What 3,000 Entrepreneurs Taught Me About Why Procurement Fails

When I designed the first version of what would become Canada's first supplier-focused procurement readiness course, through the BEBC Society in 2020, I thought the main barrier was information. Entrepreneurs didn't know how government procurement worked. So I built a curriculum that explained all of it.

Then something interesting happened. We trained hundreds of entrepreneurs who understood the system — and most of them still weren't submitting bids. Four years and over 3,000 program participants later, I understand why. And the answer changed how I think about procurement training, coaching, and what it actually takes to change outcomes.

Lesson 1: Knowledge transfers. Behaviour doesn't.

A two-day workshop that covers everything a supplier needs to know about procurement will produce, in most participants, a much clearer understanding — and little immediate change in what they actually do. Knowledge is not the same as habit. The change I saw when we added individual coaching alongside group training was significant. Not because coaching added new information. Because it added accountability, a specific next step, and someone who would ask 'did you do it?' the following week.

Lesson 2: The certification problem is real but widely misunderstood

'Get certified' is the most common piece of advice diverse business owners receive. It's correct advice with an incomplete explanation. Certification is a prerequisite, not a pipeline. A diversity certification confirms that a buyer's diverse supplier commitment can apply to transactions with your business. It does not connect you with buyers. It does not notify anyone that you exist.

The businesses that get certified and then wait for the phone to ring are not making a naive mistake. They were told — explicitly or implicitly — that certification was the destination. It's an important stop on a longer journey.

The curriculum we built at BEBC Society is explicit about this now. Certification is module two. Modules three through eight are about what you do after you're certified.

Lesson 3: The businesses that win have one thing in common

Across thousands of participants and the documented contract wins from our programs — seventeen to twenty-one businesses reporting procurement contracts secured, some in the millions of dollars — I've looked hard for the common factor. It's not sector, geography, or years in business. The businesses that win are the ones that pick a specific buyer, study that buyer's procurement patterns, adapt their positioning to match, and keep showing up in the buyer's ecosystem consistently over time.

Most businesses cast wide and try multiple categories simultaneously. When nothing immediately comes back, they conclude that procurement doesn't work for businesses like theirs. It does. It just doesn't work fast, and it doesn't work broadly. It works deep.

Lesson 4: The system has real structural failures and individual businesses can still succeed within it

Incumbent advantages are baked into procurement vehicles that require demonstrated prior performance — a genuine catch-22 for new entrants. Informal buyer-supplier relationships create invisible barriers. Financial instrument requirements disproportionately exclude smaller businesses. These things are true. They require policy reform, and I advocate for that reform actively.

And — both things can be true simultaneously — individual businesses can make significant progress within the current system, with the right preparation and strategy. I know this because I've watched it happen, repeatedly, with businesses that had no particular advantage going in except the willingness to do the work systematically.

The entrepreneurs who succeed understand both realities: the structural constraints, so they can navigate around them — and the genuine opportunities, so they can pursue them with everything they have.