Supplier Diversity
COMPANIES WITH A STRONG SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOCUS

MBEs in technology show resiliency & business smarts

"Resilience and the ability to quickly adapt to change are hallmarks of entrepreneurship." – Joset B. Wright, NMSDC president

"MBEs are essential to the success and strength of our business."
– Kathy Homeyer, director of supplier diversity, UPS

By Wendy Helfenbaum
Contributing Editor

Joset B. Wright, president of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC, www.nmsdc.org), is optimistic about the current status and outlook of minority business enterprises (MBEs). Citing the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent study, released last July, Wright notes that "Minority-owned businesses remain the fastest-growing business segment. Businesses owned by Asian, African American, Hispanic and Native American men and women account for 21 percent of total U.S. businesses." Her optimism, she adds, is based on continued corporate commitment to and support of MBEs.

Since she took over as NMSDC president last July, she says, "I've met with hundreds of our certified MBEs. Many say their businesses remained strong during the most difficult parts of the economic slowdown, and some report impressive growth in their revenues."

Wright, who has spent a large part of her corporate career in procurement and supplier diversity, explains that since the success of MBEs and women-owned business enterprises (WBEs) often depends on the health of their corporate customers, some industry sectors have fared better than others. She believes the unique strengths of MBEs helped them survive the worst of the recession.

"Resilience and the ability to quickly adapt to change are hallmarks of entrepreneurship," Wright declares. "When the recession hit, minority businesses reacted in much the same way as our corporate members. They tightened their budgets, streamlined their operations and looked for new opportunities to ensure they remained competitive in the marketplace.

"Many of our MBEs also took advantage of the educational, capacity-building and networking opportunities NMSDC provides to position themselves for greater success going forward." Of course, she adds, "The lack of access to capital remains a major problem for businesses trying to expand."

UPS: "Essential to our business"
Kathy Homeyer is director of supplier diversity for United Parcel Service of America, Inc (UPS, Atlanta, GA). M/WBEs, she says, are "essential to the success and strength of our business. When you think about UPS, you think about all the communities we touch. We feel that if all the M/WBEs are strong, our business will be strong, because they're really the fuel of the economy!"

M/WBEs have a lot of strengths "that some of the large corporations can't touch, like flexibility and innovation," Homeyer points out. "They have new ideas, and they try to break out of the traditional corporate molds. They're entrepreneurs, so they think outside the box, but they're still in touch with what the inside of the marketplace is all about."

Learning from each other
UPS participates in several mentoring and business development programs designed to give M/WBEs tools and resources to achieve success, Homeyer notes. "We're heavily involved in the Georgia-based Center for Excellence, a program run through the NMSDC. We've mentored several MBEs and walked them through a fifteen-month process. We looked at their business plans and critiqued them: 'What's your mission? What strategies are you trying?'

"The nice thing," she adds, "is that we really learn from each other. We get to see other corporations mentoring other M/WBEs and we get to know what kinds of programs they've got going."

UPS also plays a mentoring role in Georgia's Mentor Protégé Connection, where emerging businesses are partnered with large corporations to learn how to improve their business practices and networks and promote business growth.

"We had a mini trade show with the mentors and the mentees," Homeyer says. "We talked with them about how their displays looked and if they sent the right message. When they're getting ready for the next trade show they will have had the advice of major companies that really critiqued them from A to Z."

Last year UPS began incorporating M/WBEs in its advertising. "When the public and, more importantly, other corporations see them in our print or television ads they say, 'You know what? If they're good enough for UPS to put them in an ad, then they have to be good enough for us.'"

Avion Systems, Inc works with UPS
President and CEO Kanchana Raman founded Avion Systems, Inc (Atlanta, GA), her global telecom and technology consulting company, in 1996. Since then she's built up her business by adapting to the fast-changing market in two industries on the verge of major transformations. She focused on aggressively marketing Avion's services and responding to clients' needs.

"I started my company in 1996 during the dot-com boom," she says. "I started primarily in telecom. We do planning, design and deployment of wireless and wire-line networks."

Raman moved to the U.S. from India when she was twenty-one. She has an MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School and studied executive management at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, Georgia State University and Northwestern's Kellogg Graduate School of Management.

In 2000 Raman diversified her company into technology consulting, primarily apps development and testing. "We wanted to focus on supply-chain logistics as a business practice, and approached UPS with our expertise," Raman recalls. "Our first work was with UPS corporate. But UPS supply chain solutions was looking for the kind of expertise Avion had and we teamed with them in 2002.

UPS was one of Avion's first technology clients in Atlanta. "We have a nationwide relationship with the company and have also done business intelligence consulting with them," Raman says.

