Supplier-side economy

I have had the pleasure this week to spend time with people whose work is dedicated to boosting SME spend with large corporates and government. From sharing a stage with SME Crown Rep, Shirley Cooper OBE, at MSDUK’s 20 year celebration, to hearing from Gemma Sault on the 800+ strong buyer circle created for companies in the home & gift sector, it shows there are contracts to be had and that they are best secured with a little help from dedicated support programmes.

This week’s newsletter is a collection of resources for small businesses looking to up-sell to larger organisations. If you have benefited from other resources, please do share in the comments.

SME support programmes

Let’s start with programmes and organisations set up to support SME suppliers to win work:

• MSDUK – focused on connecting ethnic minority business owners to corporate clients via events and dedicated programmes. At the MSDUK event this week were some of the world’s largest companies including EY, Starbucks, Astra Zeneca, Amazon, GSK, Merck & more – all focused on how to build diversity into their supply chain.
• WeConnect International – a global network connecting women business owners to qualified corporate buyers.
• Supply Connect – a programme run by Enterprise Nation, in partnership with Newable, and funded by JPMorganChase Foundation, connecting small firms to government’s top tier suppliers. This is on the basis that tier one/two/three suppliers to government are increasingly being asked to onboard SMEs into their own supply chains in order to win and deliver work.
• Buyers circle – as referenced above, this one is sector specific for small firms in the home and gift category, offering connections to industry buyers plus support on how to ‘know your value’ when getting into contracting and payment terms.

Government plans and events

Individual government departments run their own activity to outreach to SMEs and I learnt from Shirley this week that every department that spends more than £100 million must now publish a future pipeline. I have looked into this and see that:

‘Under Section 93 of the UK Procurement Act 2023, all public contracting authorities—including government departments—that expect to pay more than £100 million under relevant contracts in a coming financial year are legally mandated to publish a forward-looking Pipeline Notice. Authorities must list every upcoming public contract opportunity over the next 18 months that has an estimated value of more than £2 million. Individual notices are published and searchable directly on the UK government’s centralized Find a Tender service portal.’

Find out more here and for small firms, this means you can view upcoming tenders, engage with buyers, and/or pitch your solutions to the current delivery partner who may be looking for innovation when the contract is re-tendered.

In terms of activity at an individual department level, I have previously written about the sterling work being done by MoD with the creation of their Office for Small Business Growth, and the Department for Transport is active with hosting regular ‘Meet the Buyer’ events. You can view individual Departmental SME spend targets here and a good place to start when it comes to contracting with government is to register your business on the Central Digital Platform.

Procurement and payment go hand in hand; you have to win the contracts first, and our job is to make sure you get paid on time for fulfilling them.

Emma