Black Entrepreneurship (A Special Report): Closing the Money Gap --- Getting Together: Minority-Owned Businesses Are No Longer Simply Suppliers To Big Companies; Now, They Are Partners
Sometimes, it pays for International Business Machines Corp. to think small.</br></br>"The purpose of this ad is to increase business," read the recent headline of a full-page advertisement by the giant computer maker in a minority-business newspaper. "A relationship with IBM is one you could very well benefit from. We can even show you how to sell your products jointly with IBM."</br></br>Not to IBM. With IBM.</br></br>For the past two decades, IBM and hundreds of other large U.S. companies saw their relationship with black-owned businesses as a relatively simple one: The big companies signed on the minority-owned firms as suppliers. The purchasing agreements -- which today total some $20 billion annually -- have been a boon for minority-owned firms.</br></br>But for many of the corporate buyers, the results have been mixed. True, the agreements were good for public relations. But many companies found they were buying products and services that weren't essential and whose quality was poor.