RAW FILE
2016 USBLN
19th ANNUAL NATIONAL CONFERENCE
ORLANDO, FLORIDA
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
SUPPLY CHAIN
INDIRECT BUYING, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES & SUBCONTRACTING
1:30 P.M. ET
Services provided by:
Caption First, Inc.
P.O. Box 3066
Monument, CO 80132
1 877 825 5234
+001 719 481 9835
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This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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All right. Hi, everyone. We'll do some introductions first, but this is the breakout session on Indirect Buying, Professional Services & Subcontracting. My name is Tim Ruddell with KPMG, I manage our supply diversity program. Can everyone hear me okay? Okay. Great.
(Laughter)
> TIM RUDDELL:I'll introduce the panelists from left to right. We have Joyce Bender, the President and CEO of Bender Consulting Services, and a member of the host committee. We have L. Jay, the supply diversity senior manager with Comcast. Anyone correct me if I get your title wrong. We have Luis Cruz, the Supply Diversity Manager with PricewaterhouseCoopers, and We Have Dennis Parker and Kathleen Castore, the Director of Sustainability. We'll just give our panelists a round of applause and thank them for being here.
(Applause)
> TIM RUDDELL:Thank you. So this is going to be as interactive as possible. We have a pretty small group here. There's an opportunity for everyone to ask questions. If anyone has any, let me know and feel free to chime in. We want you to get as much of this as possible and make sure we're answering your questions. I want to do a quick check of who's in the room to start with. Who do we have from corporate partners? A few corporate partners. Do we have any certified DOBEs? I know of at least one. And anyone with other nonprofits, other organizations? Great. Excellent.
I'm going to ask our panelists to tell us a little bit about what they do, their businesses and their roles in just a minute or two as a brief introduction. I'm sure everybody knows who Joyce is already, but if anyone's had their eyes and ears closed the last few days. And then we'll proceed on.
Thank you, I'm Joyce Bender, the CEO and founder of a forprofit company that focuses on the competitive employment of Americans with disabilities. So what I do is I partner with companies that are seeking talent. I work also with the federal government. So I find people in IT, engineering, human resources, those type of positions. And I work as I mentioned with the federal government, the national security agency. I only mention that because I always tell people, hey. If I can work with the NSA, I should be able to work with you.
In addition to that, we have a new product being launched. I partnered with Andy. Make sure when you go through the booth, it's called iDisability. And it is a revolutionary, innovative new training system with 15minute modules. And last but certainly not least, I'm a woman living with epilepsy.
> TIM RUDDELL:Thank you.
Oh. And you know last year how I said sign the contract? See this man here at Comcast? They did sign the contract.
(Applause)
Good afternoon. I don't know how to follow that one up, but I'm Jay Burks, the senior supply diversity manager at Comcast. My role with the company is to provide equitable access for diverse businesses, look for and explore opportunities through all our BUs, inclusive of NBC universal, theme parks, happy to be here to share strategies for success and see familiar faces. Let's talk about our strategies and hopefully we'll sign the contract and have another story next year.
(Applause)
> TIM RUDDELL:Thanks. Luis Cruz with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
> LUIS CRUZ:Sure. Good afternoon. I'm a supply diversity manager. Basically, my role day to day is attending conferences and meeting with suppliers who might be a fit for the firm. I work very closely with our global procurement team. I'm sort of like that first stop to kind of vet the supplier, get to know them. I come from a buying background, and see if they're fit for one of our teams. I'm here to hopefully come away with a deal. That's what it comes down to. Thank you.
(Applause)
> DENNIS PARKER:Hi, my name is Dennis Parker, President and founder of TechTrueUp, a company that I started about five years ago. We're a servicedisabledvetowned business, and DOBE. We specialize in two functional areas, one is manpower management, and the other one is technology management. In the employee area, workforce area, we do staffing, recruiting, as well as payroll for companies. In the technology area, we've stepped outthis is our growth area of being able to provide technology primarily in the network management and cybersecurity area.
We also have a call center environment that we are manning in order to provide a platform for veterans to come into the workplace. So we have about 60% of our employment in the call center all veterans. It's a pleasure meeting you all.
(Applause)
> TIM RUDDELL:Thanks, Dennis. Next, we have Kathleen Castore.
> KATHLEEN CASTORE:Hello, everybody. It's great to see people I know at the conference. My name is Kathleen Castore, I'm the Head of Supply Diversity at Sanofi, we have ACT toothpaste, and very critical drugs as well that we provide. And one notsocritical would be like Ambien so you know what we're about. I basically do, for the sake of time, what Jay and Luis do for the company, actively seeking out new suppliers, whether it's much of our business is attending conferences and working with suppliers on a daily basis to see if they are that right fit for our company, and there's current opportunity.
