Diversity & Inclusion in a Business environment covers many topics like the well known Workplace Inclusion, but also the way a business works with their suppliers is a crucial topic. If a company wants to be diverse and inclusive, it also should follow a divers and inclusive policy when engaging with external suppliers.
When we look closer at the part “minority owned businesses”, like LGBTIQ owned & managed businesses, as suppliers to larger companies, they are clearly heavily underrepresented in the general pool of suppliers. The same goes for e.g. women owned businesses or businesses owned and operated by ethnic minorities. Why is this so? Larger companies have so-called procurement teams that take care of the contacts with external product providers and to get in this list of usual providers is almost impossible for smaller companies. If we want to improve this, we need to convince the large companies as well as government and public organisations to be diverse in working with minority businesses and include these when selecting suppliers. But we also need to have the smaller LGBTIQ owned and managed businesses to register as candidates for cooperation with large businesses and public authorities.
LGBTIQ Chambers of Commerce and LGBTIQ Business Networks play an essential role in Supplier Diversity & Inclusion. They educate the wider public on Supplier Diversity & Inclusion, its rationales and benefits. By running a network of LGBTIQ owned and operated businesses they are their advocates and promoters and help discovering untapped business opportunities. Typically they offer registration and certifications.