DE&I-focused consulting firm dedicated to helping build sustainable growth opportunities for minority owned businesses
In Women’s History Month and throughout the year, Thinkzilla Consulting, a woman-owned brand engagement firm certified by the National Minority Supplier Development council firmly makes the case for more diverse women entrepreneurs and small businesses. In its recent white paper, Thinkzilla shares “The Business Case for Diversity & Innovation Through Strategic Supplier Inclusion,” educating companies on the monetary and community benefits of diversity supplier programs, in particular.
By 2025, companies worldwide are anticipated to increase their diversity spending goals by 50 percent, based on a study by the Hackett Group. Meanwhile, women-owned businesses grew a full 10.5 percent between 2017 and 2018 alone, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, and continue to trend upwards. About 19 percent of businesses are minority-owned, according to the 2020 Annual Business Survey, but those numbers are also on the rise.
“Clearly, the time is more than right to do what’s right and shift more spending to diverse suppliers,” said Dr. Velma Trayham, CEO of Thinkzilla Consulting and founder of the Millionaire Mastermind Academy, a nonprofit organization that offers technical assistance, business training and mentorship to minority women entrepreneurs. “Supplier diversity encourages economic growth, inspires new products and services, creates new job opportunities and sparks needed change in communities.”
In an aim to support more minority-owned businesses and entrepreneurs, Thinkzilla expanded to Scottdale at the Arizona State University SkySong Innovation Center, where it launched the first United Diversity Business Summit, convening business experts and CEOs to share innovative approaches to enhancing Arizona’s economic growth outcomes.
Diverse suppliers are becoming crucial links in more and more corporate supply chains, notably Ford Motor Company, JPMorgan Chase, and many other Fortune 500 companies. The Billion Dollar Roundtable, for instance, is composed of nearly 30 such companies that spent a minimum of $1 billion annually with minority- and women-owned suppliers, with spending growing by more than 150 percent over the past decade. JPMorgan Chase alone spent $2.5 billion with diverse businesses in 2019 and has pledged to spend $30 billion to advance racial equity.
Thinkzilla regularly works with government agencies and Fortune 500 companies helping them connect with small businesses to strengthen supplier diversity programs by connecting them to new suppliers, enhancing existing programs, and building supplier diversity efforts from scratch.
ABOUT THINKZILLA:
The only firm that combines program management resources with extensive DE&I expertise, a network of thousands of minority-led business suppliers, and full-service marketing capabilities, Thinkzilla recently launched a proprietary DEI scorecard for clients. It can be used for audits, to support training and programs, and to help organizations build more inclusive workplaces and workforces. www.thinkzillaconsulting.com
