Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

In last two articles we discussed two questions about supplier diversity. Basic one like WHAT is Supplier Diversity and its types , Second most important one for business decision WHY? What are key business drivers to implement supplier diversity? Now the third important question is HOW? What are my key parameters to make this decision on implementing diversity program? What are the steps? How should I determine what are my organizational needs? What is an assessment criterion? Key steps or parameters for your decision matrix would be – 1. Define scope and set your goal – link it to organizational goal so you have good business case 2. Build the internal database; connect with suppliers, make the data complete. 3. Run a diversity program 4. Audit, Monitor and upgrade Understanding your requirements and goal setting is first and important steps for implementing supplier diversity. This will not only enable you to asses and quantify the things for assessment and monitoring your progr...

Last week in a related article we discussed about diversity definitions and what each type means. Now the real question that procurement managers in a enterprise needs to answer when there is a talk about implementing supplier diversity is “Why should we implement Supplier Diversity?”. Once (s)he knows answer to this question, then comes the turn of how to implement it. Today let’s look at the key drivers behind the supplier diversity initiative and how one can not only justify but also build a business case around it to take organization along with you. The basic premise here is - A supplier diversity program will partner your company with businesses that are owned and/or operated by women; African, Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans; gay and lesbian individuals; and veterans. It will also connect you with companies that may have been overlooked because of their size as well as those located in economically distressed areas. Now all that is fine, but do these connections make a bus...

Last month I have written an article on supplier diversity titled Supplier Diversity have you checked your Supplier base? it gathered lot of interest among industry players in the topic. So I thought of having a one comprehensive article to cover all aspects of Supplier Diversity, what is it, its importance in supply chain etc is. So here are my 2 cents – So what’s the definition of Supplier Diversity worldwide? In the United States of America diversity suppliers are defined as businesses that are at least 51 percent owned, operated and controlled by one or more persons who are: • A racial or ethnic minority, including African American, Asian Indian American, Asian Pacific American, Hispanic American and Native American • Female • Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender • U.S. veteran or U.S. service disabled veteran Additionally, businesses certified as Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) or Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUB Zone) by the U.S. Small Business Administration ...

Recently blackenterprises.com published their list for 2009 Best Companies for Diversity , listing companies who are doing business with different diversity groups like employee base, board of directors, senior management and suppliers. From strategic sourcing initiative its very important to identify the diversity status of your supplier, have visibility towards your diversity supplier base. Its not just legal apsect but social and economic aspect as well. You should be able to see and analyze how much of your vendor base is governmant certified small business, is it minority owned, hispanic, asian owned, woman owned, is 8a certified, hubzone certified.......There might be a individual certified business. To have this visibility, you need to have your data in correct and updated shape. How many IT guys or business people care about this? You might have done this updation once, but what if EXIT DATE of the certification is crossed and vendor no more belong to that category? Or what ...