If you’re a brand or retailer, Better Buying^TM ratings enable you to build win-win sustainable partnerships with your suppliers, and provide you with an independent assessment of which purchasing practices you need to focus your improvement efforts on. By monitoring your scores year-on-year, and over time, you can measure the effectiveness of your efforts, and continually improve your purchasing practices. You will also benefit from data-driven opportunities for specific enhancements to the buying process for both buyers and suppliers, such as:

• Reduced cycle times and more accurate demand timing, via improved insights into demand drivers
• More predictable lead-times from effective workforce and facility utilization
• A reduction in potential costing “buffers” from finance charges in the procurement and settlement process.
• Better product quality from suppliers, via improved insight into the supply-demand cycle.
• Improved social and environmental performance through improved purchasing practices
• Better able to demonstrate accountability to your investors and other stakeholders

How Does it Work?

Better Buying^TM runs an annual ratings cycle, which allows suppliers to anonymously rate the purchasing practices of their customers. The findings are aggregated and anonymized, and published in our annual Better Buying^TM Purchasing Practices Index. As a Better Buying^TM subscriber, you receive an individual Scorecard and a detailed Company Report with recommendations as to which purchasing practices you need to improve, based on this anonymous supplier feedback, helping you to prioritize and focus your efforts, for maximum impact.

The Better Buying^TM Partnership Index operates in between the ratings cycle, and is a shorter survey designed to provide you with a quick ‘temperature check’ of your supplier relationships, helping you to keep track of progress throughout the year and identify any pressing or urgent issues. Again, subscribers receive individual Company Reports highlighting key findings and making recommendations for how they might improve.

Better Buying^TM also provides training to companies on The 5 Principles of Responsible Purchasing. This is a whole-company training package suitable for multiple teams within your company, and consists of two modules: a foundational course on supply chain dynamics, provided by ILO Better Work; and a deep-dive course focusing specifically on responsible purchasing practices,provided by Better Buying.

For information on how to subscribe, and to find out about the many benefits of subscription, please email Leonie Barrie-Abraham.

Better Buying^TM Helps You To:

• Manage and reduce risk
• Improve compliance by better understanding the drivers of non-compliances
• Evaluate your performance against the sector benchmark
• Show sector leadership and enhance your reputation
• Save time and effort by co-creating solutions with your suppliers
• Prioritize resources for greater impact
• Build more resilient supply chains, decreasing supplier turnover
• Improve public and investor accountability via authentic, independent data
• Ensure responsible procurement practices are in place and monitored, year on year
• Become the customer-of-choice

The Risks of Inaction

• Resource scarcity and volatile supply chain pressures
• Workforces and security of supply
• Customer boycotts*
• Inefficiencies
• Devaluation of your brand
• Not achieving business targets
• Not being customer-of-choice

*The annual cost to demonized companies of consumer boycotts tainted by human rights abuses is 2.6bn Euros (Medaille Trust).