BACKSTAGE PASS: Pulling The Curtain Back On the Business of Supplier Diversity

New book provides expert insight on supplier diversity as business strategy.

Jamie Crump, President of Blairsville, Georgia-based The Richwell Group, a consultancy firm specializing in supply chain and supplier diversity, launches her first book in July 2020 titled “Backstage Pass: Pulling the Curtain Back on the Business of Supplier Diversity”. The new author focuses on why supplier diversity is a profitable yet missing business strategy and how the key participants need to understand each other and interact well to make the strategy successful.

With more than 25 years’ experience in corporate supply chain, and one of Diversity Professional’s advisory board members, Crump draws from her career in strategic sourcing and supplier diversity across a variety of industries to share insights on a topic where reading material is somewhat scarce. Earlier in the year, Crump was featured on the show Schools for Startups with Dan Janal, where she talked about her ‘why’ for writing the book.

“I was having a hard time finding information on the topic of supplier diversity and how to use it as a business strategy. I have worked in both supply chain and supplier diversity so I said I would write the book!”

The book talks about the five types of parties, or cast members, involved in the process and for whom it is intended: the C-Suite, the supplier diversity professional (SDP), the supply chain professional (SCP), the diverse business owner (DBO), and the end user of goods and services, as well as the disconnect between them and how to address that for success. This topic is especially relevant now, when the economy has taken a turn due to the pandemic.

“Crump drives home the point that supplier diversity is a business strategy, not a program or initiative, and is as necessary to optimum business financial performance as sound financials and a solid marketing strategy.”

“When business is down, companies start slashing budgets and trimming programs. If supplier diversity isn’t tied to company revenue and seen as a business strategy, it will get reduced or cut when small/diverse businesses need it most,” she shares. Crump drives home the point that supplier diversity is a business strategy, not a program or initiative, and is as necessary to optimum business financial performance as sound financials and a solid marketing strategy.

“It is not enough for the five cast members to be committed to the strategy. If they are not interacting well, they are leaving money on the table,” she says. “All cast members are customers and providers to the other cast members. The service and satisfaction they seek to receive and to provide as consumers is the goal that they should seek with the other cast members.”

Of particular interest to readers of the book, will be the data and information shared to develop a sound business strategy. This includes results from studies done by global powerhouses such as McKinsey, EY (formerly Ernst & Young) and Deloitte. The book contains icons that identify key messages for each of the cast members as well as the “elephant in the room” to spotlight things not often discussed on the topic. Crump has also included samples of business strategy development, dashboards and reporting to help readers build out their own strategy.

For more information on the book when available for purchase, connect online on www.therichwellgroup.com.