PROCUREMENT
“ But I think the part that many miss when it comes to ESG is it ' s not just what procurement can do . Procurement has access to all these thousands of suppliers , and they need to better leverage those relationships to come up with innovative solutions to benefit the company .”
The good news is that there are more of these innovative suppliers than ever before . Companies such as Apple and IKEA , though not infallible , demand innovation and have been open in their mission to work more sustainably . The result is a growing number of suppliers “ now used to working the Apple way , or to the IKEA standard ”, Patel says .
“ These suppliers will likely be ahead of the game because they ' ve worked with these types of businesses . Um , but also for procurement , it ' s also the reverse as well . It ' s like procurement also wants to be the customer of choice , right ? So when a supplier has a new sustainably conscious ideas , sustainably leading idea , they want to
be the , or they should strive to be the first to get to that idea . Right . Because they ' ve built a good relationship because they have a good way to accept that idea and process it . And so on . But often , often what happens is like new , new startups , for example , find it very difficult to work with larger organisations because of the procurement organisations , asking them to fill out , you know , 400 questions , it ' s like six week process to get in . And there ' s a large contract . So procurement organisations have to figure out a way to work better and foster with startups so that they get , get more innovation in foster . Right
The world ’ s global leaders , the likes of Apple and IKEA , though not infallible , have been pushing sustainable initiatives for many years . They ’ ve also been pushing back on suppliers , expecting more . Current market conditions have shifted the balance of power , however . Where procurement professionals were once comfortable auditing and scoring suppliers ,
48 September 2021