Coupa launches new supply chain inclusion initiative

The Coupa Inclusion Initiative provides new resources, tools and technologies, including the introduction of a diverse supplier portal at supplierinclusion.com that connects buyers with diverse and inclusive suppliers to drive economic impact.

“Businesses recognise the need for policy changes when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, such as supplier diversity programs, because of the ROI, lower operating costs, higher profits, and access to increased innovation for the company,” commented Rod Robinson, vice president of supplier inclusion and sustainability at Coupa. “However, most companies’ supplier diversity efforts are failing in good faith because the information and technology they need to efficiently source and spend with diverse suppliers was not available. Now within the Coupa Business Spend Management Platform, every company can make diversity and inclusion a strategic part of the business, rather than an afterthought.”

Standalone diversity, equity and inclusion programmes have struggled to make a substantial impact on business supply chains as a result of a lack of access to the right technology and information. The Coupa Inclusion Initiative focuses on allowing companies to find, select and direct spend to hundreds of thousands of diverse and inclusive suppliers via the Coupa platform, including:

• Helping diverse suppliers strengthen and scale: Resources such as whitepapers, videos and certifications are available to help diverse suppliers gain the requirements needed to partner with larger companies.
• Guiding a successful future: An advisory board of global diversity leaders and experts have been created to help guide Coupa to become a destination for inclusive suppliers who need mentoring, exposure and connections with buyers.
• Directing corporate spend to diverse suppliers: A new, publicly available supplier portal at www.supplierinclusion.com will allow businesses everywhere to search and find diverse and inclusive suppliers in order to meet their corporate goals.

The Coupa Inclusion Initiative helps any organisations to introduce diversity into its current processes by surfacing inclusive suppliers by region, industry and diversity classification, providing knowledge from global supplier diversity certification and advocacy organisations to establish the right inclusive supply chain as well as sharing resources and tools to understand the value of inclusive supply chains and how to champion these programmes internally.