engage magazine issue 004 \\\'07 | Page 6

Letters to the Editor
6 UPFRONT

Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor, Stay Engaged with“ Engage”. I send my deep appreciation and congratulations to you and the rest of the Engage team for creating and organising an amazing business that allows BAME’ s, SME’ s and Corporates to come together to promote and network our businesses, products and services to each others’ professional networks and social circles. I’ m a Stress Manager with a Corporate Financial background. From my 3 years of networking and business development, I’ ve had more quality based, fruitful contacts from attending your past 3 events than at other networking events. To summarise:
Dear Editor
I have read engage magazine since issue one and had to write to congratulate you on a ground breaking product. I have kept each issue because for the most part, the content does not date. It particularly pleases me that you feature a wide variety of business in various sectors and that the focus is not on one minority ethnic group – but all of us. I have also attended many of your networking events and, stemming form this, made useful contacts not only with large organisations, but also identified partnership opportunities with other BAME businesses. Engage is clearly a magazine which supports business diversity in its broadest sense and this is what sets your product apart from anything
called‘ meet the buyer’ it too much would expect the core activity to be just that, rather than lunch.
I’ d be interested to not only hear the views of others, but also a view from engage on the above points. Perhaps you could offer some sort of quality mark to help us sort out the sheep from the goats …
Once again congratulations on a fantastic product, when’ s the next networking event?
Geofrey Gordon
Editor’ s Response to letter
Dear Geofrey
else on offer.

etters...

1. In March 2007, you had a speaker from the National Training Awards( NTA). After attending their workshop in early April 2007 and with the guidance of an appointed Mentor, I submitted my individual category entry.
2. From networking with other attendees, I’ ve formed an association with Audrey Linton of P41 re: collaborative Procurement submissions.
3. I have seen guests attend one event and at the next, you’ ve given them an opportunity to promote their business and convey strong messages to the
Now here’ s the but … Why some organisations are allowed significant amounts of space in your magazine when they are clearly operating on a principle of‘ do as I say, not as I do’. I will give you a concrete example. If as an organisation, your raison d’ être is to champion and promote supplier diversity and challenge other organisations to do the same, why do you have few or no diverse suppliers yourself? This is common knowledge among those who have tried and
Many thanks for your continuing support. In response to the questions you ask; I assume the‘ do as I say, not as I do’ refers to the large organisations we have featured. To be fair, I think we should remember that supplier diversity is relatively new to the UK and probably quite low on the agenda of many of the big corporates. However, what they are clearly saying is that they are going to seriously look at the diversity in their supplier chain and start a process of gathering data on the ethnicity of their suppliers. This should include race equality considerations in their procurement
attendees.
4. The locations and venues used for each meeting has been impressive, especially the EDF Energy building – Victoria, Lehman Brothers – Canary Wharf. I could go on, however with my parting words I’ d just like to say – please continue with the fantastic work. The word about Engage is spreading, the attendee numbers are increasing and your forums are greatly needed. Bless you! Best Regards, Valerie Lothian Financial Stress Manager Tel: 0800 195 1864 www. Focusivity. successuniversity. com www. Focusivity. co. uk
failed to get on preferred supplier lists?
My second question is this …
If you purport to be an organisation that promotes and supports ethnic minority business and you are well funded from the public purse to do so, why do you not provide some serious, relevant business support? I really feel that funded organisations should tailor what they offer to what the business might need( rather than only being driven by gathering statistics for the funders)
Why not ask BAME businesses what we want, instead of providing hit and miss interventions. For example, if your event is
strategies and policies and taking steps to ensure there is a level playing field for all potential contractors, regardless of size or ethnicity of ownership, which has to be a good starting point. On the other subjects you raised regarding organisations funded by the public purse and hollow‘ meet the buyer’ events. I agree there are a lot of‘ tick box’ initiatives out there and not enough measuring of impact. We, at engage will be constantly surveying our extensive BAME and minority-owned business database to establish and understand the needs of today’ s BAME enterprises. We will share and hopefully resolve many of the issues raised via our networking events.
engage | uk ISSUE FOUR 2007