Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

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 ...