Mines are increasingly required to implement programmes showing good practice in local procurement. International standards - as well as local policy and regulation - provide requirements and guidelines, but what really works in the field? In this series, SRK Consulting's Lisl Pullinger and Andrew van Zyl, together with Mining Shared Value's Jeff Geipel, explore five local procurement topics, highlighting good practice principles, providing case studies from mines and recommending practical initiatives mines can take to improve how they apply local procurement programmes. This fourth article considers how mines can make their supply chains more accessible to potential new suppliers.
Giving new players access to the mining supply chain is a vital strategy in mines' efforts to share their value while optimising their procurement costs. Doing this effectively, however, means recognising the barriers that a mine's procurement system presents to potential suppliers - and how to lower these barriers.
A good starting point for the process of encouraging potential participants to enter the supply chain is to make them feel included - rather than subjecting them to a series of complex qualifying criteria. In building their social licence to operate among stakeholders - including local communities and businesses - mines need to be keenly aware of the importance of inclusivity as a strategic tenet. Improving suppliers' access to the supply chain therefore depends heavily on the ease-of-use of the procurement entry point - whether a digital portal or a helpdesk - and on the success of mines' enterprise development efforts. In principle, information in a procurement onboarding system should ideally be presented in a layered manner, increasing in complexity when more detail needs to be communicated. In this way, only the qualified suppliers need to find their way through the full depth of the qualifying information.
SRK Contributors:
Andrew van Zyl, Lisl Pullinger
External Contributor:
Jeff Geipel
