Message from the President
As we enter the third year of the global pandemic, it is abundantly clear that Covid-19 magnified many challenges in our business lives, including logistical nightmares driving supply chains to a halt. The silver lining from this period is the influx of local sourcing and purchasing from corporations and government organizations. Those in buying power understand the potential impact supply chains can have on sustainability, diversity and inclusion. On behalf of Canadian WBEs, I hope that the conversations surrounding on-shoring commodities and bringing manufacturing back to North America will be realized, ending our dependence on global imports and creating new opportunities for domestic economies. I do hope to see Canadian womenowned businesses lead or support these initiatives in the near future. Let’s have a closer look at my favourite topic related to supply chains - diversity and inclusion. We’ve recognized the inequities for years, but the past two years have been a wake up call like no other there is much work to be done in ensuring women in business have equal opportunity in supply chains and that equality is key to economic recovery and growth. Inc. Magazine recently published an article looking at the Lack of Diversity in Government Contracts: A Way Forward. Reading statistics from South of the border, and taking into account the more than 50 years of supplier diversity efforts in the USA, made me pause and look at the Canadian market.
IT IS TIME TO REMOVE BARRIERS WBES STILL FACE IN SUPPLY CHAINS The reality is that while we celebrate the accomplishments of some women-owned businesses, the majority of business women still face difficulties as they navigate complexity, red tape and biases in supply chains across the industries. Stereotypes are alive and well with women-owned businesses facing more scrutiny, harsher judgments and in some cases even unfair treatment. It is time to identify and remove barriers like unnecessarily lengthy procurement processes, overcomplicated contract language, unreasonable insurance requirements and many others and open supply chains across the industry sectors to women. IT IS TIME TO DEVELOP AND IMPROVE SUPPLIER DIVERSITY INITIATIVES ACROSS CANADA While not all supplier diversity strategies are equal and every company is at a different stage of the journey, in general, supplier diversity creates new opportunities where these wouldn’t normally exist. Having diversity spend embedded into leadership performance reviews or requesting Tier II diversity spend reporting encourages individuals and companies to commit to evaluating their efforts and results which leads to new opportunities for female business owners.
While our supplier diversity efforts are much newer (WBE Canada is only 12 years old), we have lots of work ahead of us. Of course, we are grateful that more and more organizations are committing to diversity and inclusion in their supply chains, yet, there is still so much great potential for our corporations and governments to realize. I want to highlight three which I hope will inspire our readers to action.
With the majority Canadian companies still showing less than 1% spend with women-owned businesses, it is important for supplier diversity strategies to be implemented sooner rather than later. The time to start is now.
2
