Sometimes History Does Repeat Itself.
Written by, Jalayna Bolden, DIRECTOR Global Supply Chain, AT&T
There’s a saying that goes “we’ve come a long way, but we have a long way to go”. This sentiment may resonate with Black businesses even though many have achieved measurable success over the years through opportunities with corporate America, in large part due to the work of organizations like the U.S Black Chambers, Inc., the National Minority Supplier Development Council and others.
As director of AT&T’s Supplier Diversity program, one of my primary objectives is to engage businesses owned by minorities, women, veterans and LGBT -owned firms. Our team of diversity sourcing professionals help to drive AT&T’s commitment of making a significant economic impact with diverse businesses. That impact is underscored by our corporate goal to spend at least 21.5% of our procurement expenditures with diverse businesses.
Our minority business inclusion work began in 1968 working with the Chicago Urban League and the Chicago Economic Development Corporation. One of AT&T’s manufacturing facility at that time, Hawthorne Works, was located outside of Chicago. We offered the use of the facility to hold the first of its kind “Opportunity Mart” or in today’s vernacular, Business Expo. The Opportunity Mart was created as one solution to address the systemic racial and economic challenges the country and specifically the city of Chicago was facing during that time. The facility manager stated back then, “we’ve been looking forward to this day for quite a while and realize it’s only the starting point”. “We have a long way to go to build a stronger, more balanced economic base. We believe it is important to get more dollars into our urban neighborhoods.” Sound familiar?
That year, AT&T recorded $175,000 in purchases from nine Black businesses at the Opportunity Mart.
Since that historic event, our efforts over time have been sustainable and intentional. We still understand the importance of ensuring that diverse businesses including Black-owned businesses have the opportunity to work with AT&T. We have and will continue to align our Global Supply Chain and corporate efforts to achieve diversity and economic inclusion.
History has a way of repeating itself or at least being a reminder of where we have been.
In 2019, AT&T made a public commitment to spend $3 billion with Black-owned businesses by the end of 2020 and our teams are diligently working to achieve that commitment. Why? Because we believed it was important to simply do more within the black community. We are well on the way to reaching our goal and even exceeding it.
Our engagement with these businesses will continue beyond 2020 and they are not short-term commitments. Our intention for these suppliers is to not only generate revenue to make a meaningful impact on their business bottom line but also create new sustainable jobs for their communities. We know that providing opportunities to hire new talent from the community these businesses serve is critical, especially in today’s environment.
To date, we have successfully added more than 25 additional Black-owned businesses to our Global Supply Chain since last year. Several of these suppliers are members of the U.S. Black Chambers’ President’s Circle such as Overland Tandberg located in San Ramon, California and Asociar, LLC. located in Plano Texas. We are excited to work with them.
Our actions are the result of recognizing and acknowledging the need to be focused and intentional to bring about economic equality and provide sustainable opportunities for Black businesses. Since our start back in 1968 we can clearly see that 52 years later, Black businesses have made significant contributions to AT&T and will continue to do so. We honor those who took those first steps to create economic parity. We continue to build upon their vision and maintain our commitment to economic inclusion.
