Social procurement is a key driver in achieving ESG, CSR and sustainability goals. But how do you do it, and what are the challenges? We talk to some of Australia’s leading organisation’s in the first of this three-part blog series.
The world of business is changing. In recent years alone we’ve seen a rapid overhaul in workplace culture - employer flexibility has become the norm. We’ve seen the coining of the ‘great resignation’ phenomenon. And an increase in employee and consumer expectations that businesses give back to the community – to name a few.
The social procurement movement has also seen a shift. No longer a ‘nice to have’, social procurement has cemented its position in business as usual. The State of Social Procurement 2021 survey had 86% of respondents affirm that the demand for social procurement will keep increasing, due to consumer and government expectations. There are many leading Australian Businesses already leading the charge for procurement with impact.
Those who aren’t procuring for ‘good’ are getting left behind.
Social procurement is one of the most impactful ways to generate positive social outcomes, while drawing on your existing spend. It builds your brand and reputation, enhances employee engagement, and drives consumer loyalty. So, what’s stopping every business across Australia from engaging in the switch to social enterprise?
We spoke with representatives from Australia Post, Major Roads Projects Victoria (MRPV), Microsoft and Westpac to gain their insight and learn how they’re overcoming barriers to champion social procurement in their organisations.
Here we'll unpack the first step in using your existing procurement spend, for good.
- Get buy in
- Start early
- Look beyond the spend
- Always come back to consistency
- Think outside the box
1. Getting buy in
Change management from within plays a crucial role for the social procurement practitioner. Getting social procurement onto your organisation's agenda is how you set the tone for your strategy.
But… how?
“In my experience, it’s when people hear the powerful individual and community stories as to how the spend of the purchasing activity has impacted their livelihood. That’s when people get on board,” Eliza Brookes (Procurement Specialist, Fleet, Logistics & Automation at Australia Post) explains.
Dave Andrews (previous Procurement Lead at Microsoft) wholeheartedly agrees, stating that even just being able to say they worked with Microsoft, has opened many doors for these businesses.
“The level of investment doesn’t need to be significant for us to have a significant impact.”
Stories from the ground are crucial in showing the impact. But for many businesses the barrier can be knowing which social enterprises to invest in – and clarity as to how they are really delivering impact. How can you know?
“Without Social Traders we really would struggle to understand which businesses we should be investing with, what impact they truly have and to build trust and impact in this area,” Dave says.
“Social Traders will always bring a new social enterprise to the table,” Kylie (Manager of Social Value, Major Roads Projects Victoria) adds. “There are always organisations that are merging into new organisations or new service provisions and so on. Without Social Traders’ insight, I don’t think we could ever have been where we are right now.”
For MRPV, networking sessions also played a huge role - these break down barriers and give everyone a better understanding of the social procurement process.
“We deliberately combined Aboriginal businesses and social enterprises together because it gives them an opportunity to speak directly to our buyers in our supply chain. Having Social Traders support for those sessions is just invaluable, because having them there, it demystifies, it answers questions on the run and everyone who is in our supply chain is now informed about what they can provide for them.”
Image courtesy of the team over at certified social enterprise Reground.
Part two of this series will unpack how starting early, looking beyond your spend and creating consistency can build social procurement momentum.