Browse News by Topic

Data Products

Search Real Estate Records

To Do List

Printer Friendly Email This

Minority Firms Need Growth

By Emily Boisvert

Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer

05/12/08

Minority-owned businesses need to grow rapidly, by acquisition if necessary, to have the best chance of competing for contracts with major corporations, said Fred McKinney, president of the Connecticut Minority Supplier Development Council.

The new premium on growth is dictated by the way corporations are changing their supplier hiring to cut costs. According to McKinney, companies are consolidating their supplier bases and sticking with those contractors who can operate at large capacity.

“Corporations are realizing that they can not only make money on what they sell, but also on what they buy,” he said. “It puts pressure on the (supplier) firms, and is one of the consequences of the globalization of the economy.”

Carlton L. Highsmith, president and CEO, Special Packaging

Matchmaking

The Connecticut nonprofit group matches corporate members and businesses it certifies as minority owned. The CMSDC has 120 corporate members, including The Hartford, UTC, Northeast Utilities, GE and Xerox. It has certified 225 businesses as minority-owned, and they have combined 2006 revenues of more than $6.6 billion and 20,000 employees.

Two minority-owned companies that have managed to grow dramatically are Specialized Packaging Group in Hamden and Virpie Tech in Southbury.

Special Packaging Group, which reported sales of $160 million last year, has grown to employ 500 people. The company supplies products to such corporations as Proctor & Gamble and Unilever.

“In the last decade or more it’s been increasingly important to operate on a larger scale, and we’ve done that,” said Carlton L. Highsmith, president and CEO of Special Packaging. He added that the CMSDC helped by providing access to corporations and by giving insight into supplier trends.

Virpie Tech is a fast-growing information technology staffing firm with sales of $10 million and clients in 20 states.

“There’s a sweet spot for doing business with a large corporation, a capacity to grow with them,” said McKinney, who will lead a seminar on supplier diversity at the Connecticut Business Expo at the Hartford Convention Center June 5.

He will discuss how non-minority firms can team with certified minority firms to go after business with large public and private organizations. The Hartford Business Journal manages the Expo.

McKinney said firms need visionary leadership and a sound financial plan to become valued suppliers to corporations.

Francis J. Barkyoumb, president of Berlin-based Hartford Direct, said: “We try to advise smaller businesses on how they can spend a lot less and gain a lot more, to help them with their growing pains.”