The Simons Group attains Women’s Business Enterprise certification
The problem: To meet supplier-diversity requirements, government organizations and many companies are required to hire women- and minority-owned businesses for some of the projects they outsource. Finding qualified, established organizations with proven expertise in marketing communications can be a challenge.
The solution: To help clients and prospects meet this need, The Simons Group has become certified as a Women’s Business Enterprise, or WBE. Receiving this national designation is the result of completing extensive credentialing requirements and verifies that the company is in fact woman-owned.
The story: Although The Simons Group has been woman-owned since its inception in 1981, the decision to pursue WBE certification was made only last year.
“We had always self-certified when clients asked us about our ownership, but then we realized that more and more companies were struggling to find accomplished and talented marketing firms that were formally recognized WBEs,” says Lee Simons Zoldan, president of The Simons Group. “In some cases, the top-notch companies weren’t certified. In other cases, certified companies were startups and didn’t have a full body of work to demonstrate their capabilities. By getting certified, we saw an opportunity to provide high-quality work while meeting our clients’ supplier-diversity needs.”
Certification also allows companies to tap into a network of resources the WBE designation provides. Those resources, which include roundtables, strategic sourcing programs and networking opportunities, will enable The Simons Group to continue applying best practices throughout the creative process.
“We are excited to provide innovative ways of delivering greater value to our clients,” Zoldan says. “This certification will open many doors for clients and prospects that they may not otherwise have explored.”
As a Women’s Business Enterprise, The Simons Group is certified as having 51 percent of its ownership and operational control in the hands of women. The nonprofit Women’s Business Development Center, formed in 1986, is funded in part through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration, the Illinois Department of Defense and the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
For more information about how The Simons Group can help your organization with print and electronic marketing projects while meeting supplier-diversity requirements, contact Lee Simons Zoldan at (312) 252-8900 or lsimons@thesimonsgroup.com.
