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It was the highest profile event ever organised by MSDUK and it brought together some of the leading figures from not only the UK but from America and beyond.

Business Opportunity Fair

Business Opportunity Fair Delivers Real Opportunity

It was the highest profile event ever organised by MSDUK and it brought together some of the leading figures from not only the UK but from America and beyond.

Held at the Emirates Stadium in London, which only days later was the venue for a summit between the Prime Minister and the French President, the first MSDUK Business Opportunity Fair gave ethnic minority businesses an excellent opportunity to showcase their products and services to some of the biggest names in business.

Over 250 people attended the event and those who did were able to not only exhibit but to also take part in a range of workshops and network with many corporate executives who make buying decisions. Following the event MSDUK together with its data analysis partner, Pumasource, examined just what the people attending the Business Opportunity Fair really thought and what they felt they got out of the day.

The reasons for attending were many and even more people had more than one reason for coming to the Emirates.

Following the official opening ceremony, attendees heard from Reginald K Layton the Diversity Business Development Director at Johnson Controls Inc. Addressing the issue of “Entry to Growth – Joint Ventures & Strategic Alliances” his workshop was well attended and those there felt he’d provided an “excellent insight” and provided much “cause for thought”. The second workshop of the day was hosted by Ralph G Moore of RGMA Associates who talked about “Building Successful Business Relationships with Major Corporations.” “Many EMBs in the US have direct experience of working on projects for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics so it’s an ideal way for businesses to share best practice. I’d urge all EMBs interested in applying for Olympic contracts to attend the Business Opportunity Fair as it will bring together a wide variety of business opportunities under one roof.”

With over half the delegates attending the Business Opportunity Fair taking the chance to attend the afternoon workshop, the view once more was overwhelmingly positive with people feeling that the subject had been tackled effectively and the lessons learnt very valuable.

However, the real business of the day was conducted on the exhibition floor with nearly 50 minority owned businesses keen to make contacts and explore opportunities. They were also joined by a number of corporate exhibitors, which included Exxon Mobil, Merrill Lynch, GW Professional, Supply London, Lehman Brothers, Johnson Controls and Tyco.

Over 70 buyers also came to the Business Opportunity Fair from MSDUK’s every growing number of member organisations including: Accenture, BT, Capital One, Cisco Systems, Computacenter, Cummins, Delphi, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett Packard, IBM, JPMorgan, Lovell, Marriott, MasterCard, Motorola, Office Depot, PepsiCo, PricewaterhouseCoopers, UBS and Xerox

The aim of the event was clear:
• Allow Minority Businesses to exhibit their products and services to buyers from UK and multinational purchasing organisations.
• Gain industry intelligence from the experts in our interactive workshops on topics such as ‘Joint Venture’ and ‘Managing Business Growth.’
• Discuss business one-to-one with corporate representatives in private meeting rooms

Also building links at the event were members of MSDUK’s sister organisation, the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) from America. Bringing across a broad delegation representing not only the NMSDC but several American businesses, a number of high-level meetings took place which allowed for the sharing of knowledge, experience and expertise.

Crucially the event had to have relevance to those in attendance and it was the clear goal of MSDUK to ensure that everyone left with information that could be used in their business, strong business leads and useful contacts.