Feedback from Advisory Council 17 April 2018
Posted by Janice Scheckter on April 18, 2018 12:35 PM SAST

Present:
Jean & Mbali
Jacob JnJ - new chair
Lorenzo (EY)
Belinda WEConnect Washington
Michael Tobolski WEConnect US
Kerry Murphy and Andrea Lizarzaburu WEConnect US
Shereen (P&G)
Lindsey (Ingersoll Rand)
Belinda (UPS)
Tony (IBM)
Naul (Monsanto)
Janice (WBE)
Corporate matchmaking
Issues from the WBEs
* quality of attendance representatives
* non-attendance of corporates
* non-responsiveness to emails
Janice noted that we would like some standard set of attendance and responses and possibly WBEs should be rating corporate. Also noted that a number of WBEs are talking of not renewing certification as a result of poor corporate engagement. Also raised the issue of database inclusion.
Corporate responses
* they cannot simply add WBEs to the database - procedure must be followed
* they would like to select who they meet with
* they acknowledge attendance being an issue
* in some cases would like to rather invite specific WBEs to their premises (Monstanto)
* emphasis on the quality of the write-up
Jean has noted that these are global issues.
My thoughts post the meeting - (from Janice)
* (WBEs) we definitely need to redesign the matchmaking and we need to acknowledge that not every corporate is your customer.
* (WBEs) we need to ensure that we pitch well-rehearsed and succinct pitches (this appears to be an issue where some corporate believe no effort has gone into the pitch)
* (WBEs) we should submit some thoughts on the fairness of how the matchmaking could work better.
Maybe - a there are four matches per session of 15 minutes each.
Corporates get to select two of their meetings and WBEs get to select two.
* Corporates need to share whether their focus is Women-Owned SMMEs or Black-Women Owned SMMEs so that those who are not Levels 1 or 2 know upfront.
* M&E - evaluation sessions. Should we all rate the engagement? Both Corporates and WBEs? We don't want to create a bunch of extra work but at the same time, we do want proper feedback and M&E?
BTW - the platform we're on has an easy rating system - and we can add rating to an event.
Finally - on the Wish List requested at the end of last year - the WEConnect team are working on collating feedback.
Oh one more note - Jean has asked for the following introspection ( and I think it's a good point) - are there WBEs who can say that they have had no value from the WEConnect engagement. Value may equate to
* business or referrals between WBEs
* general support
* connections made
* etc.