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TRANSCRIPTUSBLN

OCTOBER 1, 2013BREAKOUT SESSION3:15 P.M. PT

How Does Your Supplier Diversity Program Stack Up?

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>> DARLENE FULLER: Does anybody want to grab a seat so we can start? I'm going to sit down. I didn't mean for them to leave. Wow. Okay.

>> They were the panel for the last session.>> DARLENE FULLER: Today our panel today is how your

supplier diversity program stacks up. Today we are very lucky. We have a panel of distinguished supplier diversity professionals. Unfortunately, one person from AT&T, Caren Bowman, had an emergency and she could not attend. But my name is Darlene Fuller. I'm in charge of supplier diversity for Sodexo. And I'll be the panel moderator and on my panel is -- how about we each introduce ourselves.

>> RAY TOOMER: Okay. Ray Toomer, I'm with Accenture. >> DOMINICA GROOM: Dominica Groom, Director at Marriott.>> BRENDA BURKE: Brenda Burke, the parent company of anthem

Blue Cross, Blue Shield.>> DARLENE FULLER: Great. Thank you. Give me a wave if we

wander away too far. These individuals were named in the top 10 for supplier diversity in the Diversity Inc. index. So we thought they would be great panelists to really help share about some of the successes of their program.

So I don't know if people are aware of Diversity Inc. It's a big application process. There's actually four pillars to that award. There is CEO commitment, which is kind of accountability for your company. Internal commitment. There's a human capital pillar that talks about your talent development, retention, promotion of your staff. Corporate communication and

© 2013 US Business Leadership Network. All rights reserved. 1

organization. And then the last pillar is supplier diversity.So do any of your companies apply for that award or are

involved with that? It takes -- yeah. It takes a lot of time. So our company does that and all these companies do. I mean, the supplier diversity question, I think there's 36 or 37 questions that you have to answer. And one of the things that's great is actually they have different things about supplier diversity they ask. But one of the questions that they ask and one of the things they track, they track NGLCC. Are you a member, certified by NGLCC. But they also track disabled-owned business and ask who is certified by USBLN that you use. So I think that shows that Diversity, Inc., which is one of the institutions that people look at to vie to benchmark against, they're including USBLN certified vendors. That's a great testament to these companies who are actually in that top 10 list. But what we're kind of talking about benchmarking and strategy. So what I thought would make a lot of sense was to have Patricia Richards who is talking to Phillip and not paying attention to me.

>> Sorry, I was asking for help.>> DARLENE FULLER: Something I wasn't aware of there's a

gold standard index by USBLN. And I thought it would be good if she could come up and share that with us. I know in my company I'm always looking for things I can benchmark with and evaluate my program. So I thought it would be real good to share this tool with all of us.

>> Patricia Richards: Okay. Thank you. Thanks for telling on me, Darlene. Good afternoon. Glad to see you're all here.

As Darlene mentioned, I'm the director of Disability Supplier Diversity Program and a member of the USBLN team. And I'm glad to have the opportunity to share with you a little bit about the gold standard, the disability inclusion gold standard and kind of tell you a little bit about how it was created and how it can be used by our corporate members. How it can be used by corporate members.

In October of 2011, at one of the corporate advisory board meetings, we do have a corporate advisory board that's composed of representatives from various -- from the USBLN corporate members. One of the members and this is what I was getting help from Phillip thank you.

Phillip. Phillip pronunciation of the name but (saying name) from Nordstrom proposed that USBLN develop a gold standard that would to vied not just a snapshot but measurement for where a corporation is today but aspirationally where a company would want to develop their disability inclusion and so as the process -- as discussion went about, there is also discussion of what are the types of tools that are available to help corporations that want to know how to do better at disability inclusion.


And so as we know, there are a number of corporations and some many USBLN members who have been recognized as top corporations for disability inclusion. And really around hiring promotion, advancement of persons with disabilities within their companies. And they really kind of measure on a curve. Again, but not specifically in terms of what companies need to do better or allowing companies to have a more internal look at metrics that they need to put in place.

And so that brought about the creation of this document. Again, it's a broad-based document that covers both workplace, supply chain and marketplace.

And from a supplier diversity perspective, it provides information on some of the best practices and also next practices that are already at work.

It's a document that should be viewed as a roadmap that can be used by corporations and it talks about some of the tools that are already out there that you can also use that will help you identify suppliers, disability-owned suppliers that are out there. One of the organizations or one of the tools I mentioned is something called supplier connection developed by IBM. It provides opportunity for disability-owned firms to register. And so that they have kind of the broader ability to market their services and products.

But it also provides for corporations to register on there as well. So it's kind of a meeting place for both parties to connects.

And so we'll have more information of that on that as well on the USBLN Web site.

And then finally, just to say that when we developed this, the idea was to use it as a tool for our members. So did the DSDP members can find it in the members only section of our Web site. And again, as a measurement and a roadmap to help you improve your specific programs of

is that enough?>> DARLENE FULLER: That's great.>> Patricia: Any questions? Thank you.>> DARLENE FULLER: Thank you. Patricia. Today I have a

number of questions I'm going to ask the panelists so they can share some of their best practices in supplier diversity. But as I ask the different questions and they answer, if any of you have another question that kind of jumps out that you want to really add to enhance that, that subject, please just raise your hand and you know ask it. Because sometimes it's hard, if you're like me, it's hard to wait until the very end because I may have forgotten my question by then. So just ask us at the time.

The first question is: What impact internally and externally does your corporation gain from being named in


Diversity Inc.'s top corporations for supplier diversity. How were you able to utilize that within your company to really help expand and grow your program?

