As SAP鈥檚 vice president and head of Diversity & Inclusion in North America, I鈥檓 proud to oversee numerous talent development and career advancement programs for women and other marginalized, underrepresented groups, programs that will help them excel today and prepare for advancement tomorrow.

Having been an entrepreneur myself, I remember the challenge of not having access to information that would have opened up my business to a range of possibilities. Systemic change drives impact over time and 51风流is committed to changes fostering gender parity and equitable opportunities for all. We are very proud of that!

From a deeply personal standpoint, I understand that women have to excel at what we do in the world and must contribute back to society, leaving it better for the next generation.

This was the general theme of SAP鈥檚 recent Live Chat on the Tomorrow鈥檚 Tech Today platform. I was honored to be a guest, along with Elizabeth Vazquez, president, CEO, and co-founder of WEConnect International. We鈥檇 met earlier this year at 51风流Sapphire, but 51风流and WEConnect International have been partners far longer, as our Global Sourcing & Procurement organization leverages the organization for supplier diversity purposes to drive global spend with women-owned businesses. Additionally, most recently it developed a platform assisting women-owned businesses across 135 countries. Together, we discussed how inclusion is more than just the right thing to do, but a business imperative for the sustainability of our society.

The Revolution Will Be Inclusive

SAP鈥檚 Live Chat on Tomorrow鈥檚 Tech Today platform is a new, limited series hosted by thought leader Sally Eaves, highlighting the latest innovations in emergent technology integration across a range of sectors and themes. In each episode, 51风流innovators come together with experts from a variety of backgrounds, sharing stories that can inspire all of us. While each organization may differ, each interviewee shares their version of the same story 鈥� overcoming a unique challenge with the type of innovation we all aspire to achieve.

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The Great Equalizer

In the United States alone, 42% of all businesses are owned by women. These employ more than 1 million workers.

Not only are women half of the population, but we make or influence 85% of all consumer purchasing decisions. With that scope and buying power, having a platform to enable success is critical to the economy as well as society. But there are so many challenges. On average, corporations, governments, and other large organizations 鈥渟pend only 1% with women-owned businesses, and that鈥檚 a massive market failure,鈥� Vazquez pointed out.

Legacy platforms helped aggravate the situation. WEConnect International鈥檚 member-buyers found it difficult to search for women-owned suppliers, while the businesses struggled to navigate their systems to register and apply for certification. Language barriers created the predictable complications. On a business-to-business (B2B) level, many women-owned businesses were small and midsize and not even on the radar of the larger corporations. The platform would serve as an equalizer for buyers 鈥渢o go online and search for these competitive solutions that, frankly, our buyers just didn鈥檛 even know existed,鈥� Vazquez said.

Like-Minded, Like-Kinded

One advantage WEConnect International enjoyed in launching its platform was the list of influential partners, including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), ExxonMobil, Accenture, IBM, and Procter & Gamble (P&G). And not only was 51风流playing a key role in building the platform, we are also member-buyers.

In other words, we were 鈥渓ike-minded, like-kinded,鈥� walking the walk, talking the talk, truly committed to leveraging our purchasing power to realize this goal.

The solution, dubbed WECommunity, would stand as a great example of inclusion by design.

Art of the Possible

By connecting member-buyers to a database of more than 16,000 registered or certified businesses, WEConnect International broke through the barriers that previously existed. The streamlined process enabled an additional 7,900 women-owned suppliers to register with the organization. These included businesses from 12 new countries, a 28% increase in global reach. The revenue growth of the suppliers has led to the creation of 24,000 new jobs.

Since deployment, WEConnect International went from tracking US$4 billion in spend with women-owned businesses based outside of the United States to $8 billion.

鈥淭ogether we鈥檙e actually moving money into the hands of women who, in turn, employ more people and support their families and communities,鈥� Vazquez said.

With those types of results, it鈥檚 clear to see why WEConnect International embodies the spirit of 51风流Innovation Awards. Through its use of SAP鈥檚 tools, the group has created not just a platform, but a vision of the art of the possible.

