Marriott India and Walmart encourage them to get a WEConnect certification

September 15, 2014:

The case for supplier diversity has been championed in the US and other developed economies overtwo decades. In India, the awareness around women-owned businesses and their importance to the eco-system has grown gradually.

Large MNCs in India customising their global supplier diversity initiatives to the Indian landscape have proved catalysts. At WEConnect Internationals annual conference Think Big in Bangalore recently, the presence of representatives from corporate names like Accenture, Walmart and Marriott India made a statement. Since the first Think Big event last year, WEConnect has some concrete achievements to report.

Weve been able to get some large corporations in India to analyse their existing supplier database so that the women-owned businesses supplying them get WEConnect certified. Many of them have begun asking Are you a woman-owned business? in their RFP process. They work with their internal teams to build a business case for supplier diversity, says Sucharita Eashwar, India Head, WeConnect International.

The named corporations and others have taken the lead in making a business case within their organisations for women entrepreneurs to be introduced into their supply chain.

Marriot Hotels India has been a part of WeConnect for 2-3 years. Bharanidharan Ramaswamy, Director of Procurement India, Marriott Hotels India, shares We have an active database of women entrepreneurs who we are currently partnered with, as well as access to other databases that help us to identify prospective women entrepreneurs, with the endeavour to use them as far as possible. Marriott promotes gender diversity as a part of its core culture and supplier diversity is indeed an integral part of it.

E-commerce platform

Walmart wants to incrementally increase the number of women-owned businesses in its supply chain. Rajneesh Kumar, Vice-President - Corporate Affairs, Walmart India shares, There is huge commitment from our leadership We want to source $20 billion from women-owned businesses for our US business by the end of 2016. We would like to double what we source from women-owned businesses for our international markets by the end of 2016. We will also launch a dedicated e-commerce platform called Empowering Women Together on Walmart.com to give small women-owned businesses access to our customers.

Both Marriott India and Walmart encourage women-owned businesses in their supply chain to get a WEConnect certification. While interacting with them, we explain to them the benefits of the WEConnect platform such as networking with other women entrepreneurs, access to large corporations and trainings offered by WEConnect, says Ramaswamy.

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Women entrepreneurs emerging the key link in MNCs supply chain in India