There are many ethnicities among Asian American entrepreneurs. A 2002 survey of minorities in business by the U.S. Census Bureau identified Asian business owners as Asian Indian, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Japanese, Vietnamese, Pakistani, and “other.”
In April 2007, an analysis of this data by the U.S. SBA found that Asian-owned firms grew 12.6 percent between 1997 and 2002. Asian Indians owned the highest ratio of firms, 37 percent of the total, followed by Koreans at 36 percent and Chinese at 31 percent. Some businesses fit into more than one category, of course.
Springing from the need to survive
Susan Au Allen, national president and CEO of the U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce (USPAACC), declares that the Asian entrepreneurial spirit springs largely from the need to survive. “There’s no safety net in Asia; no welfare system like in the U.S.,” she explains. Parents teach their children that it’s up to them to take care of themselves.
Allen also thinks some Asians start businesses to get the recognition they’ve missed in corporate America. Many feel they’re not quite accepted, or limited to behind-the-scenes roles. “So they think, ‘I have the capability, why don’t I do this myself,’” she says.
Allen notes that while Asian Indians and Chinese dominate the Asian tech industry today, she expects Vietnamese and Filipinos to come on strong in the near future.
Building a sense of trust
USPAACC’s primary goal is to help its members achieve successful contracting relationships. The organization works both regionally and nationally to introduce Asian business enterprises to corporate supplier diversity managers, buyers and end users.
The first step is to build familiarity, so buyers will remember these suppliers when an opportunity arises. “My staff contacts corporations and members daily to monitor activities and facilitate business relationships,” Allen says.
Training sessions are offered at regional meetings and national conferences. One such program shows the members how to prepare both a 30-second pitch and a formal presentation on their backgrounds, products or services and success stories. Friendly corporations like Verizon, American Express, UPS and Pacific Gas & Electric have run sessions on how to get introduced to their own supply chains.
Bridging the cultural divide
Cultural differences pose a unique challenge for Asian MBEs. In May 2007, USPAACC organized a summit for corporate supplier diversity managers and Asian suppliers. The idea was to try to identify issues and concerns from both perspectives, share explanations and propose solutions. After the session, both managers and suppliers understood each other better.
Marketing is another challenge, since many Asians tend to be modest; many are very much aware of their accented English. “But Asians need to step up and take credit for what they’ve done,” Allen says.
USPAACC will soon publish a national directory of Asian American businesses, a resource guide searchable by industry, service and product. It will also have a section designed to educate companies on cultural sensitivities. That’s important, Allen explains, for successful marketing to the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country, and for selling and sourcing from Asia, America’s largest trading bloc.
“Asian connections with the U.S. are the bridge to the future,” Allen concludes.
Certification
A USPAACC study showed a serious lack of knowledge about certification in the Asian American community. Asians, Allen says, are wary of dealing with government, and highly proprietary about their ownership structure and financial situation. Certification requires that companies reveal many such details of their operations.
The chamber has been educating Asian entrepreneurs about the process and benefits of certification. It even set up its own certification program, feeling that Asians would feel more comfortable disclosing inside information to people whose backgrounds and experiences paralleled their own.
“It’s taken us nine years to make a dent! We’ve certified only about 300 Asian MBEs since 1999. But nine years ago, you could count the certified companies on your fingers,” Allen notes.
NAAAP stresses development
Professional development and leadership are the primary goals of the National Association of Asian American Professionals (NAAAP), explains national president and chairman John Fok. “The tools and resources we provide can empower Asians in the U.S. and Canada to become great leaders as well as reliable employees.”
“Catalyst for growth: awareness, opportunity, leadership,” was the theme of NAAAP’s 2007 national convention. Fok says that helping Asian Americans recognize their own strengths and potential can help them move toward leadership roles within the community or in business.
The awareness theme applies to supplier diversity as well. Fok notes that even though Asians are considered a minority, they’re not sought out as actively as African Americans and Hispanics are. This, he thinks, is partly because of the Asian tendency to excessive modesty. “But the fact that Asians are not speaking up doesn’t mean they don’t have something to contribute.”
NAAAP is the major Pan-Asian professional organization; others tend to address specific ethnicities. “Each ethnic group brings its own cultural experience to the table,” Fok points out.
NMSDC’s mission to China
The National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC), the major certifying and educational organization for MBEs, led its first formal mission to China in 2007. The idea was to raise the level of communication and cooperation between the U.S. and China and help develop historically underutilized Chinese and American suppliers.
