NMSDC Conference Survey

 

On October 24th, the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) held their annual Business Opportunity Exchange connecting Fortune 1000 companies with minority owned businesses.  The Exchange took place in Chicago and headlined the Minority Enterprise Development Week.

With a potential 10,000 organizations attending the event, Global Diversity News surveyed large corporations in attendance to gauge interest in the standardization of Tier II reporting requirements and a streamlined registration portal.   The surveyors included three types of companies:

  1. OEMs:  Corporations that capture Tier II purchases by requiring suppliers to report their diversity spend.
  2. Tier Is:  Organizations that are required to report Tier I sales, purchases, and diversity spend to Customers.
  3. Portal Developers:  Companies that develop technology for OEMs to manage and analyze Tier II spend.

 

The survey was very simple including 4 to 5 questions about Tier II reporting (depending on answers selected) and 2 questions about company and individual name.  The survey took an average of 5 minutes to complete with 71 organizations participating.

The two main questions from the survey were;

  1. How do you feel the process of either Tier II reporting or Registration is being handled?  (options: Perfect, Good, Average, Bad)
  2. Do you support creating standard requirements for Tier II reporting or the creation of an official registration system that can interact with multiple registration portals? (options:  Yes and No)

 

Most respondents rated the Tier II Reporting process as “Good” (40.8%).  Although an “Average” rating was a close second (39.4%), it seems that most people feel the process is working.

In contrast, 90% of respondents felt there was a need to standardize requirements for Tier II reporting.  In addition, 87% of surveyors who selected “Good” or “Perfect” supported standard Tier II requirements.  It is odd that so many people who essentially gave a positive rating to the reporting process, want it to change.

Because of this I have concluded the following:

  1. Supplier diversity professionals are ok with the process but are willing to improve it
  2. If the standardized Tier II reporting requirements conflict with an OEM’s current process they may not be willing to support it (87% feel the process is “Average”, “Good”, or “Perfect)
  3. There is an opportunity to create standards around the reporting process, but the amount of support is still unknown

FEEDBACK

The most common comment we received while conducting the survey was focused on the “impossible” aspect of standardizing Tier II requirements.  A lot of people felt that the Tier II reporting process would never be standardized because of past failed efforts.

I cannot comment on these past attempts or issues that may have arisen as I was not apart of them, but I would ask that everyone treat this as a separate initiative.  This initiative is simply focused on bringing together organizations interested in standard Tier II reporting whether that be 5 or 500.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Reporting Initiative will continue to seek out support from supplier diversity professionals.  A follow up email will be sent to connect those interested in developing the criteria for the Tier II reporting requirements soon.

For any questions on the initiative please email Jaymie White at jaymie.white@globaldiversitynews.com

 

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