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In the article, “Buy local: How Philly’s biggest institutions can help create a more equitable post-coronavirus region,” J’nelle Lawrence and Jeff Hornstein explain how minority small businesses are “bearing the brunt” of the COVID-19 epidemic. Anchor institutions, from hospitals to major corporations, spend billions of dollars per year outside the region. How can those dollars stay in Philly? One way is through the initiative: an effort to create a platform for aggregating demand and going local.
Here is the core challenge from the article:
Yet there is a bottleneck on the “supply” side. Too many local firms simply lack the capacity and access to the right kinds of capital to achieve scale and compete for institutional contracts.
J’nelle Lawrence and Jeff Hornstein
GETTING ORGANIZED
The authors explain how the system needs to organize– so true, and so relevant for many localities across the USA. The LOCOMeX online platform can be the go-to place for overcoming many obstacles mentioned. Here is how:
Project owners can fill these underserved categories through RFIs and the Digital Matchmaker from the DivedIn product.
It can also help project owners address “Diverse Tax Issues” that boost costs, in order to help small diverse companies participate in opportunities, despite high capital insurance and bonding costs.
Likewise, prime vendors and diverse suppliers can collaborate and join forces through the Team Optimizer, another tool in the DivedIn product. Collaborative partners come together for a project opportunity that would have been untapped otherwise. Each company can bring their strengths to the table and let others fill the gaps.