>> RAY TOOMER: .Want to start? Ladies first.>> DARLENE FULLER: What a guy.>> Thank you, Ray, he's such a gentleman.-with respect to the top 10, you asked about the impact

internally and externally. So I'll start with internal.First of all, WellPoint has been benchmarking other

companies who have been in the top 10 for a few years. So we all do that and reach out and say oh, you know they're number one or they're number 10 or whenever they are in the top 10, I want to know how they did it so we did that. Each year we contacted the members who reached top 10 for diversity and ask them what did you do differently this year, how have you expanded your program. And we would look at those types of things and we would year-over-year incorporate something different, something new, something more innovative and I have to say that we actually have been in the top 10 for the past two consecutive years now. 2012 and 2013 and the year before, 2011, I said to my staff, I think we're going to make it this year, I think we really are ready.

And then when we went to the event, to the dinner that evening and they called our name, we were so excited. But it was really pride and just really being thrilled that we had a team that was committed to doing what we thought needed to be done and there was a lot of celebration internally. We had everything from a huge banner that probably extended almost half of this wall that was actually shipped to different parts of WellPoint around the country. And we had the logo. There had not been a top 10 logo. And so I asked Diversity Inc. if they could send the top 10 logo to me and they did. And one of our teams had a cake brought in with the top 10 logo on it. So a lot of that took place internally and I mention that because this kind of communication went -- there were newsletters. It went to our board of directors. Of course, it went to our CEO and our executive leaders and it was really a big deal within the entire enterprise.

The other thing that we did, though, is we didn't just keep it within procurement. We extended the recognition to our internal business units and others who had really been champions of supplier diversity and who were -- who helped contribute to this great recognition.

But the thing that we were surprised about is that there was so much buzz about this top 10 that we had a number of associates throughout the country contacting us and wanting to know a lot more about supplier diversity and wanted to know not only a lot


more but how they could become engaged. So those were great impacts for us internally

from an external perspective, the impact on the ability to promote the top 10 certainly brings brand recognition and positive public perception. And so when that happens, if diversity is important to our various stakeholders, we know that the top 10 brand is something that will be important to them but it's something that they will recognize and not take hold of.

And actually recognize the fact that wow, they have -- they're taking this diversity seriously. Not that companies that are not on the top 10 don't but it certainly gives us that brand recognition. So I want to give you, share with you four ways that we believe that brand can help increase that recognition and positive public perception, first in our sales team: We work very closely with sales. As all of you know who are corporations and if you're not corporations you know that we are -- we have clients, we have corporate clients. We have state clients and we have local municipalities clients. And all of them most of the corporate clients and all of the state and local require supplier diversity utilization. So when we're able to promote the Diversity Inc. top 10, they know what that means and they know that we're serious about it. And even if we can't meet their particular supplier diversity goal, they know that our program is one that we are serious about and that we continue to work toward meeting those goals. So that's an external impact that really we're starting to see take hold even more. Another example of external impact would be in marketing. We work closely also with our marketing team and this is ironic that WellPoint being an insurance company and the healthcare exchange, whether you agree with it or not, we're not going to have a political debate about that. But this is the day that the exchanges are now open. And so we have now consumers. And we've always had consumers. But we hope to have a lot more consumers. So, if diversity is important to our consumers -- and we know it is -- this top 10 for supplier diversity is another way we can brand ourselves with the marketplace. Another area with respect to external is our shoaled shareholders and we know many of you are hopefully shareholders but we have a lot of shareholders. We're a $60 billion company. We are number 35 on the New York Stock Exchange. So we're a big company

and it is important and we know that many of our pliers and many of our diverse suppliers are shareholders. So when we know that diversity is important to shareholders, it is something that's important to us and we know, again, that that brand is something that they can -- that will resonate with them.

And finally, recruiting. We all know that we're looking for the best talent when we're looking for associate talent or when


we're recruiting for associates. There is a lot of research that has shown that applicants clearly are asking about the job, you know, specific questions about the job. The hours, the benefits. Whether they can work remote, those types of things

but more and more they're asking about the company's culture. And part of those questions have been around diversity. How diverse is your board. How diverse is your executive leadership team? How diverse is the department that I'm applying for? And how diverse is your supply base?

So from an external perspective, when we talk about the impacts on the top 10, we see that in sales. We see it in marketing. We see it in shareholder value. And we see it in our ability to recruit the best talent.

>> RAY TOOMER: .How about real quickly. Accenture is not that old. We came

about in 2001IPO. So -- I guess 2002 we had a supplier diversity program mainly reporting and stuff. So to come from 2002 to 2012 to be named in the top 10, you know, we are very proud of that. And the subsequent year to move up three more notches to number 7 for supplier diversity, that was a great achievement for us. We also attained at that same time the same movement from 10 to 7 for our global diversity. So boy, we were a happy company to say the least.

What it meant internally for us, we got a lot of attention. Speak of Diversity Inc. Diversity Inc. leads a lot of our executive training and leadership programs. They're usually invited to those. So they named us and ranked us. The executive in our company that attend those sessions and hear about it, it spread across like wildfire actually within Accenture. So we were very proud of the fact that we had that Diversity Inc. association. Informally as well as formally.

Externally though, we got a lot of inquiries about what are y'all doing over there? What kinds of program do you have? How do you do what you do what you do? And to tell you the truth, it's almost to the point of looking at marketing the product that we have except it is customized for Accenture.

So it's not nothing that can't be simulated elsewhere it's just a matter of your business and applying it within your business. So that was another great thing

the other doors that opened up seemingly was corporate citizenship. A lot of their programs are very in track with what we do in supplier diversity. It's all about the community for them. They have a fantastic program called skills to succeed. Got to tell you about this real quick.

Accenture made a commitment by the year 2015 to train more than -- or to train 250,000 people worldwide to either with a new skill for a job or either to go in business. We achieved the


goal mid-year this year or early this year and we've extended it to 500,000 by the year 2015.

