A new initiative has been launched to help connect businesses owned by women to large procurement contracts.
The government-backed Women in Enterprise Connecting to Contracts (WEConnect) scheme has been introduced after a survey found although 16% of businesses are women owned, less than 3% of corporate and public sector contracts go to businesses owned by women.
Organisers of the scheme hope to put businesses owned by women in touch with key procurement contacts, which they said would provide supplier diversity and give large corporates the confidence to purchase from businesses with the WEConnect certification.
The scheme said it has already signed up a raft of major names as corporate supporters, including Citi, Accenture, Goldman Sachs, Hewlett Packard, Pfizer, Cisco, JP Morgan, and Microsoft.
Sue Lawton, the initiative’s director of development, said: “An increasing number of women are turning to entrepreneurship as a way to fulfil their ambitions and create a new kind of workplace.
“However, many female entrepreneurs break out on their own only to face huge challenges in gaining fair access to procurement contracts.”
WEConnect will hold its first ‘Get Connected’ Conference on October 31 at the Merrill Lynch Financial Centre in London.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008
