Aiming to open doors for minority suppliers
CAMSC fair on big corporate deals runs today
Goal to help break down systemic business barriers
Nicholas Keung
Immigration/Diversity Reporter
Andra Rush, a Mohawk, has expanded her Rush Trucking from a three-truck Michigan company in 1984 to a fleet of 1,700 tractor trucks and 3,400 trailers, ringing in $132 million (U.S.) in annual revenue.
Shahid Khan, a graduate of the University of Illinois and a South Asian immigrant to the United States, launched the Flex-N-Gate Corp. automotive-supply company in 1978 and boasts $1.8 billion a year in sales.
Such successes wouldn't have been possible without 33 years of advocacy work by the U.S. National Minority Supplier Development Council in breaking down systemic barriers marginalized groups face in bidding for contracts with large corporations.
Now it's Canada's turn, with the Markham-based, not-for-profit Canadian Aboriginal and Minority Supplier Council.
"We need to find a way to ease our business relationships with the big players in order to get our feet into the door," said Michael Duck, president of Halifax's A.C. Dispensing, which makes dispensing equipment for franchise restaurants.
Duck, who is of African American descent, is among 300 aboriginal and minority entrepreneurs from across Canada converging at Toronto's King Edward Hotel today for the first Canadian supplier council's Aboriginal & Minority Supplier Procurement Fair to learn about the contract-bidding processes with large companies. The one-day event is jointly presented by the Aboriginal Workforce Participation Initiative. Among the big corporate buyers participating are DaimlerChrysler AG and the Royal Bank of Canada.
The Canadian council was launched in October by some of the players' American parent firms to tap into the increasingly diverse market in Canada.
Council president Orrin Benn said the Canadian ethnic minority consumer market is worth about $300 billion (Canadian) a year, compared with $1.7 trillion (U.S.) for the American market.
In 2002, U.S. council's corporate members purchased $72 billion worth of goods and services from minority suppliers, and Benn said Canadian businesses need to catch up fast to stay in the game.
"One of the main systemic barriers for aboriginal and minority suppliers is the locked-in pattern of procurement at these big corporations, who give contracts to and buy products from the same suppliers for decades," he said. "There is no avenue to permit a new start-up, small, aboriginal or minority company to crack in the supply chains."
Jethro Joseph, senior manager in diversity supplier development for DaimlerChrysler
in Detroit, said the automotive manufacturing giant believes its supplier base
must reflect the community population, and the investment in the program will
pay off as aboriginal and minority entrepreneurs and employees buy the company's
products and services with the enriched consuming power.