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Key Resources for Minority Businesses
Elaine Thomas Williams is executive director of the Connecticut Minority Supplier Development Council (CMSDC).
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Business New Haven
9/4/2000
By: Priscilla Searles
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What is the mission of the CMSDC?
We provide certified minority business enterprises (MBEs) access to procurement opportunities and provide the MBEs with educational opportunities on current corporate purchasing practices, market trends and economic recourses. We also provide our corporate members with certified suppliers to meet their corporate goals.
What does 'certified' mean in this context?
Certified means that the company went through a process of evaluation of the ownership and control of their company. Our MBEs must be 52-percent owned and controlled by an ethnic minority and provide documents that prove this.
What area does CMSDC service, and how many members do you have?
We cover entire state of Connecticut. We have 107 corporate members, members that are using CMSDC to identified these certified MBEs. We have 197 MBEs.
Where does your funding come from?
We're a private non-profit organization founded in 1976. We're funded by membership dues and fundraising event activities. We charge an application processing fee of $100 for MBEs. Corporate member companies have a sliding-scale membership fee from $375 to $2,200. We are a membership agency of corporations, and we're providing services to those corporate members and our MBEs.
What kind of services do you provide to MBEs?
We assist them in making contacts with major corporate buyers or other buying personnel. This helps them to cut down on cold-calling to companies that they have targeted as potential customers. For example, a temporary staffing agency wants to do business with Northeast Utilities or United Technologies because both of these companies are our corporate members. We tell them how to make the contact. We provide training on current corporate practices, marketing trends or other business-development techniques that assist the MBEs. Training is done in groups. For example, we might do e-commerce in a group, an introduction to ISO 9000, communications - how to close a deal, marketing, financing your company and various sources of financing available.
What is the biggest issue today for your MBEs?
Because of corporate mergers, there is a need for larger MBEs. Therefore our hottest topic now is strategic partnerships and acquisitions, so we are encouraging small MBEs to get together or merge or acquire an additional business. For example, if a minority member is a technology service company, they might acquire a hardware or software company. The result would be a full-service technology company and they could bid on contracts that covered everything from supplies to services. In most cases small businesses are bidding on one or the other, not both.
What is the advantage of belonging to your organization for MBEs?
By having this access to procurement opportunities, the companies increase their chance of survival. They have a direct link to corporate buyers who are reviewing contracts and looking to include minority businesses. It helps both the corporate members and the MBEs to identify opportunities quickly and efficiently.
How successful has this program been, and why?
MBEs have to provide quality service, competitive pricing, good delivery and add value to any contract that they are bidding on. We don't get them the contract. The only advantage is that they have direct contact to these corporations. Once they are in, they are competing like any other business. They're on their own selling themselves; we can only train them on how to do it. By 1998, $578 million in contract was won by our MBEs, and they're getting them because they are providing quality. Our retention rate for MBEs is 86 percent - which is high, because the rate of small businesses failing is 85 to 90 percent. BNH
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