Aware of the constant need to adapt to the changing marketplace, Raman has focused on training and retooling Avion's consultants to participate in next-generation solutions in technology and telecom. Today Avion boasts 600 employees of nineteen nationalities and has offices in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and India. The company has completed projects in eighteen countries; its client list includes AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Clearwire, Ericsson, Cisco, Nokia, Alcatel-Lucent, Nortel, Accenture and the state of Georgia.

"We have a great working relationship with UPS," Raman notes. "In 2007 they gave us an award for service integrity, an honor we treasure coming from a world-class company like that."

Kathy Homeyer of UPS adds that "Avion provides us with everything from IT programming to IT services. It's gratifying to witness the growing success of companies like this."

Raman works with the Georgia Women's Business Council (GWBC) and represents the state at the national leadership forum of the Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC, www.wbenc.org) and WBENC's Women's Enterprise Leadership Forum. She has received awards including the GWBC President's Shining Star award in 2004, the Quiet Storm technology award presented at the 2005 Women's Power Caucus, the 2007 women-owned business Star Award from WBENC and the 2008 NXTSolution Award at the NXTcomm08 telecom conference. Last year she was selected to participate in the national AT&T entrepreneurs' forum.

United Rentals: enhancing its diverse supplier base
"Partnering with quality companies is paramount to the success of any organization," says Jamie Crump, director of indirect strategic sourcing and supplier diversity for United Rentals (URI, Greenwich, CT), who works out of URI's Shelton, CT office. "In the end, United Rentals awards contracts based on mutual trust, merit and how a relationship with a particular supplier will benefit our company. Time and again we find that M/WBEs consistently contribute the qualities we think are important to our success."

Crump notes that URI is very active in organizations that promote supplier diversity, including NMSDC, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development (NCAIED), the National Veteran-Owned Business Association (NaVOBA) and WBENC.

"In addition to participating in trade fairs and matchmaking events, we use our memberships in these organizations to seek out participants for specific bids as they arise," Crump explains. "Our 'help us make it happen' advertising campaign highlighted MBE success stories, providing free advertising and a valuable recommendation for our MBE partners."

Crump explains that the equipment rental industry has a wide array of customers. "If customers are not growing and being served, the global economy is not prospering. To remain competitive we believe we must reach out and include the broadest range of people, ideas, products and services.

"MBE companies are creative and nimble, and seek to solve business problems in new ways. Those qualities will be needed as never before as we recover from the recent economic challenges!"

Valerie Shondel's SelectoFlash works for United Rentals
United Rentals' Jamie Crump cites SelectoFlash (West Orange, NJ), Valerie Shondel's graphics solutions company, as a great example of how to be creative and address challenges in new ways. "Valerie's company provides the large decals we put on our heavy-duty equipment and vehicles. It may not sound technical, but a lot of engineering and technology goes into making them and getting them on the equipment properly," Crump says. "These decals are one of the strongest advertising channels for the United Rentals brand, so they have to be right. SelectoFlash has worked with us for years to ensure that the decals look good, apply well and stand up to the elements."

As CEO and chair of one of the largest printing firms for this kind of work in the country, Shondel is following in the footsteps of her father, James Peepas, who founded the company in 1957. Shondel has a degree in piano performance and musicology from the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. She took over in 2001 and picked up much of her business and technical training on the job.

SelectoFlash partners with customers to create graphic solutions in areas like fleet and transportation graphics, interior and exterior environmental graphics, outdoor durable media and point of purchase/point of sale. Besides UPS, the firm's clients include Anheuser Busch, Target, U-Haul and Home Depot.

"We began our work with United Rentals in 2001 with the aim of creating a consistent brand image in the marketplace," Shondel recalls. "This has been a true partnership. We manage the entire program for United Rentals and work closely with the company's branches and with equipment manufacturers to ensure consistent decal placement on all equipment in the field."

SelectoFlash services include evaluating how long the graphic will remain in place, the weather conditions it will have to stand up to, the type of surface the decal needs to adhere to, and removal techniques. In URI's case, Shondel says, "We established a guideline for their products and made modifications for the more complicated surfaces. The success of the brand program was the consistency of the decals and their impact.

"We created a program achieving the greatest visual impact using the fewest decal sizes. This allowed for cost efficiencies and simplification when executing the program."

Avis Yates Rivers' TCGi: financing for United Rentals
United Rentals' Jamie Crump also praises the good work provided by Avis Yates Rivers, president and CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, LLC (TCGi, Somerset, NJ). "As the economy begins to turn, keeping technology up to date will be critical to remaining competitive," Crump notes. "One of the key services that TCGi provides for us is financing for many of our IT and office equipment devices."