>> Oh, great.>> Wow.(Applause.) >> RAY TOOMER: When you've got that type of citizenship type

efforts going on within the company, it's not a hard sell for me in terms of supplier diversity especially if I link up with them to do things in conjunction with them. KIP program being one, Knowledge is Power program going from grade school all the way up to college. College ambassadors, doing mentoring with them.

It meant a lot to open us up to the rest of Accenture to say hey, you've got a resource here, supplier diversity. We increased our calls. I didn't increase my staff, you know? but increased those calls, increased inquiries and it really helped us out quite a bit and we're very proud of the fact

>> DOMINICA GROOM: I'll just add that Diversity Inc. is important across all areas of inclusion from Marriott. As many of you just mentioned your resources are limited, your team members are few and far between. So it's great because when we get this recognition, either from a supplier diversity perspective or other areas of diversity and inclusion, it's helpful because it keeps the momentum going across the organization, keeps leadership awareness which trickles down into the organization and creates the impact that you need or the pull through or assistance you need with pull through to help to continue to elevate your program especially from a supplier diversity perspective. Externally from Marriott, we're very customer centric, obviously. So a lot of our big corporate or government customers want to understand what it is that we're doing within diversity inclusion space. So this is a great PR tool to let them know that not only are we engaged in the space but we're performing very well and we continue to exceed and excel above you know, our previous performance.

>> DARLENE FULLER: Thank you, everyone.

>> AUDIENCE: There's a question over here.>> AUDIENCE: I'm on the HR side -- stand up.>> AUDIENCE: Hi, I'm Kelly Johnson with J.C. Penney and I

head up our DNI effort for JC Penney and supplier diversity sits in procurement in our organization. I'm in HR. Procurement is in another part of the organization. We partner together quite a bit. My question is what's the best way to monetize supplier diversity? What are some of the resources or measurements that you're using to monetize the ROI for supplier diversity? We have that pretty well baked from a customer standpoint and a workforce standpoint. But I think as an organization, sometimes we


struggle with beyond being the right thing to do, how do we monetize and speak the language to our board of directors to show the value for supplier diversity. So would be curious to know how you all speak to that within your organizations. Thank you.

>> BRENDA BURKE: I would say the one thing that has been most successful for WellPoint has been tying supplier diversity to corporate objectives. And one of our -- I mean, our prime corporate objective is to grow revenue. Any for-profit company is to grow revenue, right?

So since I've been there, our program started seven years ago. And I've always tied supplier diversity to our corporate objectives. And so we started developing -- we started developing what we call revenue tracker. So every time a client requests or we go avenue business and the RFP includes supplier diversity language, we track that. We identify from our sales team in fact we have is procedures in place where a sales team is responsible for notifying us when an RFP comes through the door, we identify a date with the sales team, the client, the amount of the contract, the amount of supplier diversity utilization requirement and we work hand in hand with the sales team throughout that process. If we win that business, we identify that. And most of the time we are winning that business. So we actually identify that spend as -- we can't say that supplier diversity contributed to, you know, $20 million in new contract. But we don't try to dissect it either. We say supplier diversity contributed to that because it was a requirement in the RFP and that has led our executive leaders some years ago to recognize the tremendous value that supplier diversity adds.

>> DARLENE FULLER: You can keep that one since we have this one.

>> RAY TOOMER: .Was that okay, person that asked the question? >> BRENDA BURKE: Person that asked the question, did that

help?>> AUDIENCE: For the sake of time, we'll -->> No, no, please if there's more.>> AUDIENCE: We're retail. So we don't have RFPs where --

that we're responding to that have that component. So I mean, I think it's okay, I don't want to belabor the point. Maybe we can talk offline.

>> BRENDA BURKE: Ours is going to be B2B and B to C.>> Patricia: I wish we had more retail people in here.>> Or business to consumer.>> I'm Alan Lyon. I think I understood what the answer to

the question was. It sounds to me that this has to do with corporate culture. It has to do with the employee engagement.


It has to do with results that you want from corporate culture and it's coming from the top. It's coming from the top corporation. So you're losing out. You're not having middle managers or other managers saying what is ROI in that? They know that to get the results they want from the company, that they focus on these aspects of it.

So, if they do that, they will become aligned with the corporate values, aligned with what they're saying. And adds a congruency. And by bringing suppliers in, it's telling suppliers that we treat you like we do our employees. And it is one of these soft things that says boy, am I proud to work here. And you can see with the folks here in this room, I met a number of from you WellPoint and they're ambassadors. I go oh, my gosh, what a great company. Because they're enthusiastic about it. So I think it's measured in the gallop employee engagement surveys, purpose in different areas. That's what I'm getting from it. Gallup. It comes from the top and aligning to it.

>> DOMINICA GROOM: If I may add.>> Patricia: We have one more respondent on that question.>> AUDIENCE: Hi, I'm Keith Heinz, and I'm with Price

Waterhouse Coopers. And I used to work with the Gap stores. And I want to throw in a little bit about that from maybe a long time ago. But a few points. You would be conspicuous by your absence if you didn't have a supplier diversity at J.C. Penney. So what would happen, let's just say you Marge allies or minimized it. Then your -- marginalized it. Then your competitors even if they didn't do anything to you. Special interest groups would put you in the frying pan because you seem to be a weak link in a chain that people seem to like to attack. So that's insurance.

And the second piece would be many of your suppliers even if you don't know that they are, they're just diverse. I mean, all of us in here, if we didn't have a supplier diversity program, we would have diverse suppliers in our supply chain and part of the supplier diversity effort is to track and report them.

And then the other piece is that you need some risk control and supplier diversity can help you with that.

