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Accenture promotes an inclusive work environment that influences how we run our business, and we strive to work with others who embrace our values. Our supplier inclusion and diversity efforts demonstrate our commitment to inclusive procurement practices to create long-term value for our clients and our communities. We focus on minority-, ethnic- and women-owned businesses and those owned by persons with disabilities, visible and otherwise; veterans with and without disabilities; refugees; people geographically remote from labor markets; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons.
Our Global Supplier Inclusion & Diversity program includes 16 countries, engaging diverse- and small-/medium-sized businesses into our supply- and value chain and supporting local marketplace empowerment through capacity building programs and collaborations with several global and local entrepreneurship organizations, including WEConnect International (which we co-founded and on which board we serve) in 12 countries across Asia Pacific, Europe, Africa and Latin America, and Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in India, which aims to improve the livelihood of former female waste-pickers by strengthening their business.
We believe that small, medium and diverse businesses should have equal opportunity to participate in the procurement sourcing process. This enables Accenture to increase our scope to find best-in-class suppliers who can bring us innovative and cost-competitive solutions for our supply and value chain.
We focus not only on expanding our own pool of small and diverse suppliers, but also on encouraging our large suppliers to not only leverage small and diverse suppliers on Accenture’s behalf, also to create an inclusive work environment while providing services to Accenture.
We have been able to track our diverse procurement spend most consistently in the United States, where we achieved a rate of approximately 30 percent of total procurement spend with diverse suppliers in fiscal 2016.
Learn more about our Supplier Inclusion & Diversity program in our Corporate Citizenship Report.
Accenture’s Diverse Supplier Development Program (DSDP) is a key component of our commitment to developing and expanding relationships with minority, women-owned, LGBT, persons with disabilities, veterans and other diverse businesses. DSDP represents a strategic sourcing strategy for Accenture and our clients. The formal, 12- to 18-month program pairs senior Accenture executive "mentors" with diverse supplier “protégé” companies to help them grow their own businesses. In turn, we, our clients and our communities benefit from their innovative contributions.
We launched DSDP in the United States in 2006. Through the years, we have expanded the program’s geographic footprint as well as the composition of our protégé classes. For example, classes include protégés from LGBT-owned businesses as well as those owned by veterans, with and without disabilities. As of fiscal 2016, 101 diverse suppliers had graduated or were in the process of completing the program—70 in the United States, 17 in Canada and 14 in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Our goal is to graduate 170 diverse suppliers by fiscal 2020. We are actively working to achieve this goal, with plans to graduate multiple classes in Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States in fiscal 2017.
Read our Corporate Citizenship Report to learn more about Accenture's Supplier Inclusion & Diversity Program. If you have questions, contact us at supplier.inclusion@accenture.com.
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