Westcon makes small business matches

Westcon Group’s Comstor division, a distributor of Cisco Systems gear, recently launched a Web-based service that seeks to match government buyers and prime contractors with small, disadvantaged businesses.

Comstor’s Government to Diversity (G2D) program, part of its GOVx channel effort, invites SDBs and 8(a)s to register at the GOVx Web site www.gov-x.com. About 40 companies already are in Comstor’s small-business database, said David Ambrose, federal business manager for Westcon Group North America.

Government agencies and prime contractors can register their procurement requirements on the GOVx site. The G2D program then notifies the registered small businesses of opportunities that match their profile.

“The government is having a pretty tough time of hitting their [small business contracting] goals,” Ambrose said. The G2D program intends to link government entities and prime contractors to small businesses with the appropriate technical specialization.

The small business profiles in Comstor’s database contain information on small-business designation, specialization, certification, geography and past performance, Ambrose said.

In addition to the small business initiative, the Comstor GOVx program also offers consulting and business planning services to its resellers. The program provides training, as well. Comstor carries Cisco and a handful of related networking products on its General Services Administration schedule.