And the other piece is it can be a valuable tool to recruiting because your employees actually like to know that you practice that kind of economic diversity. You know, it's something that you might want to consider marketing and throwing into your HR program. That was certainly something that the other clothing firms do. They throw that in as, like, oh, yeah. The other piece is like the economic development piece. A lot of times when you're struggling for messages especially because you're in a messaging business in consumer products, it's a great message. And really it's about how you craft it. So sometimes you might have to hire a consultant, you know, to kind of --


(Laughter)But I could go on but I don't want to eat up a lot of time.

But there are some really good practices around that. And that speaks to the ROI. But remember, if nothing else, it's a really inexpensive insurance policy.

>> AUDIENCE: I don't want anybody to think we don't have one.

(Laughter).>> Just saying. >> Your last statement speaks volumes about what happens if

you don't. What happens is people go -->> Thank you, Keith. I'll just add one more thing to that.

I come from a marketing background from a marketing perspective when you're looking at a consumer as a consumer, diversity aside, you have great appeal. You have a permanent place, you already have a diverse consumer market but you can probably target additional consumers by promoting that. You'd be surprised within the Marriott space alone when we tell customers we're partnered with USBLN that creates more opportunities with us. We tell them we're partnered with NGLCC and all these organizations it's a great marketing tool you can leverage to your advantage to get more customers in your stores to buy especially if they know the products you're potentially providing within your stores are being provided by a diverse supplier.

>> BRENDA BURKE: You might want to use that as a metric. I don't know how you track your consumers. Or if you're table to track consumers or if you have a form where people just kind of self-declare who they are. But, if you do, that might be something you could do and then show that to your executive leaders and say wow, look. Look where a huge percent of our base is coming from.

>> DARLENE FULLER: Perfect segue, Brenda. Because the next question is how do you measure the success of your program year-over-year? What metrics do you use?

>> DOMINICA GROOM: Well, you know, the saying in corporate environment in general is if it's not measured, it's not done. So we have to measure this especially within this space because otherwise we would lose the engagement especially from a leadership perspective. With supplier diversity specifically, we do quarterly reporting. So when we're talking about quarterly reporting, there are five key business classifications we're focused on. Of course, disability owned business, women owned LGBT and veteran owned as well. So every quarter we're going in and looking at it from a corporate lens and also a market lens where our hotels are and looking at what it is we're doing within our space. Overall objective from a metrics perspective is to continue to increase our spend annually. So we watch that every


quarter and identify strategies at the beginning of the year but also throughout the year to make sure that we're staying on par or going above and beyond. Also, beyond spend we also look at just making sure that we have strong partnerships with our diverse suppliers. So especially within the market we do what we call an opportunity report. So we partner with our procurement services company that leverage, and we look at hotels for instance within the L.A. market if there are 15 hotels within this market and we have five leveraging a diverse that provides product A why aren't the others? We do a report that shows here are the opportunities, here's what you can be doing, we watch closely to see what contracts are expiring and what new contract opportunities are available so we can tap into those different hotels and say hey, this is a great opportunity here and you can connect with your other counterparts within other hotels within the market to see if this is a vendor you'd be interested in using. And finally we have started to look into developing a platform where we can continue to engage businesses that we haven't really incorporated within our supply chain. A lot of time we get approached by businesses we want to leverage but we don't have the opportunity at the present time so we're trying to engage them and keep them engaged throughout the process or keep them engaged throughout the time we really don't need them so when it's time to engage them and there is a contract available they're prepared and ready to go. All of those play a key role in our metrics and over all operation to make sure we can continue to sustain our program and continue to grow and develop our program as well.

>> RAY TOOMER: With Accenture, we have several different metrics, however, the common one percent diversity spend, how many diverse suppliers we have out of our total number, but we also look at the performance of these suppliers in particular. We have a strong mentoring program that we bring a lot of our IT technology suppliers through.

So within that program oddly enough, we have what we call a contractor exchange with preferred suppliers. About 70% of those preferred suppliers are diverse. And about 60% of them come out of our mentoring opportunity. So that mentoring program is very strong by tracking in particular the performance of the ones that have completed the program over the years and that's just regular supplier performance type metrics that we do

we also have a tool now that we've implemented just to get across being a global company, get across the categories. EY can get great IT technology spend because that's my prevalent category for purchasing. However, I'm looking at my marketing, my -- you know, communications in marketing. The HR professional services legal in particular.


Those are lower percentages for me. So the metrics that I want to do there is track the category spend, track how the suppliers are doing with that category. Can they jump from one category to another category? The metrics that come out of that is basically tracked also on a project pipeline level with our global category directors, we actually have all of our people in procurement that has a sourcing event go into the project pipeline tool and up front indicate whether or not they're going to utilize a diverse supplier in the sourcing event.

You know, it's half and half. Some are not. Some are. But that draws attention, first thing. To say hey, I've got a job to do over here with these folks that said no. I go back to the global category director and say half of your folks said no over here, what's up? Next thing I know, slight improvement and we do track that improvement across categories.

>> BRENDA BURKE: Just one other thing that we track: We require that our tier 1 suppliers subcontract with diverse-owned suppliers and it's included in our RFPs. So when we're launching an RFP, that language is there. So we're tracking the -- from the point that the RFP is launched when the RFP comes back, we have a checklist that our sourcing team uses to identify the supplier who responded, whether they included the supplier diversity commitment. If so, the diverse supplier, the per sent, et cetera, et cetera. So we're tracking how many of those RFPs are coming back with positive responses which are not. And then we have a statement in the RFP that states for our tier 1 suppliers if you're having any problems or challenges locating diverse suppliers, we have a shared mailbox for the suppliers to respond to. So we don't really give them a lot of wiggle room.

>> AUDIENCE: Just a quick question. I want to make sure at the tier 2 level that has a box for DOBEs, I want to make sure I'm tracking disability owned businesses for tier 2 for that response.

>> BRENDA BURKE: My response. Yes. Yes, we include -- we're actually proud to be a founding member of the disability supplier diversity program. And so we have -- we include ethnic minority, women, LGBT, veterans, and persons with disabilities. And that's included in our statement.

