Helping a mayor’s office reduce friction, clarify the process, and strengthen participation in its M/WBE program
For city-led economic development programs, access matters just as much as intent. A program designed to support minority- and women-owned businesses can only create impact if the businesses it aims to serve can navigate the process clearly, confidently, and without unnecessary friction. When certification is overly complex or difficult to understand, even well-intentioned programs risk discouraging participation and slowing the very growth they are meant to accelerate.
Karma Advisory helped one of the nation’s largest cities address that challenge.
The mayor’s office had created a program to support minority- and women-owned businesses and strengthen economic growth, diversity, and inclusivity across the city’s business landscape. But the certification process itself had become a barrier for many applicants. Administrative bottlenecks, unclear documentation requirements, and delays in evaluation made the experience harder than it needed to be. Karma partnered with the city to identify these pain points, map the end-to-end user journey, and develop recommendations that would make the certification experience more accessible, transparent, and effective.
The Challenge
The client recognized that the M/WBE certification process was creating friction at a critical point in the business journey.
For many applicants, the path to certification was difficult to navigate. Documentation expectations were not always clear, administrative steps could feel cumbersome, and evaluation and approval timelines created frustration for businesses already trying to grow and compete. These issues did more than slow down processing. They risked discouraging potential applicants from engaging with the program at all.
The city needed a better understanding of what businesses were actually experiencing as they moved through certification and beyond. It also needed a way to demonstrate why customer journey mapping was not just a design exercise, but a practical tool for improving service delivery, surfacing overlooked pain points, and better supporting underrepresented perspectives within the program.
This was ultimately a customer experience problem with economic development consequences.
The Approach
Karma worked with the mayor’s office to build a more complete, data-informed view of the M/WBE experience from the perspective of the businesses themselves.
The engagement centered on the development of comprehensive journey maps that captured what applicants and certified businesses experienced across the end-to-end lifecycle of the program. This included not only the certification process, but also the stages that followed—such as bidding for and winning contracts with the city.
To support this work, Karma helped identify key customer groups and services, define major pain points and “love points,” and assess both strengths and areas for improvement. The goal was not simply to document the current state, but to uncover where the process was creating unnecessary friction, where communication could be improved, and where the city had opportunities to make the program feel more transparent and supportive.
By grounding the work in customer experience and stakeholder insight, Karma helped the city better understand how operational design choices were affecting business participation and perception.
What Karma Delivered
Karma delivered a customer-centered framework for understanding and improving the M/WBE certification experience.
This included:
- Comprehensive journey maps covering the end-to-end M/WBE lifecycle
- Identification and definition of key customers and services
- Analysis of applicant pain points and positive experience moments
- Assessment of strengths, bottlenecks, and areas for growth
- Recommendations to improve communication, transparency, and efficiency
- A clearer articulation of how journey mapping could support program improvement and elevate underrepresented perspectives
The Outcome
The engagement helped the city create a stronger foundation for improving how minority- and women-owned businesses interact with the program.
By clarifying pain points and identifying opportunities to simplify the certification experience, the work supported a more user-friendly application process and contributed to increased business participation. The city also gained a clearer path for improving communication and transparency—two factors that matter deeply in programs where trust and accessibility shape whether businesses choose to engage.
The broader effect was strategic as well. By improving the experience surrounding certification, the M/WBE program was better positioned to advance its larger goals around diversity and inclusivity within the city’s business environment. Stakeholders across the ecosystem—including business owners, program administrators, and city officials—responded positively to the recommendations, recognizing their potential to improve efficiency, usability, and long-term program impact.
What had been a process problem became an opportunity to strengthen participation and improve how the city supports underrepresented businesses.
Why It Mattered
Economic inclusion programs succeed when they are designed not only to exist, but to be usable.
By helping the city understand the real experience of businesses moving through certification and contracting, Karma enabled a more practical and human-centered approach to program improvement. The engagement shows how journey mapping, when done thoughtfully, can become a powerful tool for operational redesign, stakeholder alignment, and more equitable service delivery.
Closing Perspective
Karma Advisory helps organizations improve outcomes by making complex processes clearer, more accessible, and more responsive to the people they serve. In this case, that meant helping a major city strengthen the M/WBE certification experience—creating a better foundation for participation, transparency, and inclusive economic growth.
