It takes cooperation, collaboration, and visibility that enables effective monitoring across the entire supply chain to meet corporate social responsibility goals, and a digital supply chain platform is the key to achieving them. 

Key Takeaways: 

• Your company doesn’t have responsibility for the end product alone; it’s also responsible for any outsourced work or supplies 
• Companies who don’t manage their vendors properly risk damaging reputation and profit 
• 85% of consumers are willing to pay more for sustainability, and companies who can’t transparently prove their sustainability will suffer 
• For the average company, two-thirds of their environmental, social, and governance outcomes rest with suppliers 
• Embracing the right technology is paramount to supplier visibility and corrective action, as well as to weed out suppliers who don’t meet your sustainability criteria.

Your supply chain is only as sustainable as your suppliers. Whether it’s about environmental, social, or economic sustainability, your company carries the ultimate responsibility for any outsourced business operations as well as the final product. This requires managing the entire product life cycle, including vendors that could be scattered around the globe.  

Your company’s reputation is at stake. While collaboration is required to build a strong, sustainable supply network, true sustainability can’t be achieved on a trust basis alone. You need data to drive ethical sourcing decisions, provide transparent reporting, and better manage and mitigate risk. It’s a daunting task without the right digital platform that offers solutions to support your business. 

Smart leaders know the right strategic approach to corporate social responsibility (CSR) is required: one that boosts financial performance, enhances company reputation, strengthens the supply network, and leads to continuous improvement. It’s just good business. Consumers today demand sustainability; more than a third are willing to pay more for it while 85% have become “greener” purchasers. With so much at stake and to meet corporate social responsibility goals, you need a corporate responsibility solution that streamlines and enables vendor compliance with a data-driven approach. 

Why Corporate Responsibility Matters 

First, let’s define what corporate responsibility really means. It means, in essence, accountability. This includes your company, your stakeholders, and the public. It requires being conscious of the impact your company is having on every aspect of society – the planet and its people.  

It’s about positive instead of negative contributions and requires operating your business in ways that help society and the environment while enhancing your brand reputation at the same time. This takes real effort – greenwashing won’t do. A truly sustainable business does everything it can to reduce its impact and embraces technology that provides useful data, minimizes inefficiencies, improves supplier relationships, and offers the ability to quickly respond to change. 

Authenticity and transparency are paramount for the sustainable business, so you need a single, integrated system that finds red flags, audits self-reporting, analyzes results, and adjusts sourcing plans in real time. Only then can you confidently report and publicize your progress toward your sustainability goals. It’s reported that, for the average company, two-thirds of their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes rest with suppliers. 

Manage Suppliers and Vendors Before They Harm Your Brand 

Some parts of the supply chain are not totally within your control, such as political circumstances, driver shortages, or port congestion. But supplier sustainability is well within your locus of control, and it is up to you to ferret out those who are damaging both your sustainability initiatives and your brand. Impose codes of conduct and audit vendors for progress. Then, use an integrated system like Logility to find variants between your audit findings and your vendors’ self-reported scores. You can then analyze the results and issue corrective action plans. 

Then you can adjust your sourcing plans in real time based on a supplier’s progress – or lack thereof – on the road to meeting your shared sustainability objectives. It’s your opportunity to educate, evangelize and speak to any gaps. You’ll also be able to weed out suppliers who do not have a sustainability program, underperform, or have particularly egregious violations. 

Meet Corporate Social Responsibility Goals with the Right Technology 

Tracking vendor compliance to your sustainability policies is nearly impossible without a digital solution that integrates data and analytics to give you the concise, actionable information you need for confident decision-making. While you probably have an ERP system well entrenched, it’s not a platform for vendor management. What you want is technology that: 

• Improves sourcing decisions through data by offering a single repository for all your audits and scores 
• Fosters communication and collaboration with suppliers by setting clear expectations and offering a fair and open approach to both their scorecards and your sourcing decisions 
• Provides the means for suppliers to self-manage their corrective action plans as well as post implemented improvements and any certification codes 
• Offers the ability to manage working condition assessments and audits, such as the Social and Labor Convergence Program (SLCP), Better Work, and ABVTEX, as well integrating with the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) for measuring environmental impact. 

By fully automating assessment information, it can be collected and shared with all stakeholders. You also mitigate any risk of brand damage – you’ll be able to bust false claims with transparent, credible reporting.  

In short, true corporate responsibility means higher profits through efficiencies, increased sales by meeting customer sustainability demands, and new opportunities and funding that are only available to sustainable businesses. 

Logility Makes Corporate Social Responsibility Achievable 

Logility’s digital supply chain platform accelerates the sustainable digital supply chain by leveraging data-driven tools such as advanced analytics and AI that empower your business with greater visibility. That means more accurate planning, accelerated cycle times, improved precision, and increased operating performance.  

We help organizations sense and respond to changing market dynamics, more profitably manage their global businesses, and become resilient, sustainable enterprises. It’s time for a digital, sustainable supply chain. Reach out to our specialists today to discuss our supply chain solutions.