A view from WEConnect Europe, the leading global supplier diversity initiative spearheading the connection of women-owned business and multinational corporations.

WEConnect Europe is a UK based, pan Europe not-for-profit organisation that is opening doors to new supply chains. It is led by corporate members which include Accenture, Alcatel-Lucent, AT&T, Boeing, Cisco, Citi, DLA Piper, Ernst & Young, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Intel, Manpower, Marriott, Mastercard, MDB, Motorola, PG&E, Pfizer, Verizon and Wal-Mart. WEConnect registers and certifies firms that are at least 51% owned, managed and controlled by women and connects them with the growing global demand from corporations and the public sector for diverse and innovative suppliers.

Why procure from women-owned/managed suppliers?

• Women are central to economic prosperity.  For example in the U.K. there are over a million self-employed women, generating around £130 billion turnover. Despite the growth in numbers of European women entrepreneurs, women-owned businesses are seriously under-represented in procurement contracts. WEConnect Europe estimates that they comprise less than 1% of all domestic and international suppliers to corporations and governments.
• A supplier base that reflects the growing diversity of European businesses in particular and the population in general makes good business sense. Women are involved in 85% of purchasing decisions, and are bringing innovative and quality products and services to the marketplace at an escalating pace.
• As supplier diversity creeps up the agenda, helped by the new Equality Act, women owned suppliers are becoming increasingly valuable. Businesses need to move away from a passive "equal opportunities" approach to a more pro-active strategy for equalities. For example, organisations may be required to regularly review gender pay differences and publish the results, and in terms of the supply chain suppliers may be required to have pro-active strategies to deal with diversity.

Richard-Edward; women-owned printing company

Founded as a family business but now with Mary Moger and her daughter Louisa Moger leading the growth, Richard-Edward is a print supplier to the Olympic Delivery Authority and London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games having gone through a competitive tender process.

Louisa believes the service to their customers is strongly influenced by the input of the female members of the team in a very traditional area of business:

"In terms of added value, our approach, being a majority female owned organisation, is different to other more traditional print businesses, both in managing our business and the service that we deliver to our customers. We seek to offer a culture of excellence. Our industry is one that gets very excited about assets, that is, the technology that creates faster and better print products.  What we've done is turn that into a more benefits based approach, with an emphasis not only on these assets, but also on how we can add value throughout the process and help deliver our clients' marketing and sustainability objectives. Integrating us into the process as early as possible helps avoid costly errors, and allows us to highlight opportunities that can improve the overall experience."

For more information about Richard-Edward see www.richard-edward.com


Corporate Alchemy Limited; women-owned training company

Founded by Penny Sophocleous, the Corporate Alchemy team provides executive coaching and business training for senior managers and directors of FTSE listed corporations and public sector organisations including the Department of Works & Pensions and the LDA.
 
Penny recognises that training needs are different at the different stages in career development.  In the earlier stages of a career there is a greater focus on building knowledge, understanding tasks and increasing technical development. As careers progress and management and leadership become a greater part of the role, a different set of skills are required, such as the ability to create empathy, trust and demonstrate inter-personal skills.

"We add significant values to our client organisations, by helping their senior executives acquire the emotional intelligence and social skill-sets that they need to motivate, empower and lead their staff successfully. As a women owned business we have the necessary skills to best support managers with developing a staged progression of competencies that are relevant to each stage of career development and organisational need"
 
For more information about Corporate Alchemy see www.corpalc.com 


Supplier diversity versus supplier opportunity

The active approach to broaden the supply chain for corporations and public bodies is given the label 'supplier diversity'. However, as stated on its corporate webpages, HSBC (host of the WEConnect Eurpoean Conference on 7th October) believes that 'Diversity is a source of opportunity'. Perhaps it is more appropriate to re-brand this growth in the supply pool available to the procurement professionals as 'supply opportunity'?

For more information on WEConnect Europe go to www.weconnecteurope.org or contact the Sue Lawton on sl@weconnecteurope.org