By M.V. Greene
Diverse suppliers often
hear a familiar refrain when seeking supply chain business with Fortune-level
corporations: Anticipate the needs of your buyers.
The expectation is that
suppliers need to determine where these large corporations are headed in their
sourcing and operations, devising solutions to serve them.
For VDart Group — the
point is well taken. VDart Group is a diverse supplier providing talent
management through parent company VDart Inc. and digital transformation
solutions and system integration services through Dimiour, a VDart Group
Company. It is intentional about anticipating and addressing its customers’
needs in at least two focused areas: global markets, where many of its
corporate partners compete, and emerging corporate initiatives such as
environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance.
Headquartered in
Alpharetta, Georgia, VDart Group has moved rapidly in recent years to solidify
its global presence – with operations and facilities that now includes markets
in Malaysia, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil and the United Arab
Emirates. Founded in 2007, VDart’s global expansion further bolsters its
traditional service regions in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and
India.
“One of our customers is
based out of the United States. It has a large presence in Australia and wants
us to help it ramp up further in Australia,” said VDart founder and CEO Sidd
Ahmed.
He characterizes new
global markets for his company’s offerings as having “incredible potential for
digitalization” to serve industries that include automotive and mobility,
banking and finance, health care and life sciences, and energy and utilities.
While one of the key
components of VDart’s business is providing workforce solutions to its
corporate clients, Mohamed Irfan Peeran, Dimiour’s managing director for
growth, including mergers and acquisitions, said VDart also focuses on
enhancing the expertise of its own global workforce — such as in digital
transformation services — by recruiting executives, engineers and technologists
with experience working for large conglomerates and technology organizations.
VDart Group employs more
than 4,000 people globally and has grown to be among the 50 largest workforce
staffing companies based in the United States.
Having such expertise in
its own workforce allows VDart to provide its clients with timely market
intelligence about new global service regions, Peeran said.
“It showcases how
well-equipped we are,” he said. “We are brainstorming all the time within our
internal teams to say, ‘What are those gaps that exist and what emerging
technologies can solve the problems?’” Peeran said. “We are also continuing to
build solutions leveraging blockchain and cloud computing.”
In addition, as part of
its approach to global business, VDart Group sets up local advisory boards to
help its clients navigate regulations and customs in those global regions,
Peeran said.
Ahmed added that acquiring
top talent within the organization is key to the company positioning itself to
scale globally.
“We need to have leaders
who are able to give thought leadership and drive functions in the
organization. We’ve been able to create good C-suite leaders within the
organization,” he said.
Ahmed said VDart Group
also has positioned itself to assist its corporate clients with ESG compliance
— emerging corporate governance guidelines that publicly traded corporations
increasingly are adopting to attract socially responsible investors.
In 2021, for instance,
VDart successfully graduated from Accenture PLC’s Diverse Supplier Development
Program on Sustainability, a five-year pilot that focuses on the adoption of
five major United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The Accenture program
helped the company develop a sustainability roadmap to facilitate corporate
clients in reaching their ESG objectives.
VDart was chosen as the
first diverse supplier to participate in Accenture’s Pilot Diverse Supplier
Development Program on Sustainability, Ahmed noted.
“Coming out of the
program, we put together our ESG goals,” he said. “Now we are thinking about
ESG in every solution that we deliver for our customers. It is something hugely
welcomed by our customers.”
Awards and accolades
The recipient of several
industry awards, VDart’s formula seems to be moving full steam ahead and offers
a reverse cautionary tale of sorts for other diverse suppliers seeking to
exploit corporate supply chains.
“The kind of customers who
we work with are multinational companies who have a global presence. So, we
come in as an MBE [minority business enterprise] who is able to scale and who
has a global presence. We are able to beat some of the larger players from a
pricing standpoint and deliver extremely good quality,” Ahmed said.
At the Dallas Fort Worth
Minority Supplier Development Council (DFW MSDC) recent ACCESS Business Expo,
VDart was honored as Supplier of the Year – Class IV, nominated by its client
Toyota Motor North America Inc. The honor sets up the company for consideration
as Supplier of the Year – Class IV at the National Minority Supplier
Development Council annual conference in October.
In addition, D/FW MSDC
presented VDart with a 2022 Mega Deal award, which is designed to illustrate
how scalable minority-owned businesses can execute contracts worth a minimum of
$25 million.
The recent awards follow a
series of honors the company has received over previous years from industry
groups, business publications and governmental entities.
While such honors are a
source of pride for the VDart organization and its employees, Ahmed said they
also serve to benchmark the company within the industries in which it competes.
“Every time we’ve won an
award as a company, I’ve always said that I’m just so fortunate to be a CEO
leading an amazing group of people,” he said. “We win these awards just purely
because of our teams’ performances. You will see in every award that there is a
huge amount of appreciation, which permeates the entire organization.”
To learn more about vdart,
visit vdart.com.