Several multinational companies participated in the visit, Dell among them. “We discussed how diverse U.S. companies can become players in the global economy by establishing operations in the fast-growing China market,” says Ying McGuire, Dell’s senior manager of supplier diversity. “Visiting China reminded us of our responsibility to gain and share knowledge about recruiting and retaining diverse partners worldwide.”
Dell believes that supplier diversity must move from a domestic initiative to a global strategy. “The challenge is localizing best practices to fit the specific culture and environment,” McGuire explains.
“American Airlines believes that success comes from diversity,” adds supplier diversity manager Sherri Macko. Accordingly, the company’s diversified supplier program reaches out to M/WBEs and small businesses as potential suppliers of products and services for the airline.
Pakistani American MBE: En Pointe Technologies, Inc
Bob Din came to the U.S. from Pakistan to attend engineering college, but wound up studying business admin instead. “I always wanted to have my own business,” he recalls.
Din and his wife founded En Pointe Technologies, Inc (Los Angeles, CA) in 1993. En Pointe is a technology solutions provider to medium and large enterprises, educational institutions, government agencies and nonprofits nationwide. “We help companies select technology, integrate it and maintain it,” Din says.
The company started with five people in Din’s living room. Din envisioned a virtual inventory that would enable him to pick and package one manufacturer’s laptops, another’s printers, and yet another’s peripherals. The key was writing sophisticated software to link his company to multiple distributors, avoiding the need for warehouses and capital expenditures. “Our customers could purchase more than 250,000 IT products from us, and get them shipped as one order at a reduced cost, because we could pull products from many distributors and take advantage of sale prices nationwide,” he notes.
Din understood the risk, the challenges and the opportunities. He was turned down by many banks before he found one willing to work with him. “You have to believe in yourself and your business plan to convince others you have the mindset to succeed,” he says. “I refused to take ‘no’ for an answer.”
En Pointe brought in $19 million its first year, $100 million the second and $200 million the third year. The fourth year the company went public: the first publicly held minority company to be certified by NMSDC.
Today more than 1,200 employees worldwide and 500 across the U.S. serve all major U.S. metro areas. The company holds certifications, authorizations and business partnerships to sell and service all the top brands of computer hardware and software. Din was Entrepreneur magazine’s 1998 entrepreneur of the year.
He believes that diversity goals set by corporations like his customers Deutsche Bank and IBM have made a tremendous difference to MBEs. He appreciates the training IBM has provided for him and his management team: the same training its own executives receive.
Vietnamese American MBE: MagRabbit
Founding MagRabbit (Austin, TX) in 1990 was the culmination of Tommy Hodinh’s American dream. He came to the U.S. from Vietnam in 1973 with a vision and a hundred dollars. He learned English, worked his way through college and landed a job at IBM where he moved into management. But, “I was hungry for financial independence,” he says.
Today IBM is one of Hodinh’s customers. MagRabbit’s original core competency was the replication of magnetic discs: “more than a hair better and faster than the competition,” as its slogan promised.
Over the years the company has added comprehensive supply-chain management solutions, industrial supplies, IT and global supply chain staffing, consulting and outsourcing. “Offering fulfillment transportation and logistics management helped us gain better control over our core service,” says CEO Hodinh, who employs 280 people. “We’ve maintained a zero defect record since 1997.”
MagRabbit was named one of the top 500 diversity-owned business in the U.S. by DiversityBusiness.com in 2007. In 2006 NMSDC gave the company corporate plus membership status. That year Hodinh expanded his circle to his homeland, launching a division in Vietnam that provides offshore IT and business process outsourcing.
Hodinh is a founding member of the Central & South Texas Minority Business Council, a regional affiliate of NMSDC.
He appreciates the support offered by major corporations like Dell, which has been a mentor to his company since 2000. “They help us open doors,” he says.
Korean American MBE: Eclaro International
Daniel Sung Park established Eclaro International (New York, NY) in 1999 to provide IT staff augmentation, ERP and front-end development. As an equity analyst at Merrill Lynch, Park noticed that companies that were better at managing human capital were more likely to do well in tough times. “I wanted to be in a position to fill that gap,” he says.
He turned to the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA, www.mbda.gov), part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, for help with business planning, development strategies and advice on government 8a status and GSA contracts. “MBDA introduced me to NMSDC. My NMSDC certification has opened doors to Fortune 500 companies,” he notes.
