Tuesday, September 14, 2010

$10M Grant Creates New Portal for Small Businesses to Sell to Large Businesses

A consortium of six major corporations (IBM, AT&T, Citigroup, Bank of America, UPS & Pfzier) today announced a new way for small businesses to compete with greater ease to sell goods and services to large global
company supply chains, which could potentially lead to the creation of new jobs and economic growth.

Earlier this month President Obama reminded Congress and the nation that more needs to be done to help small businesses, which accounted for more than 60 percent of job losses in the final months of last year.  To reverse this trend this is one way that can help accelerate small business growth and economic recovery.

The IBM International Foundation -- IBM's philanthropy arm -- will provide a $10 million grant to operate a new Web site called "Supplier Connection" that will go live during the first quarter of 2011.  The web-based procurement system will enable "one-stop-shopping" for small and medium-sized firms seeking a share of a combined $150 billion worth of business generated by large company supply chains every year.

Although, the Foundation is spending $10 million on the technology necessary for the initiative, and its use is free of charge to both small and large business participants, this not charity.  As more small suppliers jump into the mix competition grows and the consortium gets better rates. Win, win.

The partners hope that after the launch, additional large companies will join the consortium.

So get out and compete. No more excuses.

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