Supply Chain Award

MITIE Group Plc - Supply Chain Corporate Responsibility

In 2010 a strategic decision was taken by MITIE’s board to embed diversity within the supply chain, aligning it with their corporate sustainability strategy, ensuring ethical business practices. To identify the best approach a pilot project was set up in Oct 2010. This involved: partnering with strategic suppliers, clients and organisations for guidance; and a mentoring and knowledge transfer programme. Workshops were conducted with diverse suppliers on tender process and documentation; commercial innovation; negotiating skills, legal and contract; contract mobilisation and performance management.

Impact

  • Simplification of procurement process to 3 steps reducing entry barriers for a diverse supplier base.
  • Following an audit, MITIE identified that 84% of its supply base could be considered SME’s; 16% of this (1186) can be classified as diverse. This is an initial step but is now the baseline to measure performance.
  • MITIE exceeded its annual target in 8 months and has identified/ incorporated in excess of 150 diverse suppliers in its supply base with an economic impact of circa £3m
  • 8 workshops were conducted with diverse suppliers advising and assisting in the tender process; building their internal capacity to pursue new and bigger business opportunities with MITIE and other large companies.
  • MITIE have aligned a number of diverse suppliers with some of their strategic clients and key suppliers to ensure development of business opportunities.