We care about being ethical and efficient.
We strive to establish key supplier relationships, mitigate risk and source our products in an ethical and legally compliant way.
People update
In order to support the execution of our supply chain objectives, this year we have expanded the sourcing function to include both a sourcing manager and a sourcing and sustainability assistant, whose roles are to lead and take ownership for implementing new ways of working both internally across the commercial teams and externally within our supplier base. This team is responsible for driving and co-ordinating our key supplier relationships, supplier assessment, supplier strategy and supplier engagement, maximising efficiencies in how we operate and the end-to-end management of our key partners.
Supplier data
Our goal is to implement a transparent process to understand and hold relevant data on our total supplier base, with the ability to assess them and engage with them to drive key partnerships. We maintain a supplier database so that is used as an effective tool for stakeholders to understand an individual supplier’s status, or to evaluate our supplier base on a more holistic level.
We have made significant progress in supply chain transparency, which has been aided by our relationship with our ethical supply chain partner, Verisio, enabling us to risk assess our own brand suppliers using a bespoke risk grading matrix and, for our branded suppliers, a self assessment questionnaire to risk assess suppliers based on their own internal ethical standards and responsible business practices.
FY25 achievements
- Rolled out the next phase of our Ethical Compliance Programme across our entire active supplier base, spanning own-brand, supplier-branded, licensed and publisher partners.
- For own-brand suppliers, the approach consists of risk grading our suppliers’ factories using a bespoke risk grading matrix devised in conjunction with Verisio, our nominated ethical compliance partner.
- For our branded suppliers, a self-assessment questionnaire has been introduced, and suppliers are risk assessed based on their own internal ethical standards and responsible business practices throughout their supply chains.
- Conducted supplier segmentation exercises on our suppliers and evaluated all active suppliers against high-level supplier performance criteria.
Supplier standards
As part of our Supplier On-Boarding process, we require all suppliers to sign our Terms and Conditions of Purchase and our Ethical Trading Code of Conduct, and agree to the requirements set out in our Supplier Manual.
We have refreshed our Ethical Trading Code of Conduct to contain an enhanced set of supplier requirements, which has been signed by all active suppliers.
In FY25 we will be setting out our audit requirements for our own brand suppliers and their factories, which will become a mandatory condition for purchase. All audit reports obtained as part of this ongoing project will be risk assessed by Verisio, using a risk matrix defined by the Group, and factories will be graded.
For our branded suppliers and publishers, we will issue a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) which will capture information required to ensure that they are managing their factory sites in line with our requirements.
Sourcing strategy
In FY24, we have identified the need to develop a process to assess our supplier base objectively. We have categorised our suppliers into distinct groups based on various parameters, which include factors such as the supplier’s significance to the business, their performance, the level of risk they pose, and their strategic value.
In FY25, we aim to improve this approach by ensuring the categorisation process is as comprehensive as possible, capturing tangible feedback based on pre-defined criteria. The output of this process will be in the form of a supplier scorecard. The supplier scorecard will provide a structured and visual manner to comprehend the dynamics of the supplier base, enabling us to make informed decisions about supplier management.
We have identified supplier rationalisation opportunities in order to streamline the business’ spend to fewer suppliers and drive better value from those relationships. These opportunities will be explored further during FY25.
Plans for FY26
- Introduce tangible metrics set against the high-level criteria to strengthen overall performance evaluation of our supplier base.
- Develop balanced scorecards to provide a consistent, objective view of supplier performance.
- Complete and reissue our supplier terms and conditions of purchase alongside a renewed Supplier Manual to reinforce our expectations of suppliers and mitigate risk.
- Oversee supplier and factory ethical compliance risk grading progress and develop internal targets for continuous improvement purposes.
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