Alliance Technology Solutions seizing business opportunities once unobtainable
Adriane Davis
| 2 min read
The 2014 Supplier Diversity Achievement Awards recognizes the importance of partnering with minority and women-owned business to the success of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Alliance Technology Solutions is one of those businesses, and has been a partner for several years. “BCBSM believed in me and my company and gave us a chance when we were just getting started. Having BCBSM as a customer proves to other companies that we can handle a large companies’ business.” says Margie Carlson, President of Alliance Technology Solutions. Carlson founded ATS in February 2002, she left her job at IBM to pursue her dream of filling a gap in the business world, “As a Hispanic woman, I thought, ‘who would understand the customer’s requirements and IBM’s expectations more than I?’. It would be a win, win, win for IBM customers, IBM, and for my new company, ATS”. Carlson decided that there was a lacking need for technological company centered on diversity. ATS focuses its efforts on listening to the customer’s needs and delivering high quality products while keeping strong relationships with their business partners, priority number one. When Carlson started ATS, she was focused on building a strong relationship with her former employer, IBM, but when she began working with BCBSM she realized that building other business relationships were just as important for her company to grow. “This has been a great mentoring partnership for Alliance. BCBSM has truly added value and not only talked the talk, BCBSM walks the walk like no other company I have done business with.” “Diversity is about inclusion not entitlement”, Carlson believes that diversity opens doors and allows minorities to have seat at the table with everyone else. Diversity is not a sense of entitlement, rather a chance to seize opportunities that used to be unobtainable. Photo credit: A Healthier Michigan
