Minority Business Accelerator 2.5+ client lands multimillion-dollar deal with GE Healthcare

Monday, July 13, 2009

Cleveland, Ohio—By diversifying its customer base with the assistance of the Minority Business Accelerator 2.5+, Strong Tool Company has landed a three-year, multimillion-dollar contract with GE Healthcare. Strong Tool, a distributor of metalworking products and industrial supplies, formerly was focused  primarily on the automotive industry, which about 55 percent of its customer base. 

 

“The automotive industry has been taking a beating,” said Strong Tool President Cedric Beckett, “so we started pursuing medical and health care-related companies.” Strong Tool will provide GE Healthcare with integrated management services for a wide range of miscellaneous MRO (maintenance and repair operating supplies) items. “Basically, they’re looking for us to serve as a one-stop service to provide miscellaneous commodities to help them run their facilities and help build MRI and CAT scan machines,” he said. He estimates the value of the GE Healthcare contract at about $4 million-$6 million annually. 

 

GE Healthcare’s supplier diversity program works with minority-owned suppliers on multiple levels, including directly purchasing goods and/or services, introducing them to opportunities with other GE businesses, and providing introductions to other major purchasers. This approach has opened new windows of opportunity for companies such as Strong Tool.  

Ralph Strosin, GE Healthcare’s general manager of global sourcing, said he was very comfortable bringing Strong Tool to the attention of other GE business units. “We took a look at a few companies, and (Cedric) set himself apart from the others,” said Strosin, who based his recommendations on Strong Tool’s  impressive quality, productivity and delivery.  

“We only make up a small fraction of the total company, but when we find a great supplier who’s able to deliver, we have the other businesses look at these suppliers as well,” said Mike Lucas, who leads GE Healthcare’s supplier diversity efforts. “Cedric is growing his business, and we’re seeing a good, strong supplier who is helping us drive productivity, as well as market penetration.”   

Lucas says that programs such as the Minority Business Accelerator 2.5+ makes it easier for GE Healthcare to identify, evaluate and do business with high-potential minority suppliers, which have proven to be an important part of the division’s business and growth strategy. “We’re creating sustainability,” says Lucas. “This is not done from just a philanthropic standpoint; it truly makes great business sense.”

 

Andrew Jackson , executive director of the Commission on Economic Inclusion and a senior vice president of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, said that despite the current economic downturn, deal-making between majority companies and MBAccelerator 2.5+ minority-owned businesses continues. “Strong Tool is an excellent example of how business owners can adjust to market realities and create new opportunities,” said Jackson. He noted that s ince its launch in January 2008, the MBAccelerator 2.5+ has helped 14 MBEs in a variety of industries—including printing, construction, electrical, professional services, and telecommunication and data cabling—secure contracts worth more than $54 million.  

Strong Tool, founded in 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio, now has branch offices in Lima and Lexington, Ohio; Evansville and Warsaw, Indiana; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Birmingham, Alabama. Beckett, a former vice president of Barnes Group, Inc., and former president of Barnes’ industrial distribution business, Bowman Distribution, purchased the company in 2002. 

The Minority Business Accelerator2.5+ is an initiative of the  Commission on Economic Inclusion , a program of the Greater Cleveland Partnership . Funded by the Fund for Our Economic Future, the MBAccelerator2.5+ focuses on growing the size, scale and infrastructure of African American and Hispanic MBEs with annual revenues of at least $2.5 million in a 16-county area of Northeast Ohio .

 

The Commission on Economic Inclusion, a program of the Greater Cleveland Partnership (GCP), works to significantly improve the meaningful involvement of minority businesses and individuals in the economic engines that drive Northeast Ohio. The GCP mobilizes private-sector leadership, expertise and resources to create jobs and wealth and improve the economic vitality of the region.

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