Accountability
We planned a series on The Inclusion Dividend, and we’ll get back to that next post — but we discovered a stunning article about the SBA’s new WOSB (women owned small business) certification that merits comment. Fierce Government reports that NASA audited their fiscal 2010 contracts awarded to self-certified WOSB firms and found that 35…
Read MoreInclusion Dividends
Just finished reading The Inclusion Dividend: Why Investing in Diversity & Inclusion Pays Off by Mark Kaplan and Mason Donovan. It is a well written commentary about the history and contemporary aspects of diversity and inclusion (DI) from a human resources and organizational perspective. I highly recommend it to all of us who care about…
Read MoreNOT One Size Fits All
There may be just one disadvantaged certification program based on the memorandum of understanding between the United States Department of Transportation and the Small Business Administration, but it would be inaccurate to say the program is standardized … each state can have completely different forms, interpretations and requirements. You can think of it as 52…
Read MoreThoughts on Supplier Diversity
It is almost spring, that time of year when many supplier diversity systems send out emails about updating records and providing copies of recently issued or re-issued certifications, again. I’m not sure whether our targeted clients understand how disheartened a SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women or Veteran Business Enterprise) can become when we’ve taken great care to research and prepare presentations to show…
Read MoreGetting SMWVDBE Certified
It seems that many companies have SMWVDBE (Small, Minority, Women, Veteran, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise) certification on their minds as the new year begins. So, it makes sense to revisit what certification is all about and why a business might want to get certified. What is a certification? SMWVDBE certifications are offered by the Small Business Adminstration,…
Read MoreHow Long Does It Take?
Last week we fielded three calls about getting diversity certified, and while each caller had very specific questions they all had one in common — how long will it take me to get certified? These calls come from business owners who want to get certified for a particular reason; usually because an opportunity they want…
Read MoreThe Rules They Are (maybe) A-Changing
Federal DBE Rules Changing – WANT TO BE HEARD? Did you know that the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) is considering changes to its disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) program — and that you can tell them what you think about these changes? You can read a summary of or a detailed document about the changes…
Read MoreNACIS 2012
The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) has updated their size standards based on a company’s NAICS codes. NAICS (pronounced NAKES) is an acronym for North American Industry Classifications System, a set of codes used to classify the type of work a business performs or product(s) they provide. The SBA uses the size standards based…
Read More236 Years Later
There’s much to celebrate this month during the two hundred and thirty sixth birthday of our country, including the benefits of being a SDMWVBE (Small, Disadvantaged, Minority, Women or Veteran Business Enterprise) in the United States. Most of the time we talk about the issues and challenges we business owners face competing for our places at the procurement tables…
Read MoreWhat is SAM?
We’ve discussed the CCR (Central Contractor Registration) web site back in 2010. Early this year it was announced that the CCR, Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA), Federal Business Opportunities (FBO), Federal Procurement Data System-Next Generation (FPDS-NG), Electronic Subcontracting Reporting System (eSRS), Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), Excluded Parties List System (EPLS), Catalog of…
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