>> Good.>> RAY TOOMER: We have only tracked service disabled

veterans because of our federal business. However, out of this conference I intend 20 to go back and we have a category opened up for USBLN looking for certifications and starting to track it.

(Applause.) >> DARLENE FULLER: I'm glad you see the light, Ray. Way to

go.Okay.


>> Patricia: May I make a comment? The Disability Equality Index which you all heard about at lunch today and the sold-out crowd next door, well the Disability Equality Index actually will have components that we're talking about that really provides an ability for corporation to more closely track and measure what they're doing in the area of providing opportunity whether it's first tier or second tier. So I just wanted to mention that. I think that's something that you -- if you haven't already looked at the Disability Equality Index and shown interest in it, I definitely would encourage you to do so.

>> DARLENE FULLER: Just to make a comment on the whole second tier, we originally when we did our seconds tier program we only tracked minority and women-owned businesses and then last year we expanded it to include disabled, veteran, LGBT. And it was interesting the number of companies that came back like oh, will you track that too? So it kind of -- I don't know how many of those companies because we tried to have conversations. So I'm not sure if they've actually started tracking those things. But they -- some of them have begun investigating it. So I think that as corporations and as larger corporations, we really should -- you know, we need to be ambassadors to help other people at least to start -- pose a question and have them start thinking about it.

>> Patricia: May I ask one more question, a question instead of a statement. And that is I love hearing what each of your companies has done to achieve this status of top corporation. But my question is simply this: We've all heard of the term "resting on your laurels."

Is there -- how do you get the energy within the company to continue to achieve even more in the area of inclusion when you've already received this acknowledgment of top corporation for supplier diversity or top corporation for disabled-owned firms. I would be interested in hopefully others would be interested in knowing that.

>> RAY TOOMER: Just last week, as a matter of fact -- (Laughter) -- my manager and I go through our performance, you know. And I put down some new objectives. And naturally she's forming some objectives. And one of them was okay, yeah, you got a great program. Whacha going to do next? How are you going to build upon it? So expanding it out into the communities more. One thing I'm really considering -- well not considering, it's about to implemented. I mentioned KIP. That's a program that you go in and mentor the kids and everything else. Well, these folks that I've mentored, the suppliers that I've mentored, I'm paying it forward or they are. So they're going back and they're going to be mentors to these students as well as offer them internships.


>> DOMINICA GROOM: From the Marriott perspective, I think that you know, we always talk about having sea level alignment which is great. But outside of that the associate alignment is even better because those are your folks who are really going to come in and help you to pull through those efforts. So my predecessor, Phillip has started the supplier diversity champion program and that's what we leverage to essentially get the message across our corporate disciplines and also throughout the market. You'd be surprised once you give them the information they'll take it and run with it and it keeps building momentum so I literally have people e-mailing me constantly through the organization and after we heard the story or told the story through PR channels or what have you, I want to get involved, how can I help? And a lot of them have personal connections to these different diverse spaces so you'd be surprised and once you tell the story, people will come. So just a matter of continuing to tell the story, communicate the successes and make sure that people are -- you know, coming forward and helping to keep them moving along.

>> BRENDA BURKE: I would ditto both of those. But I would just also add that one of the things that we have not done is funded scholarships for diverse suppliers and there are some organizations, the NMSDC has a partnership with northwestern. And we bank has a partnership with TUCK. So one of the questions on the Diversity Inc. survey is have you contributed financially to a diverse supplier through -- it doesn't -- I think it does say those but it doesn't have to be those. But just helping a diverse supplier financially. Now, we do that through cost savings for diverse supplier. Like we donate a booth or we invite suppliers to events that would otherwise cost them money. And so that helps you know defray some of their costs. But we want to also include in that by this time next year to be able to say that we're also helping suppliers with funding as well.

>> Patricia: We'd love to work with you on that.>> DOMINICA GROOM: We have a question.>> AUDIENCE: I just have a question and a comment. In my

program when you have these things like you're talking about don't forget about -- I created a section called community impact. That's all the stuff that you do that doesn't show up anywhere but you're making an impact in the community. You're creating jobs, you're educating creating awareness and all that stuff. So don't forget about that. But can you guys talk about your business line partners who have noncertified suppliers and they have huge spend. Talk -- you guys have wonderful programs, I know everybody's -- on the dais up there. Can you talk about that a little bit. Because I think when you talk about retail and some other areas and when you have your entirely partners who


are balking at getting these suppliers certified and they're not meeting their goal. The goal is sitting right there in their lap type of thing.

>> RAY TOOMER: .I'll start this one.Procurement. I'm in procurement.Procurement has its tendencies to go with proven suppliers

or what have you. And sometimes introducing new to them is a pretty tough -- as a matter of fact.

So procurement actually we involve them in just about every event that we have, bringing them in in front of the suppliers as far as exhibiting, our exhibit booth, make sure we have procurement people there answering the questions that are relative to the categories, across categories, don't just have one sitting there. My CPO is usually in there. We do stuff that really has an impact on the organization totally. What I've found most recent is that our employee relation groups in particular, one of the strongest being NGLCC types, LGBT affinity groups within our company. All we have to do is say there's an event. And because I'm only two people and I can't travel everywhere, guess what? We've got delegates. They can go to those exhibits and conventions and what have you and spread the word. And they have spread the word.

Another way in which I have done it is with the mentoring program. I went to my procurement pool of managers and made sure that they were mentors within the program and we got a very great response as a matter of fact, from our procurement people, which just brings it closer to home. Tough sell for me but right now I think we're about 70% of those managers out there not typically coming through procurement are now coming through procurement. If they hit procurement we put them in the direction. So that's how we handle it.

