Lori Perry, CEO and owner of Diamond Contractors.
Our Supplier Diversity program works to integrate products and services from small and diverse businesses into our procurement processes.
These partnerships help us ensure that our products and services evolve to meet the needs of our customers, while also contributing to the economic growth of communities across the country.
In 2018, our spending with small and diverse businesses — including 398 owned by women and 373 owned by minorities — totaled $2.2 billion.
One of those businesses is Kansas City-based Diamond Contractors, a family-owned company that has been working with CVS Health since 2007. Here, owner and CEO Lori Perry shares what it’s been like to be part of our Supplier Diversity program.
What specific services do you provide to CVS Health?
Diamond Contractors is a general contractor, licensed and working for CVS Health in 45 states. We have built ground-up stores, but our niche is remodels of existing stores and roll-out programs. Those remodels have included a lot of ADA sitework, pharmacy expansions and multiple other special remodeling projects.
On average, we complete around 100 projects a year for CVS Health, doing as many as 200 remodels annually when we are involved in special roll-out programs such as SmileDirectClub, BeautyIRL, HealthHUB or MinuteClinic.
How has the partnership with CVS Health been beneficial to your business?
CVS Health is our main client, and the relationship has been enormously beneficial to our business. I started Diamond Contractors in a bedroom in my home 25 years ago and working for CVS Health has enabled us to buy a 15,000 square-foot building and warehouse that has been our base of operations for the last five years.
How has working with CVS Health benefited the communities you serve?
We employ 22 people in our Kansas City office and, depending upon the time of year, we employ anywhere from 20 to 60 field personnel. Working in 45 states, our association with CVS Health has brought economic opportunities to hundreds of local subcontractors in those areas over the past 12 years.
Has working with CVS Health changed the way you do business?
Working with CVS Health has allowed us to grow our business substantially. We now have a project management team, an estimating team, an accounting team and a subcontractor procurement department — in addition to our hard-working field team. We have put many more procedures and programs in place to stay up to date with our workload from CVS Health and other clients. In addition, our partnership with CVS Health has given us opportunities to work with other national clients.
We’re deeply grateful for our partnership with CVS Health. It has made a hugely positive impact on our growth and the chance to do business with other diverse suppliers.