Case studies
Procurement: Eversheds
Eversheds is a full-service international law firm that employs over 4,000 people globally, with 47 offices in 29 countries. Our headquarters is based in London and we advise some of the largest global companies and institutions in the world.
Our approach to procurement
In November 2009, we reviewed our procurement policy to ensure that we work with suppliers that have a compatible approach to corporate responsibility and diversity. We introduced comprehensive and thorough supplier vetting and selection processes, to ensure that we provided opportunities to as diverse a range of suppliers as possible and to encourage the development of skills and expertise to meet the potential needs of Eversheds and other organisations.
To assist us in evaluating the commitment of potential suppliers to corporate responsibility and diversity, we created a Supply Chain Corporate Responsibility Questionnaire which includes global questions on equality and diversity. This is used as part of our tender process for major existing and new suppliers. The questionnaire rates potential suppliers' corporate responsibility and diversity commitments on a points-based system and evaluates their global impact rather than just their UK impact. It is unique in that it automatically scores the answers so that our procurement professionals are able to use the data in a meaningful way rather than applying subjective judgement.
The questionnaire takes a holistic approach to evaluating corporate responsibility and diversity commitments rather than concentrating on narrowly defined areas. We also ask suppliers and potential suppliers to provide a suite of their policy documents, in order for us to review and assess their suitability as suppliers. In November 2009 we sent the questionnaire to all our existing suppliers who we spent more than £300k with in FY2008/09.
We also include this in any procurement activity/tender exercises our procurement professionals are involved with. Suppliers need to demonstrate they have all the relevant policies. We take the results of the questionnaire very seriously in determining which suppliers we purchase from. In a recent example, a top accountancy firm's tender was rejected as they failed to score a sufficiently high mark on our questionnaire.
To encourage a further widening of the supplier pool for the legal profession, we helped create, in conjunction with The Law Society, The Law Society Diversity Charter, which aims to encourage FTSE 250 companies to employ law firms that meet its diversity criteria, which includes procurement.
Regular reviews
Our internal champions have monthly meetings with our core suppliers to assess their environmental targets and achievements. We also require that our Corporate responsibility questionnaire is completed and submitted for all new procurement activities, whether suppliers are existing or new. This way we can ensure that we continually monitor suppliers' commitments to corporate responsibility and diversity.
The importance of a diverse supply pool
At Eversheds, we recognise that we need to work with our supply chains to enable us to provide the best service to our clients. As a global law firm, we have clients from a variety of different cultures and minorities. It is one of our strategic objectives to be the most client centred international law firm and our business outlook must replicate the diversity of our client base. Consequently, we expect all our suppliers to deliver a service in line with our strategic objectives.
By increasing the diversity of our pool of suppliers, we also ensure that the social value as well as the economic value of our procurements is accounted for. A greater choice of suppliers also allows us a greater scope for selecting the best supply chain for our business.
Lessons learnt
Many suppliers with corporate responsibility and diversity commitments are SMEs and, as such, find it difficult to compete with the economies of scale and coverage of larger suppliers, despite having more social value to offer. To rectify this, we have hosted the following initiatives:
- A Supply London event at our London office to facilitate introductions of second tier SME suppliers to our first tier contractors. Two Supply London clients are now providing landscaping solutions (including maintaining the living green roof) and computer cleaning services to Eversheds. The work is going extremely well.
- A Minority Supplier Development UK (MSDUK) event at our Birmingham office, where large buying organisations were introduced to local ethnic minority suppliers. Consequently, more than 55 new introductions were made, which have resulted in an increased spend within the region and amongst these diverse business communities. We ourselves awarded contracts to two local ethnic minority businesses.