Yesterday, the best of the best from among P&G’s 50,000 diverse global suppliers came together once again for P&G’s External Business Partner Awards.
Held at P&G’s global headquarters in Cincinnati every other year, the much-anticipated ceremony celebrates top-performing external business partners for their outstanding contributions to P&G’s global supply network transformation.
Global Product Supply Officer Yannis Skoufalos (pictured above) kicked off the daytime portion of the event, congratulating the sixteen winners who would be announced and explaining how P&G’s supply network enables the company’s growth strategy – underpinning P&G’s ability to deliver superior products, packaging, communication, retail execution and consumer value:
“Together with our valued partners, we are creating an end-to-end, synchronized supply network where P&G, retail customers, physical distribution partners, and suppliers efficiently interact in a seamless ecosystem to best serve consumers. We are delivering tangible value to P&G shareholders—optimizing inventory, increasing on-shelf availability of our products, and driving the productivity which fuels the innovation and superiority of P&G’s brands. This wouldn’t be possible without our external business partners, who are with us on this journey.”
P&G Chief Purchasing Officer Stew Atkinson (pictured above) then delivered his remarks, which reinforced the importance of P&G’s growth strategy: “I am proud of what we have accomplished together, and we will continue to raise the bar on superiority, productivity and citizenship.”
At the evening awards ceremony, sixteen suppliers received awards in the categories of Partner of the Year; End-to-End Synchronization Partner; or Small, Diverse Emerging Partner. The esteemed winners were chosen based on their overall performance, contributions to our business, and input from P&G’s Business and Purchases Leadership teams.
Closing out the ceremony, P&G CEO David Taylor (pictured above) asked P&G’s partners to continue to bring their best ideas and innovations to P&G. “We want strong, lasting relationships with our supplier partners. The stronger our relationships are, the greater the opportunity we have to serve consumers better than anyone else.”
As an added item for this year, P&G devoted a second full day to immerse our suppliers in our Corporate Citizenship efforts, as a way to invite and inspire them to partner with us in delivering our goals across our five citizenship pillars (Ethics & Corporate Responsibility, Community Impact, Diversity & Inclusion, Gender Equality, and Environmental Sustainability). We recognize that we will not achieve our citizenship goals without the partnership and capabilities of our suppliers.
Nalini Bates - Associate Director, Supplier Citizenship, Global Purchasing (pictured above) led our Supplier Citizenship day, which inspired our partners to help us be a force for good and a force for growth.
Here are the sixteen P&G partners honored, by category:
