In this ever-changing world, finding one’s place in the job market can be a real challenge. At the SME level, the challenges are constantly growing. The demands require great flexibility and unprecedented adaptability to break into the market and keep one’s share.
Fortunately, the 21st century has forced a metamorphosis in the way we do things, and we are starting to see, at last, a growing interest and attention to the importance of inclusion and diversity of all kinds and backgrounds.
This model is now required in all companies, and supplier diversity is now an integral part of the profile of most companies offering an equal opportunity to become a supplier to large companies.
What is supplier diversity?
A diverse supplier is a company that is at least 51% owned and operated by an individual or group that is part of a traditionally underrepresented or underserved group. This gives women, minorities, Native Americans, or members of the LGBTQ2+ community, for example, the opportunity to access the supply chains of large companies.
This helps sustain and progressively transform a company’s supply chain into products and services ethically and efficiently while maintaining profits, increasing its customer base, improving the economy, and encouraging innovation.
Benefits:
- Promotes innovation through the introduction of new products, services, and solutions.
- Provides multiple supply channels for goods and services.
- Stimulates competition (in price and service) among a company’s existing and potential suppliers.
- Allows a company to take advantage of new business development opportunities due to the emergence of new consumer needs based on changing demographic realities.
Therefore, joining these programs is critical to promoting your business, stimulating growth by proactively encouraging buyers to seek out these companies for procurement opportunities.
Research shows that when companies increase their diversified spending, they see an increase in market share. Specifically, the correlation between high diversified spending and increased market share was significantly higher than the return on investment (ROI) for companies with low diversified spending.
At ELAM, diversity and inclusion are part of our values. As a result, we are a WBE and WEConnect International certified vendor. ELAM was founded and is run entirely and exclusively by a team of women.
Although a report by the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Canada found that 61% of women founders of small businesses reported losing contracts, clients, and customers due to COVID-19*, ELAM has been able to maintain its place in the market and even increase its share by renewing existing contracts and securing new ones with major companies such as Sobeys, PSP Investment and Pepsico among others.
As small businesses grow, so does our nation’s economy. Supplier diversity combines the best of our desires for a better and more equitable world for all while maintaining the drive to be a competitive leader in the marketplace.
