Supplier Diversity Strategies Report 2023: Moving Beyond Best Practices, Provides Actionable Insights From Industry Leading Companies To Improve Program Success

New report uncovers five areas where top-performing programs excel, regardless of staff and budgets

CHICAGO, April 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Supplier.io, the leading data analytics and SaaS provider of supplier diversity management solutions, today released the Supplier Diversity Strategies Report 2023: Moving Beyond Best Practices, an in-depth analysis of how "best in class" companies—which achieve the top 20% of supplier diversity spend for their respective industries—operate differently to surpass industry benchmarks by 2-3x. Supplier.io partnered with Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) to conduct interviews with leaders to uncover actionable ways that companies of any size can improve their supplier diversity program success.

Although most organizations agree that supplier diversity is a key to how they do business and have a dedicated supplier diversity executive, the strategy for setting and meeting supplier diversity goals is what sets leading companies apart from the rest. In many cases, the top-performing programs have not been around longer and do not have more staff or money, but they behave in ways that other programs can learn from and emulate.

Specifically, best-in-class companies ranked higher in these five areas:

• Data-driven accountability: Track metrics at the business unit or product level, and use that data to hold specific teams accountable and provide clearer feedback.
• Proactive planning: Start category planning well ahead of time and bring in diverse suppliers earlier and for specific purposes. Joint planning with category and business unit teams identifies future needs and uncovers the best opportunities for a diverse supplier.
• Connecting business goals to diversity goals: Tie supplier diversity goals with current business objectives, and build a direct relationship with the supplier diversity team and business leaders outside of procurement and finance.
• Collaboration across company: Focus more on how diverse suppliers can support specific business unit needs while also making it easier for all teams to find and engage diverse suppliers.
• Balancing data and relationships: Use data to prioritize specific relationships with business unit teams and diverse suppliers rather than focus on one or the other. Join industry groups to learn from peers, gather actionable data, and influence supplier development programs.

Access the full Supplier Diversity Strategies Report 2023 here for specific recommendations across each of the above areas to strengthen your supplier diversity results.

Quotes

Supplier.io and SIG executives shared the following:

• "Companies are always looking for ways to improve their supplier diversity programs and have been asking for us to provide insights on 'how' the most successful organizations are, across industries, achieving greater results. We wanted to go beyond the normal best practices and use data to identify specific actions leaders are taking to achieve better integration of diverse suppliers, increased diverse spend and success" said Aylin Basom, Supplier.io CEO. "Our new best practices report provides clear ways that teams can optimize the steps they're already taking to vastly improve their results—without needing additional budget or resources—and more deeply embed diverse suppliers within their growth strategy."
• "Our focus at SIG Research is educating the sourcing, procurement, and risk management community on the innovative practices that leaders in these professions deploy to align with company goals and exceed industry benchmarks. Responding to requests from business leaders to study diversity in the supply chain, we decided to analyze best-in-class programs to find drivers to success," said Dawn Tiura, SIG CEO and president. "Turning to our partner, Supplier.io, for accurate, comprehensive market data, and relying on their deep insights, we identified best-in-class supplier diversity programs by industry. We then engaged with those leaders to dive into their methodologies and frameworks to understand how their results are double, sometimes triple, the industry average. We have discovered and are sharing the methods for taking a supplier diversity program to the next level."

About Supplier.io
Supplier.io is the leading data, analytics, and SaaS provider of solutions that enable companies to manage, optimize, and scale their supplier diversity programs. Working as a trusted advisor to the Supplier Diversity community, Supplier.io's mission is to support every program by providing innovative and superior end-to-end Supplier Diversity solutions. Equipped with unparalleled data intelligence, superior technology, and expert guidance, Supplier.io's customers can establish and advance their supplier diversity initiatives effectively and strategically. For more information, visit www.supplier.io.

About Sourcing Industry Group (SIG)
Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) is a membership organization that provides thought leadership and networking opportunities to executives in sourcing, procurement, and outsourcing from Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies and the advisors who serve them. SIG is widely known as a forum for sharing "next" practices and thought leadership through live networking events, virtual forums and a comprehensive online SIG resource center (SRC), which was developed by and for professionals in sourcing and outsourcing. The organization is unique in that it blends practitioners, service providers and advisory firms in a non-commercial environment. SIG is the parent organization for SIG University, a one-of-a-kind certification and training program for professionals and executives seeking deep expertise in sourcing and governance for themselves or their teams. SIG's digital flagship publication, Future of Sourcing, provides unrivaled digital content for the opinion-formers and decision-makers at the heart of the outsourcing space. Learn more at www.sig.org.

SOURCE Supplier.io