FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

                                                                                    Contact: John F. Robinson

                                                                                    Tel.      : (212) 693-5050

                                                                                    E-mail : nmbc@msn.com

THE NATIONAL MINORITY BUSINESS COUNCIL, INC., CALLS ON

 CORPORATE AMERICA TO STAND BY ITS COMMITMENT TO DIVERSITY

The Recessionary Environment is No Excuse to Scale Back or Eliminate

Minority Supplier Programs, the Organization Says

May 20, 2009 ( NEW YORK) – The National Minority Business Council, Inc., is urging corporations across the nation to stand by their commitment to diversity, particularly their supply relationships with minority and women-owned firms. The NMBC’s call follows deepening concern among its members that major corporations, even some that are still showing profits, may be using the current harsh economic and financial environment as an excuse to scale back or dismantle diversity programs, squeezing minority suppliers out of the supply chain. The NMBC members expressed these sentiments in an informal survey conducted by the organization this month.  

“These times won’t last forever, as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke declared in his May 5th economic outlook. Consumers will remember how corporate America reacted when the going got rough,” said John F. Robinson, the NMBC’s president and CEO. “Yes, corporations must adjust to prevailing economic times. But just as they would not eliminate their marketing programs for the goods and services they provide, so, too, they should not eliminate supplier diversity programs. At a time when Census figures show the country moving toward an overall population dominated by ethnic minorities with hefty purchasing power, these programs make good business sense. Dismantling them is simply unacceptable.”

Recent press reports have also alluded to the worrisome state of supplier diversity programs, Robinson said. He cited the March issue of HispanicBusiness, which reported that “among the hardest hit during this recessionary economy are the minority-owned suppliers--the small businesses that contract with Fortune 500 companies to provide an array of services...Large companies are cutting back to stay alive and their supplier diversity contracts are sometimes the first to get slashed.” The magazine further said, “the stumbling block for many companies seems to be the perception that using minority-owned businesses is costly.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, Robinson said. “Research shows substantial bottom-line benefits as a result of using diverse suppliers, including improved customer satisfaction and

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market share for the procuring corporations and improved local economies in communities where diverse suppliers are based,” he said. “I applaud companies like General Electric Corp., PepsiCo and the Bank of New York Mellon that understand this and remain committed to supplier diversity.”

In 2006, The Hackett Group, a strategic advisory firm in Atlanta, published a study which showed that major corporations that focus heavily on supplier diversity do not sacrifice procurement savings to do so. The study noted that these corporations had slightly higher adoption rates of supplier diversity programs than typical companies, yet were able to generate 133 percent greater return on the cost of procurement operations than the average companies, driving an additional $3.6 million to their bottom line for every $1 million in procurement operations costs.

“Many people will tell you that they don’t use more minority suppliers because they can’t afford to,” Kurt Albertson, Hackett’s senior business advisor, said. “They automatically assume that supplier diversity programs are an administrative nightmare, a burden that increases spending. But that’s simply not true. Companies that focus in this area, driven by a sense of social responsibility, government mandates, or a range of other factors, are just as able to run effective procurement operations as their peers that ignore supplier diversity.”

Gregory L. Reid, chairman of the NMBC’s Board of Directors, said: “Supplier diversity programs should not be a thing of fashion when times are good. At all times they are good for America, good for American workers and definitely good for the suppliers. We cannot allow all the gains minority suppliers have made over the years to fade away.”

For more information about the NMBC, please go to the Web site at www.nmbc.org, or call John F. Robinson at (212) 693-5050.

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