This past fall, the University of Southern Indiana partnered with the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership (EREP) and the University of Evansville to co-create the Supplier Development Program. This groundbreaking program is designed for people of color and women who own businesses, aiming to strategically position them for success in securing procurement contracts from prominent companies in the Evansville region and expand their business presence.
Several faculty members in the Romain College of Business had the opportunity to work with participants of this program through weekly business planning and contract readiness classes that took place on Wednesday evenings from September through mid-December. Classes covered a variety of areas such as marketing strategies, operating plans, business plans and how to manage growth.
“I’m really proud of our expert, participating faculty and the coordinator of the Supplier Development program, Dr. Nick Rhew, for co-creating and delivering a first-of-its-kind program that will strongly position BIPOC and women-owned businesses to win procurement contracts from leading companies in the region and to expand their business footprint,” said Dr. Sudesh Mujumdar, Dean of the Romain College of Business.
Each class was co-taught by faculty members and small business advisors from the Southwest Indiana Small Business Development Center. USI faculty members who taught in the program included Dr. Cristina Gilstrap, Associate Professor of Business Communication; Dr. Mark McKnight, Professor of Accounting; Josh McWilliams, Instructor in Computer Information Systems; and Dr. Chad Milewicz, Chair of Economics and Marketing Department and Professor of Marketing. Rhew, Assistant Professor of Management, was the USI Faculty Coordinator.
With years of expertise and knowledge in their related fields, USI faculty played an important role in helping small business owners grow their skills sets through the program.
“It was incredibly beneficial to have USI business faculty members with a variety of backgrounds help Supplier Development Program participants,” said Dominic Poggi, Regional Director of the Southwest Indiana Small Business Development Center. “The opportunity to learn from high-caliber instructors and immediately apply those learnings with one-on-one assistance from a Small Business Development Center business advisor was a very intentional element of the program.”
Faculty relished the chance to work with the program and help people of color and women-owned businesses learn more about how to grow their companies and be prepared to secure procurement contracts and capital in the future.
“I really became interested in participating when I learned the focus was on helping small businesses to grow,” said McKnight. “Both of my parents independently ran small businesses when I was growing up—my mother owned a few small neighborhood grocery stores, and my father was the owner/operator of a small construction company. Small businesses face a lot of hurdles in getting ahead, and getting involved in the program will hopefully give me an opportunity to use my experiences and observations from the challenges my parents faced to help these businesses succeed.”
“My previous experiences in technology and traditional brick-and-mortar startups led me to an opportunity at USI to run the Eagle Innovation Accelerator program from 2018-2019,” added McWilliams. “As a result of that work I became connected with the organizations representing what has now become EREP, and always welcome an opportunity to work with them to enhance the way we work, play and live in the greater Evansville region.”
The primary goal for this program is to help people of color and women-owned small businesses learn how to create generational wealth and meet the needs of contract opportunities presented to them. This program's pilot year helped set the tone for how beneficial an initiative like this can be.
“Developing a business that can be passed from generation to generation takes years, if not decades,” said Poggi. “In the short term, success is defined by Small-to-Medium Sized Businesses (SMBs) winning contracts with Lead Business Partner (LBP) organizations that wouldn’t have happened were it not for the Supplier Development Program.”
