tailieunhanh - THE NEW AGENDA FOR MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

For the 2004 edition, the committee updated terminology and editorially reformatted the document to follow the 2003 Manual of Style for NFPA Technical Committee Documents; however, the basic features of the standard remained unchanged. In addition, the committee added a table in Annex A that created a crosswalk among FEMA CAR, NFPA 1600, and BCI & DRII professional practices. The committee added significant informational resources to Annexes B, C, D, and E. The document continues to be developed in cooperation and coordination with represen- tatives from FEMA, NEMA, and IAEM. This coordinated effort was reflected in the expansion of the title of the standard for the 2000. | THE NEW AGENDA FOR MINORITY BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Prepared by The Boston Consulting Group June 2005 The Boston Consulting Group TABLE OF CONTENTS SECTION PAGE Executive Summary 1 Acknowledgements 4 The Current State of Minority Business Development 5 Closing the Gap 14 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Marked and measurable progress has been made in minority business development since the authors first examined the topic in depth for the . Department of Commerce more than 25 years ago in the reports The New Strategy for Minority Businesses 1978 and Minority Business Enterprise Development in the 1980s 1980 .1 The evolution from nascent to noteworthy however was just the first step in minority business development. Taking the next step moving from presence to prominence poses new challenges and therefore demands a New Agenda with a focus on growing larger and self-sustaining minority businesses. The Gains Once hobbled by a lack of capital lack of access to government and private-sector market opportunities and a lack of managerial talent minority businesses face a vastly different reality today. Since the 1980s with support from expanded government and corporate supplier diversity programs as well as other initiatives minority firms as a whole have seen their revenue rise by about 10 percent annually have created 23 percent more jobs and have enjoyed an overall growth rate three times higher than that of traditional businesses. The Gap Even though the number of minority businesses has reached unparalleled heights their proportion does not yet fully reflect the growing size and importance of minority communities in the United States soon to account for 40 percent of the population. Fueling the disparity is the fact that minority businesses are disproportionately represented in low-growth and no-growth sectors. They also tend to rely on personal debt and family financing over business loans equity and other tools that are otherwise commonly accepted in the capital markets. As a .