Illinois Commission looks at challenges facing diverse suppliers working with utilities

The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) held a meeting to explore the challenges facing minority-, women-, and veteran-owned suppliers in doing business with the utilities.

ICC’s Fifth Annual Supplier Diversity Policy Session — held last week — also featured a discussion of potential solutions to help them better compete for utility contracts.

“Several themes surfaced as we dove deeper into a discussion of the challenges diverse suppliers face,” ICC Chairman Brien Sheahan said. “One is the need for better communication about opportunities and about transparency and automation so that diverse suppliers can learn about and bid for new opportunities. Another was helping diverse suppliers connect with contract decision-makers, including in professional services. The third was the concept of unbundling contracts, to make them smaller and more accessible to diverse suppliers.”

Speakers included State Sen. Martin Sandoval (D-IL), State Rep. André Thapedi (D-32nd District), along with leaders of the five largest regulated public utilities. The utility executives included Melvin Williams, president of Nicor Gas and senior vice president of Southern Gas Company; Richard Mark, chairman and president of Ameren Illinois and chairman of the Illinois Utilities Business Diversity Council (IUBDC); Joseph Dominguez, CEO of ComEd; Bruce Hauk, president of Illinois American Water; and Charles Matthews, president and CEO of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas.

“Diverse suppliers have been key partners in our efforts to modernize the state’s electric grid and natural gas delivery infrastructure,” Mark said.

The utilities have spent more than $2 billion with diverse suppliers, overall, with continued growth each year that they have reported.

“We look forward to building on these successes as we work to help diverse companies become more competitive, financially stronger and bigger contributors to our communities,” Matthews said.

The three structural impediments facing our partners are access to capital, access to contracts and access to contacts, Jaemie Neely, director of the Women’s Business Development Center, said.

“By the time our diverse businesses learn about an opportunity, it is often too late to gather the necessary resources to successfully bid. Greater engagement directly with the utility procurement decision-makers would also allow diverse suppliers to build stronger relationship and trust with the utilities,” Neely said.

Further, officials from the IUBDC – a forum for best practice sharing and information exchange among Illinois utilities – discussed efforts to increase spending with diverse suppliers. They presented a new online mapping tool to connect suppliers with contract opportunities better.