Eclaro’s 300-plus consultants include developers, admins, business analysts and project managers with expertise in SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Web development and more. The company is morphing from staff augmentation into a professional services firm.
In fact, IBM invited Eclaro to participate in a mentorship program, providing a senior exec to advise Park on developing a strategic business plan. Park still participates in monthly conference calls with his mentor. “They’re helping us develop the business as a whole, not just with them,” he notes.
Eclaro was named 2007 regional supplier of the year by NMSDC. In 2005 Park was recognized as Asian entrepreneur of the year for high technology by Asian Enterprise magazine.
Park says he’s achieved his success following his father’s entrepreneurial lead. When the elder Park moved his family from Korea to New York’s Bronx borough, he gave up his career as a journalist and opened a store. “I’m still a Bronx kid,” his son says with a grin.
Chinese American MBE: AECsoft USA, Inc
Tom Ren and his wife Lily Xiong founded AECsoft USA (Houston, TX) in 1997, when companies were beginning to move toward Web-based solutions. The couple met in Shanghai, China where he was in grad school and she was studying for her BSEE. They came to the U.S. in 1989 to pursue masters degrees at the University of Houston (Houston, TX).
Both the partners are passionate about programming; they developed their first product while holding down fulltime jobs. The company name, Ren explains, stands for the company’s ability to “architect, engineer and construct” software and websites.
Anticipating that people would be going to the Web to do business online, AECsoft developed an e-procurement app that helps corporations and government bodies interact better with suppliers. “It helps them manage the bidding process online, and work up more competition between suppliers through reverse auctions,” Ren explains.
The Houston Minority Business Council helped Ren by offering networking opportunities and advising him to get certified. His company is now certified by NMSDC, the SBA and, thanks to Lily Xiong’s ownership, WBENC.
Today AECsoft provides complete turnkey e-sourcing for day-to-day bidding and supplier diversity tracking. The system also lets suppliers submit quotes online and maintain their profiles with clients. “It ties your sourcing, contracting and spend reporting into one,” Ren says.
AECsoft has been growing about 50 percent a year since 1999. More than a hundred of its clients are Fortune 1000 companies. “We have a reputation for quality programming,” Ren says. “We get a lot of referrals from satisfied customers.”
The company was the 2005 recipient of the USPAACC/Wells Fargo Asian business leadership award, and in 2004 Ren was named entrepreneur of the year by the Asian Chamber of Commerce of Houston. “Our work directly affects the growth of other diverse suppliers, and we also help corporations meet their supplier diversity goals,” he states proudly.
Almost all the major casinos are using AECsoft solutions, Ren notes. MGM Mirage has provided corporate resources to help develop the business, and featured AECsoft as its valued diverse supplier at a 2004 conference.
“MGM Mirage values its relationship with Asian-owned businesses and their dedication to providing quality customized products and services to our properties,” supplier diversity director Kenyatta Lewis says.
Asian Indian American: 3i People, Inc
Raj Swami grew up in southern India. He was twenty-one years old with a BSCS when his family came to the U.S. Today he’s CEO of 3i People, Inc (Alpharetta, GA).
When he founded the company in 2002 he was an Oracle DBA determined to expand his area of competency. “I didn’t want to be restricted to just one area within IT,” he says.
3i’s first service offering was staff augmentation in Microsoft technologies. Before long the company was providing network security and SAP solutions. Today it’s a full-service global IT firm doing business in customized Web apps, IT strategic staffing, enterprise network security, SAP and vendor management. Among its clients are Georgia-Pacific, General Mills, Microsoft, Verizon and other Fortune 500 companies. “A team of dynamic engineers and business professionals helped me develop and grow the business,” Swami states proudly.
3i People recently launched its first product, iConsult VMS, which automates, tracks and reports on data and processes throughout the life cycle of contingent staffing. “It lets companies strategically manage staffing initiatives to optimize cost, quality and efficiency,” Swami explains.
The company has been NMSDC certified since 2003. Swami began by building relationships with supplier diversity managers at MSDC programs and events in the state of Georgia, and took part in a fast-track program sponsored by AT&T.
His company is growing 50 to 60 percent a year and now employs 120 professionals nationwide. In 2006 Deloitte & Touche ranked it a “rising star” in Georgia and the U.S. as a whole, and it was named NMSDC Class II regional and national supplier of the year. “We achieved ISO certification for software development and received a GSA schedule for government contracts in 2007,” Swami adds.
D/C
Back to Top |