>> DOMINICA GROOM: For us it's just continuing engagement to your point making sure you're connected with your procurement colleagues or decision-makers across the organization. And also making sure you're aware of what's coming because a lot of times when these contracts come up, they're going to proceed either way. They're not going to be top of minds. So my job as supplier diversity professional is to make sure I understand what's coming within the next 6-12 months and is that I'm actively sourcing viable candidates or supplier diverse or diverse companies that can compete. You know, we're not just checking a box here. We're maintaining a business and we have customers to serve. So we don't just want to put a diverse supplier in a space to say we've checked a box. We want someone who can compete within the RFP process and if they were to make it through the process can provide the quality product or service


we're seeking as an organization. Also from a leadership perspective to your point inviting them to these events we've had leaders attends various events through the year and they get approached by suppliers who try to engage with us and say I've tried, I've registered for a portal, I got a rejection notice. I talked to your supplier diversity professional and they say there's no opportunity what can we do and when they hear that by one or two people and we're getting inundated daily, they understand and they're taking that back to their counterparts at their level and that message is trickling down through the organization. I know people get tired of hearing us talk about supplier diversity but we have to keep talking. This is not going away this is not only where we need to be but where we want to be so we have to make sure we keep championing the effort. The only thing I would add is that we issue a calendar of events every year to -- starts with our executive leaders and they're the ones that report directly to our CEO and then they cascade it to their business units. So, if I live in Indianapolis and my team -- well not like a big team but my other two.

(Laughter).>> Patricia: You have to talk big.>> BRENDA BURKE: One is in Virginia right over there and

the other is Indianapolis. But we have a big office in Thousand Oaks, California. If there are big events in California. I don't always go to California. But we have a team of folks, business unit partners in California who would go to those events.

So this calendar has cascaded and the expectation of the executive leaders not Brenda Burke is that they will partner with us. And the executive leaders fund it.

>> We have a question. >> Patricia: Who do I go to first? Kim? >> AUDIENCE: Hello. My name is Kim Willis out of Atlanta,

Georgia, with Infinite Business Solutions. You all have obviously displayed such success. So I have a question, actually twofold, what have been some of your biggest challenges with your suppliers and if that has been just our growth or lack of our ability to grow and/or what has been some of your voids and some of your programs that you just have not been able to fill? So what keeps you up at night is my point?

>> DOMINICA GROOM: Everything.>> RAY TOOMER: .Want to start?>> DOMINICA GROOM: There's a lot that keeps us up at night.

Good things of course. For us we really are committed to this space and adds a supplier diversity professional, I struggle with having to tell businesses no.


>> But a lot of times I have to because we get approached by a lot of businesses would just aren't equipped to handle any component of the business. I get a message, this happens more often than not where they say hi, get my name wrong or they'll say we're looking forward to working with Hilton and we're Marriott. And for me, it's not just Hilton, it could be Accenture or WellPoint and you're talking to Marriott. I get that you all are small business owners and I get that it's time consuming to reach out to all these folks. But for me attention to detail is important. And if you can't get something as simple as you know, just the company name correctly, then that's -- that sets off a trigger in my mind because I don't want to put you in front of my decision Markers until you're equipped. So a lot of times still me being who I am, I want to engage and talk about different opportunities. So a lot of times the funnel is through me or other supplier diversity professionals in prepping you to talk to the decision-makers and a lot of times we get push back on that. They want to instantaneously being connected because the first impression is the right impression so I want to make sure you make the right first impression and sometimes that takes multiple conversations and our availability is limited because we're at conferences such as these are in meetings so that's my biggest challenge is making sure diverse suppliers are prepped and ready to handle the business. Another thing is a lot of suppliers diverse or not want to take over the world. They want to take the biggest chunk of business and what I try to communicate to suppliers is try the small piece. If we can get you in with this small avenue, that can create a world of opportunity but sometimes you have to start in the state before you can take over the nation. So that's really something that's hard to communicate because I get -- I appreciate and I get the passion and I love the passion and I'm just as passionate as you are to get you that business but I just understand the dynamic and what we're up against in our organization. And sometimes less is more and you know, we can eventually get you more by starting off with less.

>> BRENDA BURKE: Ditto, ditto, ditto.

WellPoint, the is spelled with a capital W and a capital P, so most suppliers when they're responding, don't capitalize the P. So I automatically know they have not gone to the Web site, they have not spoken with me because I always say that 0 an audience. So the importance of spelling the company name right is really important. The other thing is suppliers and I absolutely agree with what Dominca just said. Another thing I try to mentor suppliers on is please don't start -- someone said this in a conference yesterday but don't start with I'm a diverse


owned supplier and I want to do business. That's okay if you want to start that with me. But you don't want to go to our business unit saying that you're a diverse owned company because they want to know what you can do. What business solution are you bringing. What do you know about WellPoint well enough that you are bringing a business solution? And then if it matters to you, WellPoint, that I'm also a diverse owned supplier, then I am or that I'm certified. So that's going to be really important. Another thing I would say -- and we all make errors although I started off as an English major in college and English was my favorite subject so I just -- I can't stand to look at something with a misspelled word or even punctuation problems. So I just always -- and when I'm getting information from anyone whether it's a supplier or whether it's just any inquiry, I generally in you know the age of computers and you know, we're sending e-mails. We're forwarding email information to key decision-makers. And so I never forward one if I see an error. Or if I see the name spelled wrong. But I will call the supplier and just kind of help them understand the importance of that first impression.

Internally the challenge I think is still with the middle managers. You know, you have the top who really gets it and then you have those who have supplier diversity as part of their goals which all of our procurement members do. And that's a significant part of their annual goal.

But you have those middle managers who just -- you know, sometimes just don't get it. And sometimes they are some of the very ones who are making the decisions. So having access to a number of different middle managers with a small team is sometimes challenging.