I've been with my company like 16 years at is this point, made it through many mergers, acquisitions. (Chuckling) Still surviving. But it's really great to be here. And I'm looking forward to meeting you all.
> TIM RUDDELL:Great. Thank you to all of our panel.
(Applause)
> TIM RUDDELL:So I'm just going to recap the learning objectives for this session so we make sure we're giving you what we've promised and you'd paid for. First, to obtain an understanding of the requirements of how these firms differ from product firms, and some of us do both. When we talk about KPMG, most of our deliverables are pieces of paper or documents that are emailed. We're not making anything.
The second objective is to share best practices in the differing approaches by industry leaders. Two of our panelists are successful DOBEs and SDVOBs, and how they expand their participation. And the third is to get insight into unique issues and to get critical advice on how to navigate that process successfully. There's a lot of buzzwords in there, but I hope you get something valuable from it. We have several DOBEs in the room, if I could ask people to raise your hands briefly. Now, everybody who's certified, put your hand down. If you're not, leave it up.
> AUDIENCE:They're working on it.
> TIM RUDDELL:Good. Well, the first part might be an unnecessary sell for you, but we just wanted to briefly touch on the power of DOBE and what that means to you. You'll probably hear a lot this week about what is a DOBE, and trying to make sure everyone at this event understands what a DOBE is. Joyce, when we had our planning call for this, you were very enthusiastic in the power of a DOBE, what a DOBE is, what a DOBE can do, what a DOBE means. If you could just share your thoughts on that.
JOYCE BENDER:Absolutely. And I am very honored to be a disabilityowned business enterprise. I will tell you it is not so much adding to the work I do at Bender Consulting Services. For one thing, it provides credibility. You know, when you go to a corporation, there are expectations. And the USBLN is so highly known and thought of. And when you can tell them, yes, I am a certified disabilityowned business enterprise, and certified by the USBLN, that really gives you credibility.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times someone has said to me, oh, okay, that's really good, I want to note that in procurement. And the other thing is that I really feel it sets you aside. In addition to credibility, I think you stand out more. I think companies notice you more. Even taking it to a further level, in the state of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, they work with the USBLN, both governors, and now they have setasides for disabilityowned business enterprises and specifically who are certified.
So what this has done now has opened up a whole other line of business for us in the state of Pennsylvania, and again in Massachusetts. But the thing is that when you are a certified disabilityowned business enterprise, you should feel proud, because it says you've gone somewhere.
> TIM RUDDELL:As well as those two states, I understand something's in progress in New York State, is that right?
JOYCE BENDER:I see it going across.
> TIM RUDDELL:Once we get California I think we've won, right?
(Laughter)
Can I just add something real quick from the corporate side to that? It's good to know like my company, we have many government contracts, imagine the flu vaccine, produced in Pennsylvania. We have our rare disease division and many sites in Massachusetts. So if you look into who you'd like to do business with, and that could be maybe focus on them, because new rules are coming out. It might help you out a little bit more. Make sure you tell them if they don't know, by the way, we have these new rules.
> TIM RUDDELL:Yeah.
> AUDIENCE:So do you see this in the federal market of gaining servicedisabled veteran specific setasides?
> PANELIST:There is an employment group led by Tony. There was a group of people with disabilities assigned to my group to come up with what are the key policies. One was to end subminimum pay for people with disabilities. But the other is exactly what you're talking about. Yes. So hopefully that will happen.
> TIM RUDDELL:Dennis, how long has TechTrueUp been a certified DOBE?
> DENNIS PARKER:I spent most of my career in large corporations. And five years ago, I decided to open up my own company. The first year or so, I really was challenged on being able to bring in new clients and so on. But at the same time, I didn't have any medical insurance either. So I learned as a servicedisabled vet that I could receive benefits from the VA, but then I also became a servicedisabledowned small business, which was a great way of being able to get the introduction, open up the door, and sell what we had.
Well, last year we were introduced to USBLN. I'm a oneyear certified member, which I'm very happy about. And it took my certified servicedisabled vet certification and put steroids into it, all right.
(Laughter)
> DENNIS PARKER:I've had a lot of exposure. I'm meeting all of you people for the first time. And I appreciate it. And making the arrangements, I have been able to step out. We have contracts with AT&T, Cox, we're working on Comcast right now.
(Laughter)
> DENNIS PARKER:And with a good sponsorship, so we have a relationship with Amgen, a pharmaceutical company. And all of these relationships have been developed because of the introduction and verification, and reference that we are a DOBE, certified disabled vet organization.
