Two Takes on Supplier Diversity

This year's Ethnic Minority Business Conference is fast approaching. This conference has regularly provided a platform for policy and practitioner initiatives designed to encourage small business owners to take advantages of supply chain opportunities in the large public and private sector organisations. This process is often referred to as supplier diversity; and it is clear that significant progress is being made to spread its influence. Our contributors to this session provide interesting accounts of the ways in which the private and public sector are responding to the challenge of promoting supplier diversity.

Mick Wain, Director and General Manager of Staples Advantage, provides a fascinating account of how a major multi-national corporation, with a strong presence in the Midlands, is working to develop partnership working with small firms from under-represented communities. A commitment to ‘give something back’ is a core feature of the Staples philosophy. Mick demonstrates how the company puts this into practice in its operations in the UK; and outlines the plans that Staples has to develop activities in the Midlands.

For supplier diversity to succeed, small firms seeking to secure access to contracts have to be ‘fit to supply’. They have to have the capacity and capabilities required to comply with the often demanding requirements of large organisations. For many years, Supply London has been assisting small firms to make the leap to becoming suppliers to large firms. Michael Gutierrez, Supply Chain Advisor of Supply London, describes the crucial role that this organisation has played in supporting small firms, often run by ethnic minorities, to pursue their ambitions to become suppliers to large organisations.

There are important lessons here for other parts of the country, and for anyone interested in how procurement can promote economic development as well as entrepreneurial growth.