The goal of a supplier diversity program is for corporate buyers to find and use diverse, historically underrepresented vendors to diversify their supplier pipeline leading to greater competition, lower pricing, and better products and services. On the surface this seems like a simple task – corporate buyer has a need that leads them to find a diverse vendor to use, and voila! A deal gets done. But there are a number of nuances to corporate procurement that lead to challenges for diverse businesses to be able to compete for corporate contracts.
One of the biggest challenges we hear from businesses of color is that corporate procurement is a black box. Each buyer has a different set of requirements for their vendors, different procurement timelines, and it’s hard to know who to reach out to if you have a question. By the time a diverse vendor figures out what they need to submit, the request for proposal (RFP) is closed, and the opportunity is lost. To help break down this barrier, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Pacesetters Network created the Doing Business webinar series.
The Doing Business webinar series allows buyers in the Pacesetters Network to give presentations on their specific procurement practices, thus shining a light on the exact steps vendors should take to do business with the buyer. In these webinars, corporate buyers share important information including what their most purchased goods and services are, when they are looking to purchase different goods and services, how to get on their bid lists, and who to reach out to should they have any questions. Each presentation ends with live questions and answers from the audience allowing diverse businesses to ask their questions in real time.
These webinars are beneficial to the buyers as well. The Doing Business webinars allow corporate procurement teams to share their particular processes allowing diverse businesses to be better able to respond to their RFPs. It also allows them to share information to a number of diverse businesses in the Chamber’s network at the same time.
The majority of the webinars are recorded and saved on the Chamber’s YouTube channel so anyone who was not able to attend the webinar live can go back and watch the replay. For those who don’t have the time to sit through the entire webinar recording, there are notes on the key points made in the session on the Pacesetters website under each corporate buyer as well as important links that were shared in the presentation.
While we recognize that this is just one piece to the puzzle, the easier we can make the process for both corporate buyers and diverse businesses, the more successful we will be in building resilient supplier chains that are inclusive of all of the businesses across the Commonwealth and beyond.
Find the summaries of the Doing Business Webinars and watch the recordings here.
About the Pacesetters Network
The Pacesetters Network brings together mid and large size corporations to increase their spend with businesses of color (MBEs). Pacesetter buyers work together to share supplier diversity best practices and build MBE pipelines.
Click here to learn more about the Pacesetters Network.
Aug 29, 20243:00pm – 4:00pmVirtual
Sep 14, 2024 – Sep 17, 2024Suffolk University – Sargent Hall