> TIM RUDDELL:Yeah. Congratulations.
> DENNIS PARKER:Thanks.
> TIM RUDDELL:I think this is probably a unique environment for a business development person, because you're in a room with corporations who are trying to spend as much money as possible, each one of us corporate representatives are judged on the amount that we spend with DOBEs, minorities, womenowned businesses. My bonus is directly tied to it. I'm proud to say we engaged our first DOBE, who's in the room, on a fairly small project this last year.
(Applause)
> TIM RUDDELL:Dennis, could you share just how that certification does help you gain new business? I know you've made connections here, but how specifically does having that certification set you apart, what doors does it open, and how does that work?
> PANELIST:Well, you probably heard today that one of my customers is Northrup, but I work with united technologies and many other companies. But when I went forward with our proposal to begin working with them and Comcast, and many other corporations I work with, you would notice on the signature statement of mine, in addition to my radio show, Joyce Bender, disabilityowned business enterprise, certified by the USBLN. And when different new customers would call me, Joyce, we've heard about you, you know, we want to hire people with disabilities, and by the way, now, I noticed you are a certified disabilityowned business enterprise.
And it does make a difference. And when I go on marketing calls, I do bring that up. I think, sort of, as you said, it's like the icing on the cake. But, you know, it makes a difference. Again, to be certified by the USBLN, credibility. It's almost like saying "I have good references" up front, do you know what I mean? So absolutely I use that in my marketing. As I said, on every email that I send out, on every proposal. And it has had a benefit.
> PANELIST:Thank you. I'll take you for a little journey down a customer trail. We had reached out and became a partner or vendor for AT&T. And we were looking for opportunities with AT&T, the supply diversity folks were able to give us guidance and we were invited to their CIO conference, where they projected to a whole audience there must have been 500 vendors in the audience that said, we want to be able to take you along with us. We're going to go on you know, bring AT&T into the future.
So we all sat there and listened. I heard one area that I was particularly interested in called network service orchestration, which is a product called TLF, I said, that's it. So we went from AT&T, we looked at TLF, and we introduced ourselves as a servicedisabled vet company. They wanted to be able to team with us. Well, in the middle of that, Cisco bought TLF. So now we're connected with Cisco. And I had made a contact with them. This is when I was becoming certified by USBLN, which opened up the doors within Cisco.
So now we are an authorized technology partner for Cisco servicing AT&T. Well, we had to build our expertise in order to service and provide professional services within for TLF, or NSO as it's renamed now. And we have the need to be able to build our expertise. So our people went through the training. Training is not enough. You need to be able to have the experience in order to really go and grab new customers. So we went to their professional services, or advanced services organization, got our people onto their team so it was like a subcontracting arrangement.
We went to their other partners. And so now we are working with companies like worldwide technology, and to be able to deliver the product. So all along, we're gaining our skills and becoming a real good professional services organization and allowing us to resell the product. So that long story, all the way from the beginning when I was struggling, trying to get into the marketplace, servicedisabled vet help me get my first contact. But it has mirrored its way all the way through that particular process. So I'm real happy to be both a veteran as well as a DOBE. So that's a little bit.
> TIM RUDDELL:Thank you. It sounds like it was a good investment. I think you're all sold on certification at this point, so we'll move on to some other topics. One of the objectives for this was to talk about the difference in providing to professional services firms. I know Luis, PWC does similar types of things to KPMG. Could you maybe share what some of the key factors you look for are in suppliers, and how you think, maybe, it differs to product?
> LUIS CRUZ:Absolutely. So when we come to conferences, particularly like USBLN, we look to see if there's a fit for the firm. A lot of times when companies come up to me and introduce themselves, they say, you know, we want to do business with you. But sometimes they don't understand what we do for our business, right. A lot of times they only think accounting, or they may think consulting. So I always suggest to the supplier when we talk, go to our website, look it over nor a few minutes.
Just briefly read about PWC, its history, and get an understanding. Because what's important for us, what we look for is, are they a fit for us. What does my customer, the internal PWC employee, look for in a good or service. And so, you know, I try to be openminded. I'll be honest with you. I would love to hire everyone I meet, but I can't. I have to do what's right for the firm. Everything's money, budget limited. So it's very key to find firms that have a need.
Now sometimes I'll share this story two years ago in Orlando at USBLN, that was my first time attending. I went to the conference and met Pat Graves, Caption First. We talked, got to know each other. As soon as I got back to the office, question had a meeting for captioning services. And they couldn't find a solution. I had met a supplier.