How to move from silo CSR and sustainability code of conduct website statements to active performance measures and supplier collaboration activities is increasingly important for most large organizations.
EBG | Network was happy to be able to share – in much detail – the work made by Beckers Group and not the least Thomas Lüder, Global Director Procurement and Supply Chain Management at Beckers Group. We were able to share his and their know how during a webinar enabled by EcoVadis who also play a valuable part of the journey initiated, developed and continued.
Below You can view and listen to the recording and compare Your company experiences and personal challenges increasing Your organizations CSR and sustainability practices.
How strategic is CSR
There were many interesting aspects shared during this session. Some EBG reflections were:
- How you have organized CSR/sustainability as part of your overall sourcing and procurement strategy, operations and governance structure? Is it an active part of your strategic sourcing? Is it an integrate part of how category managers work?
- How do you bridge the gap between signed contracts with clauses and on-site audits? Is there an in-between where alive, online assessments have a place and both you and the supplier have an insight and can benchmark against best practice?
- Do you have ways of collaborating with suppliers, helping them to improve?
- Are you talking the talk and walking the walk? How does Your organization comply with your own standards? And how do you communicate that?
- There is still the need for passionate people..still no way around that at the end it is all about how people choose to act – how do You engage and share success?
Top 2 procurement/supply chain priorities
The two poll questions asked during this session gave vital information. First we wanted to assess – within the limitations of the tool – what the top 2 procurement/supply chain priorities were among those attending live.
Note: The same (almost) question was asked more than a year ago when EBG hosted a webinar enabled by EcoVadis too, featuring BDR Thermea which can be found >>here. We then asked about “compliance” but this time came to the conclusion that it was to unspecific hence we swapped to spend control. Notable is the change in CSR/sustainability focus – from 21% last year to 38% saying it is among the top two procurement and supply chain priorities this year! Mind you this was a webinar focusing on just that, but the change is still interesting.
No surprise cost savings and risk reduction still held a high score.
How mature is your CSR/sustainability strategy, operations and governance
The second poll was aimed at comparing self assessed maturity scale. Mind you the tool only allow five options and quite short such – but the idea being that contract clauses being the basic level and that each option after that should be read as a “We do that AND we also…”. Meaning that the final option – where the organization also collaborate with suppliers on improvement plans and educate the same – here is the most mature level.
The first two levels; having a code of conduct and possibly clauses in contracts was the assessed level of 37% of the attending persons.
The “step 3” level where assessments and on-site audits (as well as the step 1 and 2 aspects) is a reality was true for 37% of the persons attending.
Most interestingly – 3% also set performance targets and 23% also collaborate on improvement plans. A Gold star to you!
Almost the same question was asked during a December 2017 webinar EBG hosted enabled by EcoVadis found >>here. The question then was not as clearly used as a maturity scale and code of conduct was missing. With those given prerequisites 48% who joined live then were here 26%. Not the exact same question so let’s come back to it in the future and compare! In any case – what is evident is if you take your CSR and sustainability development seriously, step 1 and 2 is not enough.
Conclusion
There is a lot on a procurement professionals plate these days. Not only are you set to for sure reduce cost while keeping risk at a low as possible point. You are also – probably – asked to do more with less, to automate as much as possible and you probably want to use all the know how your organization have to help the business grow further.
Take a look at one of the slides during this session, where Thomas showcase a supplier audit methodology sharing different chapters assessed.
- Company management
- Sustainability
- Quality control
- Operational excellence
- Continuous improvement
- Costs
How do You weigh the different chapters? What is your bottom low score acceptable for whatever assessments you do? And how do you manage them all so that they not become statistics but that vital part of business growth?
It is exciting time working with procurement, if you have the passion and are here for the journey…