New Initiatives Marketing is WBE Certified – supplier diversity

What a way to start of 2016! We were awarded WBE certification.

What is WBE Certification?

It is a certification open to 51% women owned businesses that provides opportunities to meet the buyers of corporate contracts. In our case, this would be for marketing services. And the buyers of corporate contracts are large enterprises in the US and Canada. WBE Canada is the home organization here in Canada.

Why get WBE certified?

New Initiatives Marketing (NIM) is on the path to growth. The thinking behind this certification in inline with our company values. The support to expand into bigger opportunities are now open to NIM as a WBE certified company.

What is supplier diversity?

The team over at Supplier Diversity Canada has a great explanation: “Supplier Diversity is a business practice that encourages the use of historically under-represented businesses in a company’s supply chain, including minority-owned, women-owned, aboriginal-owned, LGBT-owned, veteran-owned vendors.”

What does  this mean to me, the client?

If you have a supplier diversity program in place, feel confident that NIM is certified and on the same page with this business thinking. If your company is working with clients who have these programs in place, bringing in NIM to that project will keep in compliance with your client’s mandate. If you do not have a supplier diversity program in place, knowing that NIM cares about this aspect of business hopefully will make you feel positive about working with us.

What’s next?

NIM is now referred to as a “WBE” which is actually pronounced “Wee Bee” (acronyms are funny things, aren’t they?) within the WBE community. Getting certified was explained by Patricia Muir  (a fellow WBE) as “a ticket to the dance.”

It is up to us to show up to the supplier training (1-2 times per month), continue our good work with existing clients and in the business community, and attend the WBE-hosted events held several times per year designed to get us in front of the buying decision makers at these larger companies.

There is a new way for us to learn to present to these procurement managers and larger companies. The buying process is different than when working to secure a contract from a start-up or growing private company.

There will be a learning curve and we already feel like we’re drinking from the fire hose. However, we feel very supported and are committed to this opportunity.