Indigenous Business Direct is the largest directory of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander businesses in Australia.

For Indigenous businesses registering your business with on Indigenous Business Direct is the first step to connecting with motivated buyers from some of Australia’s largest organisations.

Supply Nation has a world-leading 5-step verification process which is efficient (taking on average about 4 working days from application to profile being published on Indigenous Business Direct), and rigorous.

Our 5-step-verification process:

1. Assess the online application for accuracy
2. Check the ABN/ASIC for company name and current registration
3. Check ownership documentation to identify owners – ensuring that at least 50% of the business is Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander owned
4. Verify owners and Confirmation of Aboriginality documents
5. Conduct annual / spot check audits to ensure the business still meets our criteria.

In addition, Supply Nation now has a live feed from ASIC. Any changes to ownership are immediately flagged and investigated. Further to this, audits are completed on each business at least annually.

If we are notified a business is suspected of ‘black cladding’, they are immediately placed under review and audited.

Supply Nation verifies that the businesses on Indigenous Business Direct are truly Indigenous owned.

Supply Nation does not assure the quality of the goods and services offered. Anyone purchasing from a business on Indigenous Business Direct must do their own due diligence on the business to decide if they wish to complete a transaction.

Supply Nation works with a number of partner organisations including Indigenous Business Australia and other Commonwealth and state business development agencies to ensure our suppliers are supported and can access services to help them grow their business and meet the standards required by procurement teams.

When an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander business registers on Supply Nation, they become a Supply Nation supplier.

Supply Nation members are paid corporate and government members looking to engage with Indigenous businesses (suppliers).

Supply Nation actively supports members to engage with Indigenous businesses rather than other members.

In 2009, when Supply Nation was founded (as AIMSC) it was 100% government funded. Over time, we have reduced our reliance on government grant funding with now less than one quarter of our revenue from government grants.

Today, the majority of Supply Nation’s revenue comes from our membership fees from corporate and government organisations and fee-for-service work with government and others.

There are a number of definitions of black cladding, which depend on how an individual decides to define an Indigenous business.

From the Federal Government and Supply Nation’s perspective, an Indigenous business is at least 50% owned by an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islands person. These are the businesses that are eligible under the IPP.

A ‘black clad’ business is one that has been set up to manipulate that definition and leverage supplier diversity policies in order to benefit the non-Indigenous party.

For more information on black cladding click here.