The global real estate firm highlighted in this case study, referred to as Company RE, is recognized in their industry as one of the most innovative organizations in the world. Their response to adverse market conditions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic was to recommit to diversity, equity, and inclusion by increasing spending with diverse suppliers.
By partnering with TealBook, the firm was able to gain better visibility into their diverse supply base and enhance their supplier diversity efforts. This resulted in a 6% increase in incremental diverse spend, over 87 incremental diverse suppliers, and an increase in targeted diversity certifications—all without adding any additional suppliers (and therefore, additional risk) to their supply chain. Here’s how:
A data-first approach
As a first step, Company RE needed to enhance and standardize their supplier diversity efforts. Evaluating their procurement processes highlighted their first challenge: supplier data management. They did not have an adequate data management program in place. This resulted in extremely manual and inconsistent processes that made it difficult to identify diverse suppliers and report on diverse spend.
Company RE turned to TealBook to develop a strategy to meet their goals. In addition to enriching their vendor master, TealBook developed a unique outreach strategy in order to work with Company RE’s suppliers to maximize qualified diverse spend.
The results
TealBook is proud of their responsiveness to customer needs, and views customers as true partners in growth. The results achieved from Company RE’s partnership with TealBook are exceedingly promising, and indicate the potential for continued success.
Data enrichment with key attributes
After initial completion of the data enrichment, Company RE identified that it would be valuable for them to have more specific category codes included to improve their reporting. TealBook acted quickly to provide this dataset. Following the initial data enrichment, analysis was conducted by the TealBook team in order to establish a baseline and provide visibility to Company RE.
White-glove supplier outreach
An outreach strategy was developed to work with Company RE’s suppliers hands-on and assist them in obtaining key diversity certifications. This outreach targeted their entire supply base and focused on converting spend with undocumented diverse suppliers to verified, qualified diverse spend.
TealBook worked closely with Company RE to develop a landing page as a resource for suppliers that included communication from company leadership, a call to action, and instructions for uploading diversity certifications and self-certifying.
Over a period of two weeks, TealBook executed the outreach campaign to Company RE’s suppliers. TealBook was able to identify a 6% retrospective increase in qualified diverse spend.
Additionally, by enriching their vendor master with diversity certification data, TealBook was able to identify 87 previously unknown diversity certificates for incumbent suppliers. These certificates were identified across critical diversity categories, including an 8% increase in the number of WBE-certified suppliers (women-owned businesses).
These increases in diversity results come without adding a single new diverse supplier—meaning no new risk was introduced to their supply chain.
Why these results matter
Less than 5% of diverse businesses are certified in North America. Reasons for this include lack of time and resources, and high costs for obtaining and maintaining certifications. By making the certification process faster, easier, free, and more accessible, TealBook can significantly increase diverse spend. TealBook’s custom diversity outreach campaign takes self-certification one step further by partnering with suppliers to walk them through the process of self-certification.
Thanks to TealBook, Company RE is able to meet their goals of increasing diversity spend and promoting a focus on DE&I initiatives within their industry.
Set up for success
Forward-thinking organizations like Company RE will continue to be successful because of their commitment to innovative strategies in the face of market challenges. By thoroughly understanding their current diverse spend, they are able to set more impactful diverse spend targets while managing supply chain risk. Not only will doing so unlock more opportunities for Company RE, it will also expand supplier diversity across their industry and allow them to set the standard for the future of DE&I in real estate and beyond.
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