Supplier Diversity
Baxter works to develop mutually beneficial relationships with small and diverse suppliers, and strives to continue to expand the diversity of its supplier base. This is a key aspect of the company’s broader commitment to inclusion and diversity.
Baxter has been a corporate sponsor of the National Minority Supplier Development Council (NMSDC) for more than 20 years, and in 2006 joined the NMSDC Health Care Industry Group. Baxter participates regularly in vendor fairs to promote supplier diversity, and maintains an online database that enables small and diverse businesses to share their capabilities with Baxter procurement representatives.
In 2008, Baxter implemented several initiatives to further advance supplier diversity at the company. In addition to incorporating supplier diversity language in its requests for proposal and standard supplier agreement, Baxter added supplier diversity information to the supplier agreement approval summary sheets approved by senior management. These checklists now include questions such as how many diverse suppliers were included in the sourcing process, what classification were they, was the chosen supplier diverse, and if not, why not? Baxter also increased training of its purchasing personnel on identifying diverse suppliers and understanding the company’s supplier diversity initiatives and goals.
In addition, Baxter increased its representation at external outreach events. For example, in Baxter’s headquarters community, the company attended both the annual Chicago Business Opportunity Fair (CBOF) and the annual Entrepreneurial Women’s Conference hosted by the Women’s Business Development Center, establishing numerous opportunities for potential small and diverse supplier relationships. Also in Chicago, Baxter Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bob Parkinson committed to support Chicago United’s Five Forward Initiative, a strategic initiative enlisting commitments from Chicago-area CEOs to establish or expand relationships with five current and/or new local minority firms for five years.
Planned activities for 2009 include:
- Identifying five Chicago-based minority suppliers to participate in the Five Forward Initiative;
- Exhibiting at CBOF and Women’s Business Fair;
- Creating a Supplier Diversity Procedure manual for documenting data collection and reporting processes; and
- Developing a 2010 small diverse supplier spending goal.
2008 Supplier Diversity Performance
In 2008, Baxter achieved 109 percent of its overall annual small and diverse supplier spending goal. The company spent approximately $457 million with small businesses in the United States and Puerto Rico, which was 17 percent of Baxter's total supplier spending of $2.6 billion in those markets during the year. The company spent approximately $88 million with women-owned businesses and $24 million with minority-owned firms. Veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, small disadvantaged and HUBZone-certified businesses represented approximately $11.8 million, $1.6 million, $4.5 million and $2.7 million, respectively. The decrease in spending with women-owned suppliers in 2008 resulted from a reduction in business with three major suppliers in this category.
| BAXTER SUPPLIER DIVERSITY SPENDING (DOLLARS IN MILLIONS)1 | |||||
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| Small Businesses | $445 | $454 | $504 | $399 | $457 |
| Minority-Owned Businesses | 44 | 36 | 40 | 23 | 24 |
| Women-Owned Businesses | 35 | 68 | 95 | 95 | 88 |
1 United States and Puerto Rico. Fiscal year basis (October 1 through September 30). Accounts payable data are sent to a third party, which categorizes spending. Other categories in total include veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, small disadvantaged and HUBZone-certified businesses.
