DAI’s Claudia Manning Urges Supplier Development in Business Day

May 31, 2012

DAI’s Claudia Manning has written a column on effective business supplier development for South Africa’s Business Day, a leading national newspaper.

Manning, Managing Director of DAI’s Johannesburg office, and her staff played a key role in establishing the South African Supplier Diversity Council, which links black-owned small enterprises in South Africa to larger corporations and their supply chains.

In the article, Manning implores large companies to be more open to bonafide black suppliers — beyond routine transactions in low-value discretional spending — and commit to investing in small, black suppliers, alongside technical assistance and mentoring.

“Investment of this quality and quantity — investment driven not by compliance concerns but by a genuine desire to make black suppliers competitive in price and quality — will require strong leadership from South Africa’s business community, but the benefits to business are many,” she writes.

DAI’s work with developing black suppliers in South Africa dates back to 1998 when the U.S. Agency for International Development hired DAI’s South Africa team to implement the South Africa International Business Linkages program.