Diversity Goals - Not New to New AT&T

The new AT&T is the culmination of several strategic mergers, which have created an even stronger supplier diver­sity program in the process. Maureen Merkle, president, AT&T Procurement, recently discussed how this has sus­tained her goals as CPO and how it helps diverse suppliers. She also talked about how MBEs can develop strategic alliances and joint ventures with foreign companies leveraging the inevitable changes in the global supply chain to their advantage.

MBN USA: One of the biggest challenges diverse suppliers face is to maintain their position in the supply chain when a merger occurs. With the melding of AT&T, BellSouth, SBC and Cingular Wireless into the new AT&T, what was the strategy for preserving the strong commitment to supplier diversity that all entities shared?

Merkle: The new AT&T’s legacy sity programs for the new AT&T.

MBN USA: With your supplier diversity professionals spread out across the country, how has your role as chief procurement officer changed since the merger?

Merkle: My role as CPO for AT&T has not changed much as a result of the geographic diversity of my supplier diversity team. AT&T and the companies we have acquired have a rich history of supplier diversity involvement in our respective supply chains. As a result, we are able to build on that rich commit­ment to grow and expand our efforts. We have inherited strong diversity partners and relationships with each acquisition. While some supply chain solutions have changed, our overall efforts are geared toward growth in the right direction.

MBN USA: AT&T is a member of the Billion Dollar Roundtable, so your spend with minority and women sup­pliers is obviously significant. What is your annual spend with diverse suppli­ers? How has it changed since the merger?

Merkle: Last year, AT&T spent more than $5 billion with diversity suppliers. Since the BellSouth merger, we’ve had even more opportunities for diverse sup­pliers to compete for AT&T’s business.

MBN USA: What is a typical day like for you as CPO?

Merkle: Busy! Seriously, no two days are alike, but a typical day is full of opportunities to develop and deliver innovative supply chain solutions that can bring value to AT&T. These opportunities vary from meetings with internal business partners to refining strategies and needs, to having meetings with key suppliers to developing and implement­ing supply chain initiatives. And that almost always creates opportunities to evaluate where diverse suppliers can not only participate but provide additional value in AT&T’s supply chain.

MBN USA: With global competi­tion, especially in the telecommunica­tions industry, what is AT&T doing to retain its relationship with its strongest diverse suppliers, while still being aware of and responsive to the need to drive down costs?

Merkle: We have helped to empower diverse suppliers in developing and maintaining competitive operations. We believe that quality processes, strength­ened through TL9000 registration, will help our diverse suppliers remain com­petitive in an increasingly competitive global industry. AT&T has worked with BIZPHYX, a WBE quality training com­pany, to launch a web-enabled, lower cost approach for diverse suppliers to develop their quality processes and receive TL9000 registration. We also believe that ongoing strategic business management is a critical success factor. AT&T sponsors several different gradu­ate level management development pro­grams for diverse suppliers as a way of helping them keep in top form.

MBN USA: Some major corpora­tions have instituted processes to facil­itate strategic alliances and joint ven­tures between foreign companies and diverse suppliers in order to keep them as part of their supply chain as more sourcing is driven overseas. Has AT&T exercised such options for its top suppliers?

Merkle: For over 15 years, AT&T has had very strong initiatives in place to encourage our prime suppliers, whether foreign or domestic, to partner with other diverse suppliers in global supply chains. We have also recently hosted seminars for our diverse suppliers on “going global” to ensure that they are aware of the changes in global supply chains and how they can leverage those changes to their competitive advantage.

MBN USA: How has the growth of global suppliers affected the place of U.S. diverse suppliers in the supplychain? In essence, how will U.S. sup­pliers have to alter their delivery in order to remain viable links in that chain?

Merkle: Many of our diverse suppli­ers have recognized that it is critical to identify their role in global supply chains, and some already have extensive global operations. Some diverse suppli­ers have become global suppliers who are growing their operations and their revenues. Whether they establish opera­tions offshore or only procure services and components offshore to improve their delivery of goods and services here in the United States, each diverse suppli­er needs to affirmatively decide how to relate to global supply chains. All sup­pliers must seek to optimize their supply chain and their target markets with an assessment of global opportunities.

MBN USA: Explain the function of AT&T’s Supplier Diversity Out­reach Ambassadors in furthering the corporation’s diversity initiatives.

Merkle: AT&T’s Supplier Diversity Outreach Ambassadors are an invaluable resource. They enable AT&T to connect with the minority-, women- and disabled veteran-owned businesses in all of the communities we serve. Last year over 300 Supplier Diversity Outreach Ambas­sadors represented AT&T at more than 100 supplier diversity outreach events.

MBN USA: AT&T is a global, multinational giant. What value do diverse suppliers bring to your corpo­ration? How can they bring even more value?

Merkle: Diversity suppliers posi­tively impact the AT&T supply chain and our corporate goals by providing better business solutions, increased cus­tomer loyalty, public policy support and increased revenue. Diversity suppliers often have lower cost structures, shorter delivery intervals, customized services and the ability to quickly revamp processes and operations. This helps AT&T meet customized customer requirements and contribute to AT&T delivering competitive pricing and top quality products and services.
AT&T’s customers want good pric­ing, innovative and integrated communi­cations and entertainment solutions, and unmatched customer service. Diverse suppliers help AT&T exceed our cus­tomers’ expectations by providing better business solutions. Also, by integrating smaller diverse businesses into the sup­ply chains of larger firms, AT&T has been able to leverage the competitive advantages of better responsiveness, customized services and lower costs.

Our business customers also want supplier diversity embedded in the com­munications products and services they buy from AT&T. Many of our customers have their own supplier diversity pro­grams and seek to do business with other companies that also have diverse supply chains. AT&T has won public, private and government contracts due in part to the competitive advantage our supplier diversity program results pro­vide. Our supplier diversity commit­ment and results have also been pivotal in gaining public support for AT&T’s initiatives. Supplier diversity achieve­ments continue to give AT&T a compet­itive edge.