How Social Procurement can drive competitive advantage

I was delighted to join Lord Victor Adebowale to host our second senior leadership dinner at the House of Lords on Thursday 22nd January. Convened by telos and Social Enterprise UK,  the dinner was an excellent opportunity to discuss the latest trends and developments in the space and build on the findings of the State of Social Procurement report launched at Davos earlier in the week.

Attendees were all senior procurement leaders in global organisations. This is a time of unprecedented complexity for these leaders. Within the supply chain there is the challenge of geopolitical shocks, supply chain resilience, cost pressure, AI disruption and sustainability requirements. Whilst internally there is the perennial battle for talent and procurement’s seat at the table as a strategic driver of value. In a more fractured world, all of these challenges present differently at a regional and local level.

In the context of all this, it would be easy to dismiss the opportunity of social procurement as a nice to have in less turbulent times. It was therefore hugely heartening to hear the level of commitment and engagement within the room. With a full mix of B2B, B2C and public sector facing businesses, one would expect varying levels of engagement with this topic.

And whilst individual context and drivers did undoubtedly differ, many of the core threads remained the same:

·       That social procurement can be a driver of differentiation internally – an opportunity to showcase to talent and leadership that they are doing procurement differently by seeking to engage suppliers that proactively deliver impact through every aspect of their business models.

·       That procurement leaders are looking for ways to share and collaborate on this agenda to support their teams to learn from others and go further.

·       That social procurement can support and drive the scope 3 agenda and shouldn’t be seen as competing with it.

·       That there is a huge opportunity to collaborate with governments to drive this agenda forward

·       That building on the success of the SEUK programme in the UK to generate truly global impact is possible, and already happening in some businesses.

At telos, we’re committed to making this vision a reality. Working with our partners and with the support of the global social enterprise community, we can create lasting impact and incredible mutual benefit. We look forward to continuing the conversation.