How Women Owned Businesses Can Secure More Government Contracts

We have a real problem in America with a significant difference in how much is spent on women-owned businesses. What can these businesses do to secure more contracts?

In The Small Business Radio Show this week, Ingrid Vandervaldt, CEO of Emplaining of a Billion Women (EBW), discussed how owned women can close that gap and how it can benefit our local communities. Prior to that, he was the first entrepreneur-in-residence for Dell Inc., where he led entrepreneurial initiatives around the world and helped create a $ 250 million business segment, and the $ 125M Dell Innovators Credit Fund, Dell Founders Club, and Entrepreneurs Established the Dell Center.

Interview with Ingrid Vandervald

Ingrid states that in recent SBA figures, women own small businesses with $ 26B or just over 5% of all federal contracts, even though women own 39% of all privately held firms. She believes that women’s representation in business is a missed opportunity – both socially and economically. Ingrid states that “when we prosper in women, their communities, states and countries, that produces a multiplier effect.” She notes the following figures:

• Women put almost 90% of their income back into their communities and families.
• If women and men alike participate as entrepreneurs worldwide, a 3–5% increase in global GDP could be seen, giving the global economy a whopping $ 2.5 to 5 trillion.
• Businesses set up by women produce higher revenue, which is 2X more per dollar than companies established by men.

Read: The World’s 10 Largest Private Land Owners

As America moves to a CO-COVID economy, Ingrid is optimistic that women-owned businesses are ready to play an important role in economic recovery, as they did in the post-2008 economy. She notes that between 2007 and 2012, minority- and women-owned businesses added 1.8 million jobs in the US, companies owned by comparatively white men lost 800,000 jobs, and white men and women alike. Owned firms lost another 1.6 million jobs in the meantime. Period.

Ingrid believes that if these public and private sector organizations double their supplier diversity allocation – not spend, but simply their budget allocation – then we need that multiplier effect in the hands of women and diverse business owners Will receive more than $ 1B in revenue.

Listen to the entire interview on the small business radio show.

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