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- Consumer Goods
Building Supplier Diversity Faster with a Supplier Intelligence Platform – Unilever UK
Client Overview
Unilever UK, one of the world’s leading consumer goods companies, set out to strengthen its supplier diversity programme. The objective was clear: identify more ethnic-minority-owned, women-owned, and B-Corp-certified businesses and accelerate responsible procurement through accurate, real-time supplier insights.
This case study is relevant for:
Procurement teams, supply chain managers, ESG leaders, and D&I professionals who want to scale a supplier diversity programme using a supplier intelligence platform grounded in verified data.
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Challenge
Unilever faced several limitations in understanding its supplier diversity landscape:
- Limited visibility of diverse suppliers: The procurement team lacked clarity on which existing suppliers were ethnic-minority-owned, women-led, or held diversity certifications.
- Manual, time-heavy verification: Identifying diverse suppliers required multiple manual checks, which slowed down sourcing cycles and risked missing qualified businesses.
- Fragmented and incomplete data: Diversity information was scattered across different systems, making analysis and reporting difficult and inconsistent.
These challenges made it harder for Unilever to measure diversity progress and expand its inclusive supplier network.
Solution
By adopting DataGardener’s supplier intelligence platform, Unilever gained a single, powerful source of truth for supplier diversity data.
- Automatically enrich supplier records: Integrate verified ownership, demographic, and certification data — including ethnic minority ownership, female-led businesses, and B-Corp status.
- Identify and categorise diverse suppliers instantly: The system highlighted which suppliers met diversity criteria, allowing quick segmentation and prioritisation.
- Access real-time dashboards and insights: Unilever could track the diversity status of its supplier network in one place, supporting clear reporting and faster decision-making.
- Enable seamless integrations via API: Diversity attributes were synced into procurement workflows, ensuring accuracy and ongoing updates without manual effort.
This digital-first approach replaced slow verification processes with high-speed, high-accuracy profiling.
Results
DataGardener’s supplier intelligence platform enabled Unilever to achieve:
- 100+ diverse suppliers identified across ethnic-minority–owned, women-owned, and B-Corp categories.
- 80% reduction in manual research time, enabling faster procurement decisions.
- Significant improvement in diversity data accuracy through automated enrichment.
- Clear visibility of diversity metrics, helping Unilever track progress against inclusion goals.
- Faster supplier onboarding, driven by real-time profiling and intelligent categorisation.
Unilever now operates a more inclusive, data-driven supplier ecosystem that aligns with its global sustainability and diversity objectives.
Client Feedback
“With DataGardener’s profiling and enrichment tools, we gained clarity on which suppliers in our network were diverse and could be supported further. The speed and accuracy have fundamentally improved how we approach supplier diversity.”
— Procurement & Supplier Diversity Lead, Unilever UK
Takeaway
By using a supplier intelligence platform, Unilever transformed a manual, slow, and fragmented process into a fast, scalable, and measurable supplier diversity programme.
Key Highlights:
- 100+ diverse suppliers identified.
- 80% faster research and validation.
- Improved accuracy and reporting transparency.
- Stronger alignment with Unilever’s inclusive procurement strategy.
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