Targets 5% of annual addressable procurement spend to social
enterprises and to diverse businesses by 2025 to tackle social
inequalities and environmental imperatives
TORONTO, Oct. 6, 2020 /CNW/ - SAP
SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced 5 & 5 by '25, a corporate
initiative targeting five per cent of addressable spend with social
enterprises and with diverse businesses by 2025. In setting this
target, SAP aims to inspire organizations around the world to buy
more goods and services from purposeful suppliers, making a
positive collective impact on the communities they operate in.
Social enterprises are businesses culturally and operationally
focused on changing the world. They are similar to other
commercially viable businesses, but with three crucial differences:
They are founded and governed on the basis of a clear social,
cultural or environmental mission; they reinvest the majority of
their profit back into this mission; and they are majority
controlled solely in the interest of this mission. A diverse
supplier is a business that is at least 51% owned and operated by
an individual or group that is part of a traditionally
underrepresented or underserved demographic; such as women-owned
businesses, minority-owned business, and indigenous-owned
businesses, among others.
According to the World Bank, global procurement spend in 2019
was at least EUR 12 trillion. The
government of Canada alone spends
CAD $22 billion, on average,
procuring goods and services annually. If just a small fraction of
what public and private sectors spend on procurement went to social
enterprises and diverse businesses, those organizations would have
the power to tackle some of the world's most pressing social and
environmental problems.
The announcement will impact all SAP's global markets, but will
initially be focused on Canada,
Australia, and the UK. Based on
early pilots, SAP estimates it could direct up to CAD $80 million of its addressable global spend per
year to social enterprises and diverse suppliers by 2025. Across
U.S. Fortune 500 companies, the amount per year could be up to CAD
$34 billion.
SAP Executive Board member for Customer Success and recently
appointed Global Buy Social Ambassador for Social Enterprise UK
Adaire Fox-Martin announced the 5 & 5 by '25 initiative at
SAP's Procurement Reimagined event in Singapore. "Every company in every industry
needs to procure," Fox-Martin said. "We all need soap in our
washrooms, landscaping for our offices, food and drink in our
cafeterias, marketing services, office supplies, and even pest
control. These and many more are all products and services provided
by social enterprises and diverse businesses. This is money we are
spending anyway. Why not spend it with suppliers who are delivering
social impact as well?"
Procurement with social enterprises
Recent efforts have shown promise. In a pilot program in the UK,
SAP teamed up with Social Enterprise UK to define and execute
on a social-procurement strategy. Within nine months, SAP had
identified addressable spend of approximately GBP 30M and directed more than 2 per cent of this
to over 20 different UK social enterprises. By including more
purposeful suppliers into its supply chain, SAP has experienced
better quality in products and services and has even lowered
costs.
Seeing how scalable the program was and the potential for model
replication in other markets, SAP established a relationship with
purchasing with purpose partner Buy Social Canada, to ensure
program success. "The global pandemic forced our economy to a
standstill and drove many industries to reconsider how things are
done. With that comes the potential to explore how we can build
back better," said Buy Social Canada's Managing Partner David
LePage. "SAP's leadership and commitment through the 5 & 5 by
'25 initiative will hopefully inspire other large companies to
leverage their everyday business spend to benefit the communities
in which they work and build a resilient, more sustainable
economy."
Buy Social Canada has demonstrated success partnering with other
organizations in Canada, including
Chandos Construction, Canada's
only B Corp Certified commercial contractor. Chandos has been
advocating for social procurement in the Canadian construction
industry and today also announces that it will shift 5 per cent of
its addressable spend to social impact organizations by 2025. "The
construction industry has a significant opportunity to lead
Canada's social procurement
initiatives. By 2023 the construction industry is forecast to spend
over $330 Billion US dollars in
Canada. If we can shift just 2% of that nationally, we can
make tremendous impact on Canadian society. We've had success
partnering with social enterprises that train and prepare people
who face barriers to employment to work in construction. Why
wouldn't we hire through those social enterprises and change a life
at the same time," says Tim
Coldwell, President of Chandos Construction.
