The National Women Business Owners Corporation (NWBOC), a NAWBO sister organization and creator of the first national certification program for women business owners, has launched an online e-procurement site called the NWBOC Marketplace at http://nwboc.economicengine.com . The NWBOC Marketplace is designed to create new opportunities for women business owners and streamline the process of doing business with corporate America. By using the online service, women-owned enterprises will have access to corporations and government agencies seeking vendors across a wide range of industries.
“Going online enables us to provide convenient, low-cost access to a national marketplace in which women entrepreneurs and corporations can conveniently do business across the country,” said Janet Harris-Lange, NWBOC President. “It is the logical extension of our five-year-old, national certification program.”
Women business owners who meet the NWBOC criteria for certification can join the marketplace and be listed free of charge, plus create Marketplace profiles and use its tools to find corporate business. All active NWBOC-certified businesses are pre-registered and can enter the marketplace at http://nwboc.economicengine.com to update profiles.
Corporations will be able to search for products and services in the Marketplace by using keywords, business classifications and/or geography. “By communicating electronically, both the corporations and women business owners save time and money,” said Harris-Lange. “This is a major way for corporations to simplify their outreach and help meet their supplier diversity goals. It’s also an easy way for women business owners to reach out and grow their businesses with corporate contacts and contracts.”
NWBOC’S national certification program offers an alternative to the costly, time-consuming and duplicative agency-by-agency and corporation-by-corporation certification process. More than 100 corporations, government agencies and other organizations accept NWBOC certification, including Chase Manhattan Bank, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Nabisco, Mobil Oil and Universal Studios. For more information on certification or on the NWBOC Marketplace, contact Janet Harris-Lange at 800/675-5066 or info@nwboc.org.
