Corporate Markets

Ms. Bari, who chaired the Access to Corporate Markets session during the OECD Accelerating Women’s Entrepreneurship Forum in Istanbul on June 5-7, 2004, is President of the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) in the US. Its members are Fortune 500 companies that use suppliers that are certified WBEs (51% or more woman-owned). WBENC provides certification and training, and hosts events to link buyers and suppliers.

Panelists included supplier diversity executives and experts, and WBE suppliers.

Javette Jenkins Hines discussed IBM’s supplier diversity program, and funding of an intensive week-long WBENC training program conducted by Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business to help certified WBEs become more effective suppliers. Within 12 months, some participants had doubled sales.

Joan Kerr—head of supplier diversity for SBC Communic- ations and WBENC’s Chair—noted that while supplier diversity programs started because of government regulations, working with WBEs provides a competitive advantage, because 87% of all US purchasing decisions are made by women. She also outlined the evolutionary stages of supplier diversity programs, and the value proposition for corporations that adopt such programs.

Pam Farmer of British Telecom discussed the European Supplier Diversity Program pilot, spearheaded by 11 multinationals including IBM and BT, which will seek to find WBEs and other diversity suppliers in the EU. The group has studied the US model, and sees supplier diversity as “a tremendous lever for change.”

Himanshu Bhatia is CEO of Rose International, a software consulting and IT solutions firm with 1,000 employees. She was born in India and has offices in India and the US. A supplier to both IBM and SBC and certified by WBENC, she discussed outsourcing and the need to anticipate trends before they happen, so that a firm can benefit from change.

Carmen Castillo, CEO of Superior Design International, Inc. (SDI), another WBENC certified business, was born in Spain and now has offices in Europe, North America, China and Australia. SDI provides vendor management services to help Global 500 companies, including IBM, manage supply chains, relieve administrative burdens and reduce costs.

Lorraine Ruffing of France discussed UNCTAD’s work with getting SMEs and women entrepre-neurs in developing countries into the global supply chain.

Corporate Market Recommendations

That the OECD spearhead research on the participation of women-owned businesses in the global supply chain, in order to establish a baseline, begin benchmarking, and catalyze input for evidence-based policymaking. Research should also be conducted on multinational corporations that are interested in having women-owned businesses as suppliers. Countries and organizations should use identical methodologies to ensure comparability of data

That governments, international institutions, corporations, women entrepreneurial NGOs and other stakeholders identify national and global barriers in the supply chain (including supply chain compression, which is a barrier to new entry)