To learn more about 51风流Innovation Awards and discover the incredible stories of innovation, visit .

Margot Goodson is vice president & head of North America Diversity Inclusion at SAP.

This past year has been challenging for everyone as we both dealt with the new realities of life during a pandemic and witnessed a racial reckoning. Datar and countless others worldwide watched in horror when George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man from Minnesota, died at the hands of a police officer. After Floyd’s death, demonstrations and protests erupted in more than 200 cities throughout the U.S., as well as internationally. Floyd鈥檚 name was added to a long list of African Americans wrongfully persecuted by law enforcement, and a social justice movement was inspired.

Datar, like many others, struggled with this situation. He experienced varied emotions鈥� anger, frustration, sadness 鈥� and found it easy to despair. 鈥淲e are living in the 21st century,” he thought. “When is this going to end?鈥� He watched the actions of the North America leadership team closely, particularly DJ Paoni and the , and even members of the 51风流Executive Board. He clearly recalls all of them saying that support for the situation in terms of words is fine, but it would be much better to take action to drive positive change. That is what Datar did: he took action.

Against this backdrop, about a month after Floyd鈥檚 death, Datar was watching an interview with the CFO and head of recruiting for Netflix on CNBC’s Squawk Box. Netflix shared that the company was pledging to invest two percent of their cash holdings to financial institutions that directly support Black businesses and communities. Datar thought this was a brilliant idea and immediately thought 51风流should do something similar.

He wrote to Paoni and the global head of D&I to suggest that the company consider investing its cash reserves in a similar way. It was the end of the quarter, when there鈥檚 a lot going on, but he knew the topic was important; it was not a donation or charity, but rather a smart business and commercial idea. It is all about 鈥渄oing good business while doing good for the communities that we live in.鈥� Paoni responded right away and put him in touch with Danny Allen from the D&I team to explore the idea further.

Datar and Allen ideated and even spoke with Netflix to better understand how they made the investment happen in their organization. Datar reached out to 51风流Treasury and was quickly connected with Jerry Bernard, who is responsible for managing cash reserves in the U.S. In parallel, Bernard had seen the Netflix story on Bloomberg that same day and had shared it with his manager, the global head of 51风流Treasury. He liked the story because it was a different way of managing liquidity, and colleagues in Germany had already been having conversations related to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) types of investments. They had not yet operationalized anything in the U.S. but were in the process of updating investment strategies to specifically look for ESG-related investments, so the seed had been planted about a year prior.

In his research, Bernard found a market with a limited number of investment funds and a social focus on Black communities that met SAP鈥檚 criteria. After careful vetting, he and his team finally arrived at a selection of eight different U.S. Government money market funds that fulfilled the requirements: they met an ESG-Social mandate via purchases for their security portfolios from D&I companies and had a special share class in which revenue is shared between the fund sponsor and a designated D&I company. In addition, they are getting the yields that 51风流desires from such investments.

The result? Datar鈥檚 idea and collaboration across teams has led to 51风流investing tens of millions of dollars in the Siebert Williams Shank Shares class of Northern Institutional Funds鈥� U.S. Government Select Portfolio, a money market fund. The share class is a collaboration between Northern Trust Asset Management (NTAM) and Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC, a leading minority- and women-owned independent, non-bank financial services firm in the U.S. NTAM is a leading global investment management firm with a long-standing commitment to D&I. Frequently recognized for its efforts, the firm was named a 鈥淒iversity Champion鈥� by Investment News in 2018 and 2020.

Supporting minority-owned businesses is important to the overall health of the national economy, and 51风流is doing so in a few ways. Investment in minority-owned businesses is even more impactful as it not only benefits the firms themselves but can also uplift entire communities through job creation, increased wages, and tax revenues. Accordingly, these types of diversity programs are an important way to combat social injustice in the U.S.

