New Minority Participation App Ensures Diversity Inclusion on Projects

There are multiple reasons for owners and general contractors to keep track of the demographic particulars of their vendors for capital projects.

For some, it’s part of the company’s brand identity to intentionally do business with a broad variety of companies, such as Small Business Enterprises (SBEs), Minority Business Enterprises (MBEs) and Women Business Enterprises (WBEs). For others, it’s a requirement of the contract that a certain percentage of vendors belong to one of these specially designated groups, especially if these capital projects support government, education or healthcare.

Whatever the designation and whatever the reason, it can be difficult to know which companies qualify as diversity vendors, as well as calculate the percentage of work or materials provided by these companies, collectively referred to as XBEs.

Likewise, XBEs have to meet very specific requirements and complete a wearying amount of paperwork to achieve these designations, making it crucial that owners and general contractors know they are smart companies to do business with.

Many owners and general contractors try to keep track by using spreadsheets, but that generally means information is being input in more than one place, creating a situation ripe for mistakes. Also, those spreadsheets can’t generate detailed reports needed to prove compliance.

Now, there’s a solution.

Kahua and its strategic partner OnIndus, an organization that delivers ROI of construction technology, have joined to provide a new Minority Participation Tracking App. Onindus leveraged Kahua’s low code application platform to deliver this valuable new functionality.

“We are so excited to offer this capability to our customers who need to carefully track the participation of vendors who are certified as minority, women, veteran and disabled business enterprises,” said Joe Guzman, Vice President of Partner Development for Kahua. “OnIndus is a valued strategic partner. This app is just one of the many ways we can help our clients drive efficiency.”

OnIndus’ deep understanding of the capital project space helped recognize the need for a solution to validate minority vendors, track their transactions and measure participation with a high degree of accuracy and ease. This app certifies and tracks participation by utilizing the powerful features in Kahua to manage costs for clients’ funding and expense requirements to drive accountability and reporting with minimal additional effort.

“We reached out to owners and general contractors to see if this type of capability would be of benefit to them, and we heard a resounding yes,” said OnIndus President Sid Shah. “Now they can much more easily track the business they are doing with minority vendors and ensure that they are meeting requirements to maintain compliance. The agility of the Kahua platform makes this possible.”