Embracing eProcurement Tech to Support Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives

While Supplier Diversity and Inclusion is not new, the push for inclusive procurement has intensified. Many government agencies are working harder than ever to modernize their procurement practices in ways that reduce participation barriers for underrepresented and marginalized groups.

According to research by Proximo, for every $1 million spent on diverse supplier spend, there are 10 jobs created. As a result, each job drives $124K in direct economic impact, helping support your community.

Whatever your specific diversity and inclusion initiatives are, technology is a key component to achieving your organization’s specific goals.  Procurement Technology has helped public sector organizations across the country increase both participation and spending with small, local, minority, women, LGBTQ, veteran, and disabled suppliers – achieving the milestones listed here:

The eProcurement Solution That Is Built to Support Supplier Diversity

Electronic Bidding

It all starts with e-sourcing.  Sometimes we forget that this is a foundation on which to achieve many goals, including supplier diversity. Look for technology that provides easy access to both buyers and suppliers. This enhances the ability of buyers to successfully screen and audit suppliers.

Supplier Network

A platform that includes access to a large supplier network can help meet your D&I initiatives. The supplier network should include a large number of suppliers registered as minority, women, LGBTQ, small, or veteran-owned businesses.

Supplier Diversity Engine

An eprocurement system that provides easy registration and compliance capabilities and has the capability of processing of vendor certifications is key. To enable supplier diversity, look for a solution that allows:

• Self-registration and/or certification process
• Easy-to-read questionnaires while registering
• Real-time verification

Business Analytics

Reporting available within procurement technology allows buyers to see how many suppliers in different categories are registered with different commodity codes, who are being notified of bids and solicitations, and who is responding (or not responding). The reports should arm a supplier enablement team to do outreach to the groups that are not participating, learn why, help train, and enable vendors to participate. For further analytics, some eProcurement solutions have the capability to track sub-contractor diversity spending through the entire procurement process and validate payment to these suppliers for contracts that have specific set-aside goals.

Vendor Performance

Managing vendor performance is essential to avoiding extra costs, achieving savings, and getting the best product and service on time.

A good eProcurement tool should feature a vendor performance module that can:

• Create custom vendor evaluation criteria from very simple to comprehensive scoring grids
• Build vendor scorecards and identify vendor quality and compliance issues.
• Analyze performance for feedback and insight during projects.
• Review assessments and resolve disputes before a project is completed.

Our Solutions Is Built to Enable Supplier Diversity

We provide a robust Source-to-Pay and Source-to-Contract solution based on your unique procurement needs, including supplier diversity tools. With over 600,000 suppliers – many registered as certified minority, small, local, women, LGBTQ, veteran or disabled-owned businesses – our solutions are built to help your organization enable supplier diversity and inclusion initiatives.

Contact us today for more insight into how our technology can help your organization with your supplier diversity and inclusion initiatives.

 

Find out how BidNet Direct can help your government organization today!