Supplier Diversity - A True Value Proposition

Introduction

Supplier Diversity in its truest form is “the process which creates fair and equitable engagement for diverse business enterprises to participate in corporate or public agency sourcing and procurement opportunities with the desired state of increasing business while delivering value to the corporations, public agencies, and ultimately the customer.” While the ultimate goal of Supplier Diversity, delivery of value to the customer, we must temper our efforts against the starting premise that “only 65% of companies give Supplier Diversity a medium to high level priority” (The Hackett Group). This starting premise infers the converse fact, “that 35% of the companies give Supplier Diversity a low priority or no priority.” Add the fact that there is an adversarial acceptance within all organizations of Supplier Diversity – this has an overall affect in prioritization and success of the supplier diversity process.
As the facts state above, priority level given to Supplier Diversity reflects itself in several ways: alignment of supplier diversity to the organizational growth strategy; support provided to supplier diversity leaders; organizational accountability for supplier diversity performance; acknowledgement and recognition of contributions supplier diversity affords the organization. Because of these varying levels of priorities we are not realizing the true value Supplier Diversity affords any organization.

Click to download the complete document in PDF format.