Coupa announces global initiative to make it easier for enterprises to increase their spend with minority-owned businesses.
Yesterday, Coupa Software announced an initiative making it easier for enterprises to increase their spend with diverse and inclusive suppliers. The Coupa Inclusion Initiative programme provides new resources, tools, and technologies, including the launch of a supplier portal connecting buyers with minority suppliers to drive economic impact.
Impacting Businesses
The focus of the initiative is that inclusion becomes a strategic part of the business, rather than just filling quotients. Standalone diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have struggled to make a significant impact on business supply chains, due to a lack of access to the right technology and information. The Coupa Inclusion Initiative focuses on enabling companies to find, select, and direct spend to hundreds of thousands of diverse and inclusive suppliers via the platform.
Strengthen and Scale
One of the missions of the platform is to help diverse suppliers strengthen and scale. They aim to do this by providing resources such as whitepapers, videos, and certifications. All of these resources will help minority suppliers gain the requirements needed to partner with larger companies.
Guiding a Successful Future
An advisory board of global diversity leaders and experts has been established to help guide Coupa to become a destination for inclusive suppliers who need mentoring, exposure, and connections with buyers. The company’s Business Spend Management (BSM) platform has cumulatively processed $1.8 trillion in business spending, which allows it to uniquely oversee the business spending habits of these multinational firms, including during periods of extreme economic stress.
Directing Corporate Spend to Diverse Suppliers
A new supplier portal will enable global businesses to find diverse and inclusive suppliers to meet their corporate goals. It will make inclusive suppliers accessible by region, industry and diversity classification. Furthermore, it will provide knowledge from global supplier diversity certification and advocacy organisations to create the right inclusive supply chain.
Partnerships
Previously, Coupa has partnered with many leading diversity and inclusion organisations. These include the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council and National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Now, they will be working alongside the Red Cross to represent America’s diverse population. Through this, they hope to help companies meet their diversity goals from the inside out.