>> RAY TOOMER: .You know, I say the best advice I can give to the suppliers

is be patient. Especially when you're dealing with a large corporation. It's not overnight that you get a contract. We have to mitigate risk a lot within corporations. So we want to know first of all, whether you're delivered, can you perform. Those sort of things. And we will check on those type things. So being patient is one of the virtues I wish we could have of most of the suppliers. The other thing is when you come to the exhibit booth and see the Accenture name, don't ask me what does Accenture does. I mean, yes, I can understand Accenture is not a household name or nothing like that. But do your research. These organizations such as we bank, NGLCC, USBLN, they're giving you at least the suppliers anyway, education on what to do when you attend the conversations, knowing how to do your homework and everything else. Come prepared. That's impressive actually as opposed to "So what do you do?"


>> Okay.Patricia: May I ask a question? >> DARLENE FULLER: One last question I want to ask my last

question. >> When you have difficulty finding suppliers, disability

owned suppliers, what are you doing, is there any special effort or plan that you have to fill a void in specific categories that are core to your business?

>> RAY TOOMER: .For me it's working with the global category directors

across categories. Monitoring their progress. We definitely are tracking on a global basis now especially where we can, all diversity spend. Such that a commodity would know exactly their performance. As well as knowing their opportunity. We're tracking that too. So that's one thing we're doing.

>> DOMINICA GROOM: For us our partnership with organizations like USBLN is critical because we leverage a lot of the different events that are hosted, the procurement fairs, the match making sessions, those are critical. You all do a fantastic job of making sure we're connected once we identify what our needs are, you connect us with those suppliers we're looking for and that's been instrumental in helping us to identify the right candidates to grow certain areas.

>> BRENDA BURKE: Echo that.>> RAY TOOMER: .You get your last question.>> DARLENE FULLER: Actually, I do have a comment on that.

We with Sodexo, a lot of things we buy are food products because it's so capital intensive that there are not that many diverse suppliers in those spaces. So we actually had a meeting, had someone come in and to a lot of our suppliers about if they're going to sell off any of their divisions, to consider selling it to a diverse company. Because, of course, I wish it always happens they sell them why didn't you tell me. I know they're not allowed to. So we tried to plant that seed in those manufacturer's minds so that if that opportunity comes that they will reach out and there's resources provided at that meeting.

>> Patricia: That's good.>> DARLENE FULLER: I haven't had it a payout yet but I'm

hopeful. So my last question for everyone is you guys all have a great program. I'd like if you could share one of your -- you say best practices but now we're saying next practices that really help to grow your program that the audience can actually take home and implement in their supplier diversity program. I know you have a lot of great things you do. But, if you can share one of the tidbits.

>> RAY TOOMER: .


Okay. Briefly, we have a mentoring program. Oddly enough called DSDP. Diverse supplier development program.

Very interesting. However, we -- for an 18-month period we bring in suppliers typically about a group of 25. We pair them with our partners basically levels. We call them our managing directors now. Along this year we started something new also because I want to get closer to the actual person that's handling the purchase. So we go to the senior managers now. At this point we have a team of two mentors per protégée and they're typically across different purchasing categories or disciplines. That's one thing we've done with the program recently that's really taken off. And I'm talking to the tune of having 50 executives volunteer their time within this program. And that's huge actually

so one of the key things that we're doing.>> DOMINICA GROOM: For Marriott I would say it's the

supplier diversity champions program. So whether it's corporate champions across corporate disciplines or associates on the properties within the market just making sure that you have that alignment with them and you communicate the deliverables related to supplier diversity and so that they can help you with the pull through. You can't do this alone. The reality of getting additional resources within the space is slim Ted to you have to leverage limited so you have to leverage the folks who are willing to volunteer and assist you with pulling through your different objectives.

>> BRENDA BURKE: And we have a program where we quarterly submit to our executive leaders and at WellPoint we have 7 of them. So they make up every component of diverse -- of WellPoint's spend. Categories.

We send each of them every quarter a supplier diversity report that outlines their top 10 suppliers. They -- for the second quarter they could see what they spent the first quarter and then what they spent the second quarter they can also see what they spent each quarter of the previous year. We also included a peer chart. So we now have a way for them to see how their departments are contributing to our goal compared to their executive peers. And so data drives decisions but data also drives action. And those executive leaders send me messages thank you Brenda, we see that we're really getting better. Or you know, if their percent went down one below somebody else, it's like what can we have done differently. So we love it. And so we've been doing that for a few years and it really is paying dividends.

>> DARLENE FULLER: That was so quick. I thought you were going to take a long time. I have more time for more questions.


Unless does anybody -- okay.>> AUDIENCE: Mark Ellson with JEMNI. This takes off that

same respond, going to that next level, some companies work their internal goals. Some companies communicate those external goals within the categories of supplier diversity so that when small companies are trying to prospect, that if you're over inundated and have way too many DOBEs, that it helps us do prospecting so that we have a lot of energy that we do doing our homework and all those things. So as you go to that next level, I know its protected information. But do you ever foresee that you would publish your goals within the categories publicly? And some companies do but I'm just wondering what that next level looks like.

>> RAY TOOMER: .We haven't done that in terms of required reporting because

of federal contracts have we really published anything. But going back to people becoming aware of the program and all, when we did let people know the type of percentages that we're hitting on diverse spend. Very proud of that. It didn't take much, they started asking over and over again, how can I help, how can I do this, how can I do that? Interesting. Phenomena.

>> DOMINICA GROOM: I would say over all as a corporation we're just focused on increasing our spend and that's what we communicate, that's our global message that we communicate externally and that's what we're focused on. The percentages are more relevant or the specific numerical objectives are more relevant for colleagues within the organization because they're the ones focused on that goal. The overall message we need to communicate to the world is we're involved in the space and we continue to sustain it and grow our program.

