Office for National Statistics
Minority Business Success
Book

Minority Business Success

Refocusing on the American Dream

Leonard Greenhalgh and James H. Lowry
Stanford UP, 2011

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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative
  • Eye Opening
  • Visionary

Recommendation

By the middle of the 21st century, people from ethnic minority groups and from other minority populations – based on race, gender, ethnicity, and more – will dominate the US population and greatly influence the nation’s prosperity. More than a decade into the new millennium, minority businesses still are not proportionately represented in the supply chains of major American companies doing business in global markets. Diversity consultants Leonard Greenhalgh and James H. Lowry offer an eye-opening analysis of where minority businesses stand today and what the US as a whole should do to help them survive and prosper. As they work to put minority businesses’ plight at the forefront of the economic agenda, the authors (who tend to discuss minority populations as a monolithic unit) urge creation of a “National Industrial Strategy” that includes contracts with minority businesses amid the work of restoring the US economy. The authors explain how the “old-school procurement” model traps minority businesses on the periphery and call for replacing it with a diverse “value-chain” paradigm. getAbstract recommends this intriguing, if idealistic, blueprint to policy makers and businesspeople.

Summary

“Minority Business Success Is a National Priority”

Minority populations are integral to the fabric of the United States, but the deck has been stacked against them throughout history. Circumstances are changing; by 2042, “minorities and women will dominate the workforce, the entrepreneurial economy and the complex value chains upon which corporate success now depends.” America’s financial future depends on taking steps today toward greater inclusion of minority businesses in the nation’s market-based policies and practices. Including minority-owned businesses and helping them grow to scale as viable, vital components of American value chains will benefit national economic prosperity and promote the continued competitiveness of US companies in world markets.

The US is the only industrialized nation that lacks a “National Industrial Strategy.” Such a policy would identify high-priority industries in terms of their strategic and economic importance, specify goals for domestic production output, and incorporate the policies and infrastructure necessary to ensure “high-profit, high-growth industries.” The worry that American jobs and manufacturing would move offshore, diminishing...

About the Authors

Leonard Greenhalgh is director of programs for minority- and women-owned businesses at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business. James H. Lowry is a senior adviser and former senior vice president of the Boston Consulting Group.

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