Yates Rivers founded TCGi in 1996 to provide technical and professional IT services to corporate and government clients. In 2008 the company reorganized and launched its newest division, TCGi Capital, to add equipment leasing and asset management solutions.

"This results in a very strong value proposition in the marketplace," Yates Rivers explains. "We, as a single partner, can support customers' technology asset bases from acquisition through disposition, reducing cost, complexity and risk."

Yates Rivers earned a degree in business admin from City University of New York, and graduated from the executive management programs of the Tuck School of Business, the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

She thinks of herself as a "serial entrepreneur;" she launched her first company in 1985 after working for Exxon for eleven years, and started up and sold several companies before she began TCGi.

She met United Rentals at a tradeshow put on by the MSDC of New York and New Jersey two years ago. "Then, shortly after the WBENC conference in 2009, I received an email from Jamie Crump advising me of an upcoming RFP for leasing solutions. We responded to it in conjunction with our partner, HP Financial Services, and ultimately signed a three-year master lease agreement.

"I think this demonstrates that attending NMSDC and WBENC tradeshows, establishing relationships and being ready when the opportunities arise can really pay off!"

TCGi signed its first contract with URI in July 2010. "URI has been extremely supportive, open and receptive," says Yates Rivers. "We are looking forward to a long and mutually beneficial business relationship."

Yates Rivers has been a leader in supplier diversity advocacy organizations including the NMSDC, the MSDC of New York and New Jersey, the Women Presidents' Educational Organization (WPEO) and the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities' Supplier Diversity Development Council. She has been honored with a long list of awards from those and other organizations, including entrepreneur of the year, one of the top twenty-five African American women in business and one of the top ten women in technology.

U.S. Cellular Corp: internal processes support supplier diversity
As manager of supplier diversity for U.S. Cellular Corp (USCC, Chicago, IL), Tracye Smith believes that diversity among the company's vendors strengthens its connection to the customers and communities it serves.

"We value diversity at U.S. Cellular," she says. "It's an important part of our company culture. We draw on the knowledge and creativity of our diverse 9,000-plus associate base to deliver strong business results, and we're able to gain similar results by forming solid partnerships with qualified diverse suppliers.

"These relationships increase the value of our efforts and help build brand loyalty within our communities, in addition to providing our company with opportunities to reduce costs and gain more innovation."

Smith notes that USCC spends a lot of time building internal processes and structures that support its supplier diversity initiative, including detailed metrics. "By deeply understanding spend and where opportunities are for cost savings and innovation, we can identify opportunities for a new supplier. That creates a chance for a diverse supplier to compete to help meet our needs," she explains.

"When our diversity department helps serve our external supplier diversity initiatives, it gives our strategic sourcing and supplier diversity teams the time they need to focus on our internal structure."

Rahul Shah's DSR Management works for USCC
Rahul Shah is founder and CEO of DSR Management, Inc (Evanston, IL). Shah was an independent consultant at Allstate Insurance and Comdisco Inc before he launched DSR in 1996 as a one-person company focusing on emerging Web technologies.

Today DSR operates worldwide with offices and development centers in the U.S., Canada, India and the Middle East. It is, Shah says, "an emerging leader in the next generation of IT professional services and consulting companies."

After the dot-com meltdown in 2000, DSR aggressively recruited IT professionals from around the world. Over the past ten years the company has continued to grow; it was chosen as one of the Inc 500 fastest growing privately held companies for three years in a row.

As a technology solutions provider DSR offers a wide range of professional IT and staff augmentation services, business and technology consulting, app services, systems integration, product engineering, custom software development, maintenance, re-engineering, independent testing and validation services, and IT infrastructure work.

DSR started working with USCC in 2007 and got its first contract in 2008. "After we established our credentials and a strong reputation in the QA area, USCC encouraged us to branch out into other areas like application development, business analysis, project management and infrastructure," Shah recalls. "We worked closely with them and forged a close relationship with the USCC vendor management team.

"In fact, DSR is now the company that USCC/BeeLine uses when they need to hire pre-identified consultants through an approved vendor."

Shah's company has become one of USCC's six first-tier preferred vendors. "We expect to continue growing our presence at the account," he says. "Our relationship is built on trust and mutual benefit. We provide top-notch IT professionals to USCC at very competitive rates, which lets their IT managers finish their projects on time and under budget."