>> BRENDA BURKE: I absolutely agree with that. We don't publish our goals either. But we're proud to -- and I think my colleagues could probably say the same thing we're proud that we year-over-year are increasing goals so we've never not increased our goals in the past 7 years our program has been in existence.

>> Patricia: If I might expand on the question the question came up and I think you asked if in one of our earlier sessions, the dot frank session was around categories because I think what the suppliers would real hey like to know is where does the opportunity exist. So is there -- do you provide information on either category opportunities that exist at any one period of time or projects that are happening so that our suppliers can have access to that information in their planning?

>> RAY TOOMER: .Ray Toomer was I clear?>> RAY TOOMER: .Yes on both. We go to a lot of supplier forums, they ask


what's coming in the next six months versus a year out or what have you. Once we attend those conferences, usually we don't have anything within a 6 months because we're working on that already. Something outside, yes. And we give them a measure of it. We tracked our categories to the point in which we know where the suppliers are also. If we see indicators that a supplier can actually go across categories, that's a good feeling. Because we can spread them across the categories, so yes.

>> Patricia: That's on one-on-one interaction so working with you, a supplier could find out where that opportunity is.

>> RAY TOOMER: .Yes. We never go out and do a shout out.>> Patricia: There's no list.>> RAY TOOMER: .But when we look at the constituency of these organizations

and I'm looking at my WEBNC, 55% marketing communications, my toughest department to sell actually. Within supplier diversity because they want the big shops for brand type protection. So those other indicators that they're aware of too because I'll tell them. I say that is a tough sell but I'll try. One of those.

You know? As opposed to hey, it's wide open.>> DOMINICA GROOM: And for us over all, it's just all

diverse suppliers, so, if you're a diverse supplier we want to try to get you engaged within the space, specifically we try to communicate on our Web site. We try to keep it updated I would say twice a year updated with contracts that are coming so people can know the types of commodities that we're seeking and also to your point procurement fairs and supplier diversity forums we communicate that whether it's through big forums or one-on-one meetings with suppliers.

>> BRENDA BURKE: We don't publicize it but we communicate it at events like this and mark maker and either events. Match maker.

>>>> AUDIENCE: Just to help answer your question, you have to

remember these are companies running their business. So when I was working at my former company, I have a meeting in January about all these cap ex projects that are going to go done. The economic downturn hits, all of that stuff gets washed. Or you know, acquisitions and mergers, now you created a whole other opportunity that's not new construction. It may be repositioning those properties. So point that I made earlier, read the paper. Look at these press releases. Because press releases are telling you are they expanding or retracting or acquiring. Well, point acquired Amerigroup. Every time those kinds of activities


happened, those are opportunities. But it's critically when you talk to the buyer and category manager that you're asking them. Give me some insight on how you buy XYZ. One last thing, one of our colleagues, Veronica Gibson from Johnson & Johnson, I love her because her feeling is we're already married to a supplier. Now you want us to cheat him them with you? So again, the suppliers are already there. So new suppliers, you're talking about 6 months, 18 months sometimes three years these contracts left. Sometimes the contracts get renewed and nobody -- everybody in procurement knows they get renewed but nobody else in the company knows. The other person everybody overlooks I personally think the administrative assistants that work for these executives. They are influencers. Make sure you do not disregard the executive assistant of any executive that you run into because that person is an influencer of a procurement activity.

No question about it.>> RAY TOOMER: .Good point.>> BRENDA BURKE: Thanks, robin.>> DARLENE FULLER: All right. As a diverse business, one

thing I can also say, please make sure to keep your certifications updated because if you don't, if you happen to let it expire when they go to look, you're not going to be there. And also make sure that your email addresses are correct. Because often times you go to send someone a message to say oh, there's an opportunity and you get 3 or 4 bounce backs. So -- and if there's other people in that space, they're probably not going to take the time to look it up.

>> AUDIENCE: Ann page with WellPoint. Something I've seen happen in the past when someone leaves a company, for example, one of our diverse suppliers we had the person that I interacted with leave their company. They never notified me. They never let me know who the person was that was following after them. Nobody let me know. So when I reached out to them, I had no contact. I had to make a bunch of phone calls, send e-mails. I got bounce backed e-mails so that's important to let your companies know if somebody leaves.

>> DOMINICA GROOM: Great point.>> DARLENE FULLER: I just want to -- we have a couple

minutes. I'm going to give Patricia the floor to make announcements for tomorrow. I want to thank our panelists for doing such a great job.

(Applause.)And thank you audience for being so interactive and asking

those questions to make it a great day. Thanks. Patricia. >> Patricia: Thank you, it was a really great session.


Thanks to our panelist and moderator, but also thanks to you for your questions. I wanted to announce what's ahead for tonight. Right after this session we'll have the DSDP reception. I hope you'll all find us. I like to think of it as the DSDP family. We've invited board members to join us as well. So we'll look forward to seeing you then. I would like to mention our session tomorrow. We only have one but we have a busy day tomorrow and that session is “Going Beyond the Registration Portal.” So we hope that you'll join us for that session.

Also, tomorrow we have the business exchange match makers. So we have those all set and we're really excited about what we see coming out of that in terms of really building relationships and finding out about contract opportunities. And so we're looking forward to that. We'll also mention for our corporations we'll have the DSDP founding partners and corporate members’ luncheon meeting. Did I say meeting? Yeah, we're going to work a little bit but we're looking forward to sharing information with our DSDP members but also getting input from you. And then while I'm at it, I'll go ahead and mention we'll have our GALA awards dinner night and the following day, the closing plenary will feature supply chain and supplier diversity.

Thank you(Applause.)

***This text is being provided in a rough draft format.

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conference.usbln.orgconference.usbln.org/2013_conference/speaker_materials... · Web viewAnd that is I love hearing what each of your companies has done to achieve this status of