Connecticut is now part of a national IBM initiative that has already produced $6 billion in contracts for small businesses eager to supply major corporations.
Noting IBM alone had a $40 billion supply chain, Stanley Litow, president of IBM International Foundation and vice president for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs, said, “This is one-stop shopping for small businesses. You sign up. You get recognized as a supplier.”
- Amy Krahn, vice president for global supply chain, Pitney Bowes, and Stanley Litow, president of IBM International Foundation and vice president for corporate citizenship and corporate affairs.
Called the Connecticut Supplier Connection, the cloud-hosted program is free for corporations and small businesses. Litow called it “a simple idea, but it”™s a little complicated to implement.” So far, according to an IBM-sponsored study, those small businesses that have landed contracts through the program have witnessed 250 percent revenue growth and doubled their employees within two years.
Litow said the deals had boosted the smaller businesses”™ revenues by a total $6 billion since the program”™s 2011 launch.
“Is this a good idea?” Litow said. “You bet it”™s a good idea.”
The initiative was rolled out Oct. 7 in Stamford where Business Council of Fairfield County President and CEO Chris Bruhl and its Chairman, Reyno Giallongo, shepherded a packed-room information session on the project.
Attendees included Gov. Dannel Malloy, who praised the program and its organizers. Also attending were business leaders, Department of Community and Economic Development Commissioner Catherine Smith and Stamford Mayor David Martin.
According to Tim Coates, IBM project manager for economic development, corporate citizenship and corporate affairs, “It gives large corporations interested in working with Connecticut small-business suppliers ”” all other things being equal ”” a better opportunity to do so.
“If I am Pitney Bowes or UIL” ”” New Haven based UIL Holdings Corp, the most recent corporation to sign on ”” “I might prefer to do business with Connecticut companies,” Coates said. “How do they find them? There are companies in Connecticut that can deliver at price and at quality.”
“Those that don”™t have access to the big players will now have access,” Giallongo said. Citing precision manufacturing and aerospace technologies among regional strengths, he said, “We have an unbelievable supply chain. We can cash in on the additional capacity within much of that supply chain.”
Bruhl said in the next year, the business council foresees adding another 10 major companies to the buyer list and 200 Connecticut small businesses on the supply side.
The website is supplier-connection.net, with Connecticut the most recent addition under the “Growth Partners” tab.
Ongoing business council efforts for the program will include recruitment and educational services that complement supply-chain participation and will be supervised by Gary Breitbart, the council”™s director of growth company advisory services.
Stamford-based Pitney Bowes is one of the 31 “supplier connection” companies already on board and was represented at the event by Amy Krahn, vice president global supply chain. Her company recently struck a deal for transportation services with Atif Jilani, CEO of Airlink Ground Transportation, which operates eight limousines out of the Matrix Corporate Center in Danbury.
“It”™s all about the point of contact,” Jilani said. “The program provides direct contact with the companies we”™re trying to get business from. It”™s a big step to shake hands with the person I want to deal with.”
