Our Supplier Diversity

Below is the first of our plans to attack racism inside and outside of the workplace. On June 19th (Juneteenth), I published a 7 point plan for what we would be doing. I asked for Logitech and me personally to be held accountable ... and we will publish the data to make that easier. This is the first update on that plan. It's transparent: we are starting from literally zero. We have no black suppliers in the US today. But we are fully committed to strong progress to shifting to Black owned suppliers globally and expecting that of the other suppliers we use (this will also benefit women and other under represented groups which are also being addressed in additional work). We will update you regularly on progress.

Thanks to David Latten and Prakash Akunundrum on my team for building these guidelines enthusiastically and decisively and moving to action.

I also want to thank those who gave their time and thinking for free to help Logitech and me with this and our entire diversity approach. Craig Cuffie and Madison Gunther at Salesforce generously shared their breadth of best practices, and Karine Bah Tahe (founder and CEO of Blue Level Training) helped me much better understand D&I and Anti Racism and suggested the concept of a Black supplier development program.

The hard work and good thinking of David and Prakash and terrific counsel of Craig, Madison, and Karine have helped us build a set of guidelines that I think are practical and will be effective.

And I believe these guidelines as we follow them rigorously will not only help begin to level the playing field for Black suppliers but also for women and other under represented groups. 

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Here is an excerpt of our guidelines published in the company:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words: We Need Both (Words and Actions) Right Now

“ 4. We Will Support Suppliers and Partners That Are Black, Women, and Minority Owned”. 

This is one of the 7 commitments Bracken published on LinkedIn recently to address systemic racism in our company. And today I am going to give you an update on where we are and what we will do about it.  

The creation of an economy with equality of opportunity for all, and the fight against racism and other structural injustices, is a call to action for each and everyone one of us. 

While the wave of activity around racism against the Black community has been the focus, it highlights a larger systemic issue we have among all underrepresented groups. We must, we can, and we will do more. The time for positive action is now! One area we have identified where we as a company can make a meaningful positive impact is in our supplier relationships.

Where are we today?

It is challenging to report across our entire global supply base due to the sheer number of international reporting organisations as well as the variability of what is considered an under-represented group in each country. We can, however, report on our US statistics. As of today, we have 631 US-based suppliers. Of the 631, only 34 (or 5%) are women-owned businesses; fewer(15 or 2% of US-suppliers) are under represented minority-owned businesses; and zero are Black-owned. For perspective, almost 40% of the US population is non-white; 50% women; and 12% Black. The inequity here is dramatic. 

This is not just a U.S. problem or a Logitech problem. Structural injustices across the globe result in Black, women and other ethnic minority-owned businesses being under-represented in corporate supply chains. This must change.

Our global commitment to a more equal future

We are committed to growing the number of suppliers owned by underrepresented groups across the globe and today we are going to pledge to five key actions. 

1. We will require all our future US based purchasing to include at least two qualified Black, women or other under-reperesnted suppliers must be part of the candidate pool (when available).  
2. Due to systemic inequity if we are unable to find a qualified Black, women and other under-reperesnted suppliers, we are going to ask our selected suppliers to submit a clear diversity action plan as a qualifying criteria to win our business. In other words, if we don’t find under-represented suppliers, we’re going to demand that our existing ones be more diverse. This will amplify our impact by expecting our current suppliers to begin to put in place concrete actions in their business practices - hiring, buying, and culture to promote diversity.
3. We will make it easier for Black, women and other under-represented suppliers to work with Logitech by shortening their payment terms and reducing their contractual obligations. Under-represented suppliers are often small suppliers who can face barriers in working with corporations which can impede them in competing for the business, never mind winning the business! We are committed to removing these barriers to give the under-represented suppliers an equal chance at winning our business
4. But we won’t stop at 1), 2) and 3). We will partner with like-minded corporations, diversity action groups (such as National Minority Supplier Development Council) and international advocacy groups (such as WeConnect) to further support Black, women, and under-represented suppliers in our own network and beyond through loan programs and investment.
5. As of today we are committing to create a supplier development program of black, women and other under represented groups. To start we will select through this program 5-10 suppliers each year for whom we will offer advisory services , pilot projects, network access, and capital. The vision here is that some elements of this support can come via the Volunteer Time-Off programme and we will share more details shortly  

We will concentrate on these five key actions in the US initially where advocacy groups are most well established, we can most easily track our impact and we will be able to make a positive impact fastest. We will continue to learn whilst doing this and once our model is working we will take it worldwide

We are certain we will be more fair in supporting and promoting diversity among our supply base, but we are certain we will be more competitive if our supply base is more diverse.