Tweet Women-owned firms are growing faster than the national average, and much of that growth came from minority firms, according to a study commissioned by American Express Open. The 2013 State of Women-Owned Business Report examined the period between 1997 and 2013 and found some astonishing growth trends, as well as areas of weakness that need to be firmed up. We’ll highlight some of the top growth statistics and trends in this blog, and explore more of the report in detail over the next few weeks. One of the most notable stats is the growth of businesses started by women of color. In 1997, they accounted for just 17 percent of women-owned businesses. Today they make up a third. Other [...]
Read More »Tweet MASON, OH–(Marketwire – Feb 28, 2013) – The Ohio River Valley Women’s Business Council (ORV~WBC) has partnered with online supplier-diversity service ConnXus to provide its members with access to a wide-ranging set of corporate and government contracting opportunities worth millions of dollars. ORV~WBC is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to certify bona fide women-owned businesses and to promote the development, establishment, expansion and encouragement of businesses owned by women. ORV~WBC is a certifying partner organization in the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), founded in 1997, which is the largest third-party certifier of businesses owned, controlled, and operated by women in the United States. ConnXus is an online marketplace that helps companies optimize their spending on outside goods [...]
Read More »Tweet Columbus and Mason, Ohio (February 22, 2013) –ConnXus and the GrapeVineColumbus corporations have announced a partnership to promote small and minority-owned businesses throughout Ohio by notifying them of upcoming diversity events and business opportunities and by helping Ohio corporations to find them. ConnXus is a web-based service that helps businesses locate, evaluate and engage small, woman- and minority-owned businesses. Its clients are primarily large corporations, construction firms and others for whom supplier diversity is a key business goal. GrapeVineColumbus.com is a cost-effective and efficient way to reach the fastest-growing segment of Central Ohio’s minority population. Online communities and social media platforms are increasingly becoming the best way to reach tech-savvy minority professionals. The free daily online newswire is distributed [...]
Read More »Tweet Startup Journey: “The highs are very high, the lows are very low,” says ConnXus founder. CincyTech invested in Mason-based ConnXus nearly a year ago now – March 2012, to be exact – but never officially announced the investment. The company was already two years old, the client pipeline was strong, investors were jumping in, and there was no time to take stock and do media. Things are still full-speed ahead a year later: Eight employees, four new clients, a handful of key board additions, a couple of key partnerships and $725,000 paid-in so far as part of a $1.2 million seed round of funding. Read the rest of the article here.
Read More »Tweet Companies Can More Easily Track Their Vendors’ Supplier-Diversity Spending MASON, OH, Jan 08, 2013 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Corporations trying to track their full use of minority- and women-owned suppliers now have a new tool for their “Tier 2″ spending. ConnXus has launched TierTracker™, an easy way to track such activity inside the current ConnXus platform. ConnXus is a web-based service that helps businesses locate, evaluate and engage small, woman- and minority-owned businesses. Its clients are primarily large corporations, construction firms and others for whom supplier diversity is a key business goal and for whom tracking their “secondary” or Tier 2 supplier diversity spending — the spending of their prime vendors — can be difficult. “The challenges with Tier [...]
Read More »Tweet Inc. Magazine has written a valuable series of 2013 trend articles, which give small businesses some great insight while preparing for next year. Technological advances continue to play a huge part in many of these trends. High-tech tools are impacting everything from finding and selling to customers, marketing, developing new products and services, and accepting payments. 2013 Trend: Plastic Will Be Passé, outlines the myriad of emerging credit card and non-plastic payment options that consumers soon will be offered. Some of these nontraditional options have been available for years, Paypal for instance, but now big companies are joining the non-plastic ranks, potentially transforming how customers pay for products and services. Most of the alternatives are less cumbersome, and often [...]
Read More »Tweet Like most small business owners, you’re wrapping up your books for the year. You’re also looking ahead to next year and how to best grow your business! As always, the end of the year is a time to reflect, while looking to the future. There are many consumer and business trends that picked up steam this year, and now is a great time to get an idea of what new trends might work to your advantage in 2013. There are tons of articles looking ahead in business, and we’ve compiled a small list of some of the most interesting ones here. Below are just some of the trends that might affect your small business next year, from mobile marketing [...]
Read More »Tweet Deal Is Worth Millions for Diverse Businesses MASON, OH and PHILADELPHIA, PA–(Marketwire – Dec 5, 2012) – ConnXus.com, a revolutionary online supplier-diversity service, and Procurian, the leading provider of comprehensive procurement solutions, have teamed up to provide corporate contracting opportunities worth millions of dollars for minority- and woman-owned businesses. Procurian helps Fortune 1000 companies optimize their spending on outside goods and services, which includes identifying and contracting with new suppliers. To address their clients’ growing commitment to engaging diversity suppliers, Procurian posts select contract bidding opportunities on ConnXus.com for the online service’s performance-rated diverse supplier members. The two companies estimate that approximately two to three opportunities are posted weekly on ConnXus.com, ranging in value from $100,000 to $2 million [...]
Read More »Tweet ConnXus CEO Rod Robinson is featured in this 2012 recap video by CincyTech, a seed capital firm and investor in ConnXus (Rod makes his appearance at 00:58). “Connecting businesses with minority and women-owned suppliers.”
Read More »Tweet Columbus, OH (PRWEB) November 05, 2012 Center for Hispanic Leadership (CHL) has launched its Ohio Chapter in its efforts to accelerate the advancement of U.S Latino professionals with the appointment of Jose “Rafi” Rodriguez as its local market President. According to CHL Founder, Glenn Llopis, “Mr. Rodriguez is a strong leader whose character and loyalty to his community has influenced Hispanic advancement in both the private and public sectors over the past 16 years. We are delighted that Mr. Rodriguez will serve as our Ohio Chapter President. His impact and influence will be noticed immediately.” CHL’s Ohio Chapter and others across the country will focus on providing culturally relevant educational online tools, and onsite discussion roundtables to help Latino [...]
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The ConnXion Point is the blog for connXus.com, an online service connecting small, minority- and woman-owned businesses with companies seeking to hire diverse suppliers.
I'm Rod Robinson, founder and chief connector of connXus.com. I've spent 15 years in the procurement business as a minority business owner, company procurement officer and industry consultant.
The ConnXion Point will focus on issues, events and news about procurement and supplier diversity. So, whether you're purchasing or selling, we'll have information you can use. We also hope to facilitate a healthy, respectful exchange of viewpoints on issues surrounding supplier diversity and procurement.
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