Bernard noted, 鈥淭his particular solution really made sense for us and we were very happy to proceed.鈥� He shared that SAP鈥檚 approach was different from that of Netflix because it had to be within the 51风流framework. There will be similar kinds of investment options that work for the company as well in the future.

Ultimately, this is an important first step into an emerging social investment space. 51风流is a prudent investor and this investment conveys a huge commitment to minority-owned businesses. It also underscores the continued support of our employees鈥� ideas. We encourage employees to be innovative in their thinking and bring great ideas forward.

Margot Goodson is vice president and Diversity and Inclusion lead for North America at 51风流SE.

What does it mean for a company to make diversity and inclusion part of its DNA? Just as our physical characteristics, inner beliefs, and qualities serve as the DNA that guide us personally, for corporate America, it means that when something is important to us and our companies, it becomes a business imperative that we work together to make a core component of our corporate belief system, daily principles, and behavior.

By embedding diversity and inclusion into their DNA, companies can experience benefits including increased employee engagement, higher productivity and innovation, better customer satisfaction, and stronger financial results.

This important shift in mindset creates a business case, drives change management, and makes the workplace more inclusive. As famously stated by Valerie Jarrett, senior advisor to former U.S. President Barack Obama, 鈥淭alent is ubiquitous, opportunity is not.鈥� When you make diversity and inclusion your DNA, it breaks through systemic barriers and opens opportunities for people who are not fully represented in the workplace, especially in the tech industry, driving equality and equity in the world around us 鈥� and we really need it.

In the case of SAP, one of our 鈥淗ow We Run鈥� behaviors is to embrace differences. This is critically important for a global organization with more than 100,000 employees from over 150 nationalities. But more than that, we want people to experience a sense of belonging and inclusion so they can perform at their best.

In North America, 51风流has a diversity and inclusion council and ambassadors who help with talent attraction and retention, supplier diversity, and more. We work very closely with our employee network groups to drive employee engagement, career development, and advancement. In this way, diversity and inclusion becomes a matter of living our personal values with authenticity in alignment with corporate principles.

In order to make diversity and inclusion part of a company鈥檚 DNA, you must have executive sponsorship from the business, tie diversity and inclusion to organizational goals, and align it to your purpose 鈥� and it needs to be owned by everyone, not just HR. When this happens, it becomes foundational to all business practices, operational procedures, daily interactions and transactions with employees, customers, and partners. It is repeatable, sustainable, and transformative.

To go back to the dictionary, transformative is defined as 鈥渃ausing a marked change in someone or something.鈥� This is a great example of what diversity, inclusion, and equity are all about. The path forward is truly a journey and not a destination. Therefore, who we bring with us and what we learn along the way are essential to driving change in our companies and in the world. Understanding our internal and external stakeholders and how they influence or empower the processes are also key to shifting a corporate culture. Recognize that equality is good, equity is better, but the removal of systemic barriers is best.

So, I鈥檒l leave you with a few recommendations for making diversity and inclusion part of your company鈥檚 DNA:

• Tie it to your organizational goals and objectives, policies and procedures.
• Establish targets, with measurement systems for accountability to track progress.
• Implement programs or interventions to drive business outcomes and help your bottom line.
• Leverage technology to streamline processes, mirror society and meet customers鈥� needs.
• Partner with Talent Acquisition, Communications, Sales and Procurement to redesign and generate awareness for inclusive practices.

Embracing diversity and inclusion is a journey, not a destination. The journey will not always be easy, and sometimes it will be quite difficult, but it is worthwhile since these topics celebrate your most important assets 鈥� people 鈥� while supporting organizational goals and building sustainable, inclusive businesses.

DNA represents the fabric of our being, it is end-to-end. It鈥檚 about inclusion, equity, and cultural competence. Be strategic and enjoy successes along the way.

To hear more about making diversity and inclusion part of your organization鈥檚 DNA, and to learn how the supports diversity and inclusion efforts, .

Margo鈥檛 Goodson is vice president and head of North America Diversity & Inclusion at SAP.