VHA selects diverse team to deliver corporate solution

A VILLAGE
Creating strategic alliances is a common topic in the world of diversity these days. But, finding the right team to match with the right opportunity is not always easy. It sometimes takes “a village.” In the case of the national health care company VHA Inc. and CRC Group Inc., that village included help from a number of different sources. In July 2007, VHA announced that the CRC Group team had presented the winning solution for providing the VHA and Novation corporate offices with in-house mail,copy and print services.Novation is the contracting services company of VHA and UHC.The team is composed of certified minority/women’s business enterprise Patricia Rodriguez Christian, president of CRC Group Inc., a mail and business management service company; certified MWBE Terri Quinton, president of Q2 Marketing Group, a commercial printing and print management services company; and certified WBE Billie Bryant, president of CESCO Office Products Inc., an office equipment provisioning and services company.

VHA’s decision-making journey pitted the minority-/womenowned team against several substantial majority equipment suppliers. The selected firm had to compete against the incumbent supplier and other major suppliers, and provide a true competitive solution.

“We wanted to prove our theory that minority-/womenowned businesses could offer innovative, service-oriented, cost-savings and be a real solution for our company,” said Charles Brazil, senior director of supplier diversity, Novation. “The CRC proposal blew us away. They touched every button of our concern about service, installing the right equipment to meet our current needs and offered a customized commercial print solution, that will save time, budget and improve our service.”

STRATEGIZING STRENGTHS
In the meantime, Rodriguez Christian and Quinton were working on their game plan. “Terri and I had been working on a teamed solution to present to one of our clients for several months,” Rodriguez Christian explained.“Our solution combined in-house management services for mail and print.While we knew it was just a matter of time before someone took our solution seriously,VHA wasn’t even on our radar as a potential customer.”

Strategically, Quinton and Rodriguez Christian did know the key players that could aid in developing important relationships. “We had kept Margo Posey, president of the Dallas/Fort Worth Minority Business Council, up-to-date on our concept. We thought it had merit. It could provide corporations costsavings and quality service, and we just needed the right opportunity to demonstrate our skills.” Quinton said. “Margo called me one day to say Novation and VHA had issued an RFP [request for proposal] and they were looking for firms to include in the process. It sounded like something that fit what Patricia and I were doing.”

AND BILLIE MAKES THREE
“Once we saw the RFP,” Rodriguez Christian said, “I immediately thought of Billie. I had worked with her at the Women’s Business Council – Southwest and knew she could provide factory-authorized equipment and service.Once the three of us sat down and reviewed the bid together,we knew we could create a joint solution that benefited all three companies and most importantly our prospective client.”

Bryant was soon on board, and the three decided to team under CRC Group, Inc. and develop their proposal. “Our experience in outfitting corporations with equipment told us right away that we could provide VHA with document solutions that better fit their current level of output,” Bryant said.“Our solution would show them immediate savings without any drop off in service levels.” The team made the short list of suppliers being considered. Rodriguez Christian, Quinton and Bryant presented their winning solution to VHA. After all parties agreed,the final contract was signed, solidifying the team of three as the newest suppliers to VHA.

“This has been a win-win-win experience for all parties involved,”Posey said.“The council was excited to actually help create a council connection based upon a strategic alliance of two D/FW MBC-certified minority suppliers with a certified woman-owned business. VHA truly ended up with the best solution that includes the use of diverse suppliers.The three certified suppliers, needless to say, ended up with a great opportunity to demonstrate their expertise and the power of working together to create solutions.”