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Welcome to the Inaugural East Midlands Supplier Diversity Conference, which seeks to address the following:
How is Corporate Britain engaging with ethnic minority businesses?
What are the key elements of successful supplier diversity initiatives?
What lessons can be learnt from leading edge firms in the USA?
Supplier diversity refers to initiatives that aim to increase the number of ethnic minority-owned businesses (EMBs) that supply goods and services to both public and private sector organisations. This unique conference highlights the experiences of leading firms in the UK and US, demonstrating the corporate benefits of supplier diversity and the role that it can play in promoting ethnic minority business development.
While the importance of public procurement policy and practice in local economic development is nothing new, the potential for increasing EMB development through this policy mechanism has recently received renewed attention in the UK. The Department of Trade and Industry’s Ethnic Minority Business Forum has identified supplier diversity as one of their key priority areas; the Treasury will announce a number of pilots initiatives in regions across the UK; and for some years, ethnic minority business support agencies in London and the Midlands have endeavoured to promote awareness of the importance of supplier diversity.
Conference:
Welcome address by:
Nigel Griffiths, Minister for Small Firms
The conference will be a business-facing event, providing a platform for the large corporations, EMBs and the business support agencies to share good practices. Key issues include:
the procurement process in the UK industry;
benefits of a diverse supplier base to both the large companies and EMBs- understanding the business case of supplier diversity;
share best practices from the US;
understand the rationale and process of implementing a supplier diversity program;
understand the role of business support agencies in promoting the supplier diversity initiative in the region.
Much of the impetus for this current interest in minority business development emanates from the USA’s longstanding experience of affirmative action policies. Preferential procurement, despite attracting some criticism, has been an important catalyst for the rapid growth of EMBs in the USA in recent years.
Minorities in the US owned more than 3 million businesses in 1997, generated more than $591 billion in revenues, created more than 4.5 million jobs, and provided $96 billion in payroll to their workers. In 2001, NMSDC’s (National Minority Supplier Development Council) member corporations' purchases from minority businesses exceeded $63 billion.
This conference goes beyond the armchair account s of the ‘American Experience’ by bringing in supplier diversity executives of some of the large US Corporation to share their experiences and best practices with the audience.
Hosted by the Small Business Enterprise Research Group (SBERG), De Montfort University, sponsored by the Minority Enterprise East Midlands (MEEM), and co-sponsored by the East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA), this conference provides an opportunity to British companies, minority businesses and business support agencies to share a common platform for forging future partnership.
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