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.