IKEA - Social Procurement
Social Procurement
Social procurement
Create inclusive value chains by buying from social businesses.
What is social procurement?
Increasingly, companies are required to eliminate or mitigate social or environmental risks in their supply chain. But what if you could use your company’s purchasing power to go one step further and create positive impact? Social procurement does exactly that: It's about buying goods and services from social businesses that put impact first, both for your company and the communities around it.
Value-chain partnerships with social businesses can create income opportunities, solve critical environmental issues or offer education for disadvantaged groups – in addition to procuring a product or service for your company at competitive rates.
And it has shown to pay off: Partnerships with social businesses can boost brand reputation, build inroads into new markets, engage employees, create consumer insights, and spark innovation across the entire value chain. Learn more about our research and read inspiring case studies:
How we make the connection.
- Yunus Social Business has worked with thousands of social businesses and hundreds of companies. We understand both worlds. And we use this expertise to connect both of them.
- Setting up social procurement partnerships can be time-consuming and resource-intensive. Our research-based tools, frameworks, and templates fast-track your social procurement strategy and maximize the benefits that you can realize from partnering with social businesses.
- We help you identify opportunities for social procurement in your value chain. We support you in finding social businesses that fit your requirements. We build capacities for social businesses to comply with your standards. We educate procurement managers about the specifics of social procurement. And we co-design social procurement strategies with you to transform your value chain.
- Our teams screen your supply chain for opportunities, they provide a long-list of social businesses that fit your needs. They then help you to select the best candidates and moderate the engagement process between you and the social businesses.
The 5S of social procurement
Social procurement offers both financial and non-financial benefits. Our 5S Framework is based on our research and helps you to maximize those benefits by aligning your strategy with five key focus areas:
- Strategy: Create a viable case for social procurement, link it to your core strategy
- Stakeholders: Secure key stakeholder buy-in, including your senior leadership
- Systems: Understand where your systems and processes support social procurement – and where you may need to adjust them to fit the sector
- Scale: Understand your path to scale – from individual engagements to strategic integration of social businesses
- Storytelling: Communicate social procurement effectively – internally and externally
We help you optimize these five areas through a continuous improvement process. With every engagement, your company will scale its impact and benefits from social procurement.
