Qudini’s Supplier Diversity Policy

Qudini recognizes that standing-up for diversity as an organization, as well working with diverse suppliers, is important to worldwide social progression and the development of the global economy.

To support social and economic development, as a business we endeavor to make our values for diversity known, to contribute to social change and to work with diverse suppliers. This document sets out our company policy for doing so.

Definition of Diverse Supplier 

Our business defines are diverse supplier as:

• A business that is owned or operated by an individual or group that is historically underrepresented. This includes minorities, women, veterans, the LGBT+ community and those with disabilities. This also includes small or local businesses.

As a business, we aim to identify and work with suppliers that provide a superior product and/or service that also aligns with our diversity initiatives. This means conducting thorough research across a broad range of suppliers and identifying those that meet the above definition and deliver an exceptional product or service. 

Maintaining an awareness of this definition is important in following our Supplier Diversity Initiatives below.

How Qudini supports diversity and social inclusion

Initiatives that Qudini undertakes in order to generally support diversity inclusion:

• Our CEO and Founder (a woman) takes part in talks to the industry and schools to promote women in business / STEM.
• Our CEO and Founder (a woman) mentors other women in business.
• Our CTO and Founder mentors young people interested in technology careers, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds.
• We donate technology equipment to those in need to help bridge the digital divide.
• We offer our software to underrepresented communities (such as refugee camps). 
• We offer our software to the public sector and healthcare sector to help them to support people from all parts of society.
• We support charities that focus on social inclusion by donating our time and offering the use of our software.
• For our hiring initiatives, we operate a separate Equal Opportunities policy.

Our Supplier Diversity Goals and Initiatives

When working with suppliers, it is important that we work with a diverse range of suppliers. Initiatives that the company undertakes in order to support diversity includes:

• Qudini proactively seeks diverse suppliers managed by people from minority and underrepresented communities and women.
• When assessing suppliers, our assessment criterias includes assessing their management teams and employees against our diversity requirements, preferring those with diverse management teams and employees.
• When sourcing new suppliers, we invite a diverse range of suppliers to our evaluation process.
• As part of our evaluation process, we may request to see a supplier’s Equal Opportunities and Diversity and Inclusion policies.
• We purchase from a combination of:
  • Local suppliers (for our day-to-day food and resource needs) – this enables us to support local businesses and local communities.
  • Global suppliers (for our software requirements and other ad hoc resource needs that cannot be sourced locally) – this enables us to support the global economy. 
• Where possible, we endeavour to work with strong suppliers that have developed from underrepresented areas and countries with reduced economies (eg. food, office supplies).

Qudini will review this policy annually to make sure we are constantly evolving our processes to support diversity and social change. Qudini will make this policy available if requested by any interested parties or members of the public.

Diversity Implementation and Management System 

To ensure we are continually working proactively to better support economic and social development, Qudini works towards the following Diversity Management System. 

Responsibility

The operations and finance department, with the support of the CEO, are responsible for creating and overseeing the implementation of the Diversity Policy.

Communication

All departments are made aware of the Diversity Policy and any changes made through training sessions and publication of the policy.

Evaluation

Our diversity is carefully considered and evaluated against contemporary social changes and issues on an annual basis.

Improvement review

The results of our evaluation are used to determine how we can better perform against our diversity (as listed above) in order to better contribute to social change and economic development.

Commitment to policy

Upon review, our Diversity Policy is updated with any required changes or new policy points, goals or initiatives relevant to the time. The policy is then reviewed by the CEO and CTO to confirm it aligns with the business values and to sign-off top-level commitment to the policy.

Implementation 

The policy is published on the company intranet and our employees are trained on the policy to ensure their understanding and commitment to the policy. Suppliers are made aware of our Diversity Policy and that is used in our assessment of them as a supplier to us.

Our Diversity Policy is shared with our customers as and when requested.

Checking / Corrective action

Where activities are not compliant with our Diversity Policy, the relevant supplier or employee is informed. Suppliers are given the opportunity to take corrective actions. Should this fail, their contract with the company may be assessed. Employees are encouraged to take corrective actions and are reminded of our training materials in order to drive their improved policy compliance moving forward.