DSR's successful relationship with USCC has grown over the years "due to our strong emphasis on maintaining our culture and being customer- and employee-centric," Shah emphasizes. "Everyone works as one team, rather than as client and vendor. The feedback we receive has always been positive, and we are proud to have USCC as a business partner."

Pepco Holdings Inc: customers see a reflection of themselves
Pepco Holdings Inc (PHI, Washington, DC) is an energy service provider in Washington, DC and several surrounding states. "Because diversity is a core value at Pepco, we strive to be all-inclusive, both internally and externally," says Maurice Williams, supplier diversity regional manager for the utility. "Our efforts to include women, minorities and protected-class suppliers and contractors are shown in the numerous awards and recognitions we've received across our service territory."

Williams, who works out of Pepco's Newark, DE office, adds that Pepco values "the quality, integrity, flexibility and competitive pricing our MBEs offer us. Our support for them contributes to the local economies, and they help us remain competitive and cost-efficient."

"We are corporate members of many organizations that give us access to third-party certified suppliers with the capacity and subject matter expertise we need." Pepco believes its customers like to see a reflection of themselves in the diverse suppliers they meet in the course of their interactions with the company, Williams notes.

"We support and sponsor local and national conferences and seminars committed to growing diverse suppliers. And we have developed an online registration portal where diverse suppliers can add their credentials to our database."

Frontier Technologies, Inc has plenty of services for Pepco
Frontier Technologies, Inc (Wilmington, DE) provides IT, telecom and engineering consulting, design and implementation, as well as project life cycle management services for complex IT initiatives. Pepco's Maurice Williams reports that "Frontier has worked with PHI's Delaware and DC operations on several projects including Microsoft consulting services, managed services like SaaS, HaaS and IaaS, and IT staff augmentation.

"Additionally, Frontier provides post-warranty services for HP, Cisco, Sun, EMC, Dell and IBM network and infrastructure devices, deploying techs with appropriate certifications."

Frontier CEO Jayshree Moorthy has BS and MS degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Bombay, India, executive PM training from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Tuck School of Business, and more than twenty years of operations and management experience in the technical services sector. She led Frontier Technologies from a startup in 1989 to today's growth company.

"Around 1991 we expanded by adding IT services," Moorthy explains. "DuPont was one of our first clients and we provided them with private management and conversion of legacy applications." Over time she moved her services company into the financial sector, and "added other services to our portfolio: e-commerce, helpdesk, software and post-warranty hardware support."

Frontier branched out into the public sector in 2000. "We were able to take our private sector experience into the government. Now we're into the nuts and bolts with an IT and telecom infrastructure services portfolio. We not only deploy high-end servers, but also integrate networks and storage solutions. And we manage and maintain systems in data centers."

Frontier began its business relationship with Pepco about ten years ago in Washington, DC. "We approached them as part of our ongoing sales and marketing efforts," Moorthy explains. "We became part of their IT preferred supplier team. They brought in key suppliers like us to take care of IT requirements for specific projects and upgrades.

Moorthy got her NMSDC certification in 1999 and her WBENC certification soon after. Through NMSDC and WBENC "I was able to meet many of the key players in large corporations or utilities like Pepco, and get to know their supplier diversity people," she says.

"Pepco is committed to supplier diversity. Maurice Williams leads us to opportunities where he thinks we can be a good supplier for the organization. He is always looking for opportunities for us.

"As a businessperson I want to be given the opportunity to compete, and I'm getting that with Pepco Holdings and Maurice every single time!"

Coca-Cola: strong M/WBEs help build stronger communities
As global director of supplier diversity for the Coca-Cola Company (Atlanta, GA), Johnnie Booker is responsible for developing and implementing the company's global and U.S.-based programs and initiatives to assure equal access to contracting opportunities for M/WBEs.

"The Coca-Cola Company recognizes supplier diversity as an integral component in our roadmap to success," Booker emphasizes. "We understand that providing M/WBEs with access to business opportunities and development positively impacts our growth, capacity and sustainability."

Coca-Cola's supplier diversity team also promotes and participates in a variety of outreach programs to develop a qualified pool of M/WBEs. It's committed to maximizing opportunities and forging partnerships with M/WBEs as a way to help build stronger communities.

Booker, who sits on the national boards of the NMSDC and WBENC, adds that "utilizing M/WBEs in our supply chain reflects our commitment to a global community and to good financial stewardship.

"Coca-Cola appreciates the extraordinary diversity of our supply chain, which is undeniably one of the most important competitive advantages we have as a business system. We intend to remain steadfast in our efforts to facilitate the growth and development of M/WBEs."

D/C

Wendy Helfenbaum is a writer and TV producer based in Montreal, Canada.

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