By Sabrina Stover

The objective of any company is to grow and find success. This means different things to different people, but a pervasive truth across all industries is that if a company doesn’t consistently find new sources of revenue, its business will stagnate and begin to decline.  Finding new leads and new customers that bring growth can be a challenge at any time, but especially in the current economy. Competition is fierce, and budgets across the board are getting slashed. That, coupled with the increased difficulties of identifying viable business opportunities, makes for a challenging time to do business.

This challenge is keenly felt among the Hispanic business community. Javier Palomarez, the president and chief executive officer of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce recently said, “Despite the fact that Hispanic businesses have experienced a growth rate of 114 percent in the last five years, they continue to struggle in securing access to capital and contracts.”

Tapping the World’s Largest Consumer—The Government

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a source of enormous revenue potential standing right in front of every business with open arms? What if the world’s largest consumer came forward and said, “I need the very goods and services your company has to offer.” Who wouldn’t be interested in pursuing that business opportunity?

The truth is, this scenario is not too far from reality. The world’s largest consumer of goods and services is the government, which includes thousands of agencies from the smallest cities and counties, to states and all the way up to the largest departments of the federal government. These agencies are all in the market for items they require to perform the functions that society has relegated to the government.

While it is common knowledge that many government entities are facing the same economic budgetary cutbacks as many other sectors, do not underestimate the level of service that the public still requires of those government entities.  The government provides a great many services at every level, andnot all on its own. It relies heavily on American companies of all sizes and types to support its efforts from city administration to space exploration. This reliance involves the purchase of goods and services from virtually every industry across every market.

A closer look at what it takes to maintain state and local public entities