offered condolences, he said, 'Whatever you choose to do, Beth, we will support you.'
"So I decided to take a chance. I left my job in March 2003, took the business on fulltime, and we opened a manufacturing plant in August 2004."
Impossible without Staples
"It would have been impossible without Staples' tremendous support," Williams declares. "They provided mentoring, marketing and merchandising advice. They provided a senior level corporate sponsor and paid for me to go to an executive management training program. They also asked one of their key toner suppliers to advise me, and that supplier helped me negotiate my lease and set up my manufacturing facility."
The relationship, and even her father's original golf date with Stemberg, was fostered through the Black and White Boston program. The program brings together local businesspeople, from CEOs of major companies to small minority entrepreneurs, to see how they can work together.
"When my father died his business had three employees. Now we have forty employees. We went from solely distribution to manufacturing and doubled our revenues," Williams notes.
It's not rocket science
The work Roxbury does, says Williams, "is not rocket science, but it is technical. The most difficult part is when an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) issues a new cartridge, and we have to figure out how to take it apart and put it back together."
The other challenge is meeting customer demand. "We may be six months behind an OEM intro of a new cartridge," Williams notes.
Although Williams has learned a lot, she's not strictly a techie. "I graduated from Brown University with a political science degree. My dad always had some kind of business in the inner city, because he believed that jobs mean opportunity and hope. When I graduated from Brown I worked for him for two years. Then I spent five years at Raytheon and nine years at Blue Cross, and now I'm back and running the business."
With Staples and beyond
Most of Roxbury's business so far is through Staples, Williams notes. "We do have some direct accounts with local colleges, hospitals and some local businesses. They are small accounts but extremely committed."
It's a funny industry situation, she explains. Each of the top four office stationery companies promotes just one MBE toner supplier. That can be a difficult situation since each MBE can only be in one office stationers' catalog although the OEMs are in them all.
"We are currently working with a Staples senior management team and a financial advisory company on developing a growth and diversification strategy. We want to continue to grow with Staples as well as expand our business outside Staples."
All the certifications
Williams is active with local chapters of several minority and women supplier organizations. "We have WBENC and NMSDC and several government certifications," she says. "In support of Staples we became certified in a number of states.
"We attend many of the major events that WBENC and NMSDC have. Working with Staples, we can meet as a team with key decision-makers of potential accounts."
Advanced training
Staples sent Williams to the Tuck business program at Dartmouth (Hanover, NH) at the start of their relationship, and this year Liberty Mutual, a Staples customer, sponsored her for the Kellogg program for advanced minority executive training at Northwestern University.
She liked both the programs. "They were long, busy days. It was fun and it was fruitful. It was interesting to share with other MBEs at that level, all trying to figure out how to make it work!"
The Staples/Roxbury Tech connection, Staples' Spann and Roxbury's Williams agree, is a winner for both companies. "As diversity and minority programs become even more essential for Staples and its customers, that helps to fuel it even further," Williams concludes.
D/C
| 