Procurement with diverse businesses
In support of supplier diversity, SAP and WeConnect are applying
technology to make it easier for customers to pursue
social-procurement strategies. According to WeConnect, while more
than thirty percent of corporations are owned by women globally,
only one percent of corporate procurement contracts are awarded to
women-run businesses.
"When we provide access for women-owned businesses to
competitively bid for procurement opportunities and invest in their
growth, not only do we identify the best and most innovative
suppliers, we also support inclusive and sustainable growth," said
Elizabeth A. Vazquez, WeConnect CEO
and Co-Founder. "With SAP's support, we can all work together to
leverage our purchasing power to make a positive difference in the
lives of women, their employees, their families and communities
around the globe."
In addition, SAP Canada Inc. has a strategic sponsor
relationship with the Black Professionals in Tech Network (BPTN) -
a Canadian based organization that promotes Black professionals and
Black owned businesses.
Procurement with purpose with SAP Ariba
SAP's Ariba Network is the largest business-to-business
marketplace in the world, supporting nearly CAD $4.7 trillion in transactions each year. In
Canada, SAP Ariba is used to
process more than CAD $50 billion
worth of transactions alone. In partnership with leading
social-enterprise and diverse-business interest organizations, the
company is opening this network up and connecting corporate-ready
purposeful suppliers with more organizations who want to make a
difference with their spend.
As part of the 5 & 5 by '25 initiative, SAP invites other
organizations to begin or accelerate their social-procurement
journey based on a simple framework of discovering the right
partners, adopting a social procurement strategy, consuming the
products and services they procure, and then continuously expanding
their base of social enterprises and diverse suppliers.
"Together with our customers, partners, diverse suppliers and
social enterprises, we have set out to expand social procurement
where infrastructure exists and intend to establish the
infrastructure and build capacity where it doesn't," Fox-Martin
added. "We invite our entire ecosystem to learn more and take part,
join us in this pledge, and help build the pathways and the
momentum to realize this ambition and find a better way to
grow."
Visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at
@SAPNews.
About SAP
SAP's strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent
enterprise. As a market leader in enterprise application software,
we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their
best: 77% of the world's transaction revenue touches an SAP®
system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and
advanced analytics technologies help turn customers' businesses
into intelligent enterprises. SAP helps give people and
organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that
helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology
for companies so they can consume our software the way they want –
without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and
services enables business and public customers across 25 industries
globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a
difference. With a global network of customers, partners,
employees, and thought leaders, SAP helps the world run better and
improve people's lives. For more information, visit
www.sap.com.
About 5 & 5 by '25
5 & 5 by '25 is a non-binding pledge initiated by SAP and
designed to encourage organizations across industries to direct
more of their addressable spend toward certified social-enterprise
and diverse-business suppliers. In joining the pledge,
organizations agree to formalize their exploration of social
procurement, including partnering with leading intermediaries,
adopting social-procurement policies, consuming goods and services
from purposeful suppliers, and expanding their engagement with more
social enterprises and diverse businesses. The goal is to reach 5%
of annual addressable procurement spend with social enterprises and
5% with diverse businesses by 2025 and in doing so make significant
impact on social inequalities and environmental imperatives. For
more information, visit 5 & 5 by '25.
Any statements contained in this document that are not
historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the
U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such
as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast,"
"intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will"
and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to
identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no
obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking
statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various
risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ
materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP's
future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP's filings
with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including
SAP's most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
© 2020 SAP SE. All rights reserved.
SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as
their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of
SAP SE in Germany and other
countries. Please see https://www.sap.com/copyright for
additional trademark information and notices.
Note to editors:
To preview and download broadcast-standard stock footage and press
photos digitally, please visit www.sap.com/photos. On this
platform, you can find high resolution material for your media
channels. To view video stories on diverse topics,
visit www.sap-tv.com. From this site, you can embed videos
into your own Web pages, share video via email links, and subscribe
to RSS feeds from SAP TV.
For customers interested in learning more about SAP
products:
Global Customer Center: +49 180 534-34-24
Canada: 1 (800) 872-1SAP
(1-800-872-1727)
Please consider our privacy policy. If you received this press
release in your e-mail and you wish to unsubscribe to our mailing
list please contact press@sap.com and write Unsubscribe in the
subject line.
SOURCE SAP Canada