Supplier Diversity For Dummies

Chapter 23

Ten (Plus One) Ways to Create a World-Class Supplier Diversity Program

IN THIS CHAPTER

Setting yourself up for success internally

Maximizing your efforts to engage small and diverse businesses

Like most things, you have no one route to achieve success in supplier diversity. Ask any supplier diversity leader the secret to their success, and you’ll likely get a different response from each one. But if you look at their programs, you’ll definitely see some common things across all of them.

This chapter provides elements necessary to create a world class supplier diversity program, or, at a minimum, a program that meets the needs of your community while achieving the goals your organization has established. Now, you don’t have to do all of them at once. You still have to remember your organization’s culture and appetite for change. I remember one of my first meetings with my new VP at a particular organization. I was bursting with questions and ideas. He listened patiently and then gave me some crucial feedback: He told me my ideas were great and that leadership loved my passion and enthusiasm. But he cautioned me that people there had been doing things a certain way for a really long time and that instituting change would take time. He didn’t want to see me get frustrated ...