Breaking down barriers: turbocharging the growth of ethnic minority businesses
Professor Monder Ram OBE
Birmingham born and bred, Monder Ram left his family business to pursue a career in research, but never lost sight of his roots.
As Director of the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship (CREME), his innovative approach shines a light on the barriers that hold back ethnic minority entrepreneurs and takes action to break those down, helping thousands of businesses to grow and prosper.
"At its core, our research into ethnic minority business is about addressing inequality and enabling people to flourish. These are fundamental values and eternal goals that are central to us all, and that’s what CREME is about."
Building connections to foster inclusion
Spending time in ethnic minority clothing business for his PhD, Monder saw how detached they were from the wider business support system and his career ever since has been dedicated to creating connections between these two worlds. The result has been to change business practice in the finance sector and open up ethnic minority businesses to finance and other opportunities.
One research project during the Covid-19 pandemic saw Monder and his team help three ethnic minority business organisations access £3 million in funding to support over 1000 female and migrant entrepreneurs
Creating connections was the key aim of a conference, funded by Lloyds Bank in 1997, which brought together ethnic minority business people, business support services and researchers. What was intended to be a ‘one-off’ event, is now in its 29th year and has enabled new connections to be forged to helped scores of businesses access opportunities to help them grow.
A ground-breaking research project, led by Monder and funded through the Bank of England and the British Bankers Association, was the first to look at access to finance for ethnic minority businesses. Monder and his team showed that the challenges faced by businesses were primarily linked to perceptions of unfairness rather than actual discrimination. The project findings acted as a catalyst for several initiatives to improve relationships between the banks and ethnic minority businesses, which Monder was able to support in his role as Co-Chair of the national ‘Diversity and Inclusion Business Council’ (2014-2016), sponsored by the BBA.
"I’m really proud of my Birmingham roots. This city is full of families like mine and businesses like my dad’s business, which were set up by and within migrant communities. But if half of your business sector isn’t getting the support it needs, you have a problem. That’s the problem that we’re working to fix."
Creating evidence and driving change
In 2004, Monder was awarded an OBE for services to black and ethnic minority business and entrepreneurship – and he set up CREME the same year. Not content with that, he also established Supply and Demand East Midlands, drawing on experience from the United States, which showed how entrepreneurs can grow their businesses by entering the supply chains of larger corporates. This initiative led to £3 million in new contracts for ethnic minority businesses in the first two years and the organisation has since spun out into a private company, called Minority Supplier Development UK.
Monder’s latest initiative is the Time for Change project, a major study in partnership with NatWest, looking at the underlying barriers to ethnic minority entrepreneurship. But Monder wasn’t satisfied just to present the evidence. He worked with stakeholders across the sector to develop ten recommendations for action to build a consensus for change. With funding from Aston University and NatWest, he is now overseeing initiatives to advance this agenda, working not only in the West Midlands, but with partners in Northern Ireland and West Yorkshire, to drive change across the UK.
"The barriers faced by ethnic minority entrepreneurs are a really important issue for the growth agenda, too important to ignore, which puts our research right at the centre of the policy debate."
Opening up transformational opportunity
There are around 250,000 ethnic minority businesses in the UK, making a contribution of around 25 billion to the UK economy. If the evidence-based recommendations in the Time for Change report were fully implemented, the resulting growth in ethnic minority businesses would be transformational, seeing their contribution reach up to £100 billion.
CREME research has also shown that, if ethnic minority businesses are given support, they are more likely to grow than their white-owned counterparts, more likely to be innovative and more likely to trade overseas.
Impact snapshot
"CREME was set up as a vehicle for impact. Our mission is to make diversity and enterprise everyone's business. We’re really passionate about what we do, because we’re connected to and care about our communities."
"The Time for Change report acted as a rallying call to organisations to come together and foster deeper connections in a collaborative effort to tackle the barriers impeding the advancement of ethnic minority businesses in the UK."
Sharniya Ferdinand, Enterprise Community Strategy Director, NatWest
