We deal with thousands of local and multinational suppliers and seek to interact with them - and industry at large - in a fair and ethical way and to promote corporate responsibility deep into our supply chain.
Our practices are strictly in line with our Business Principles and they ensure, for example, that we award business solely on merit and that we agree payment terms with suppliers that are fair and reasonable. We have a set of Procurement Policies and Principles that apply to all our operations and these are implemented locally by each of our procurement teams.
We have local teams in the countries where we operate – the UK, Germany, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the Isle of Man – as part of their local business. We also have group-wide procurement teams to promote the efficiencies of single contractual relationships with common suppliers across the Telefónica Europe Group.
Our O2 Executive Procurement Board, chaired by the Chief Procurement Officer, meets regularly to identify best practice. We aim to continuously improve our professionalism, obtain world-class value in our supply chain and gain competitive advantage for O2 through strategic procurement activities. We also work closely with the procurement teams in our parent company Telefónica, in order to realise similar benefits across the whole group.
We have established a Strategic Souring process that provides us with a consistent and efficient way of conducting procurement projects. This is based on a category management approach, and is run electronically on a common Telefónica Group platform.
Our Supplier Relationship Management Programme for key suppliers enables us to work with each of them to maximise the two-way value for both parties. We also aim to minimise any adverse effects on society and the environment by working co-operatively with our suppliers and other third parties. Close dialogue with our partners is designed to promote and develop socially responsible policies that have a positive effect on all concerned.
At all times, we conduct our activities fairly and equitably and operate within the bounds of local and national laws and regulations.
We require our suppliers to agree to our standard Purchasing Terms and to comply with our Supplier Policies.
As an international business, we aim to set and maintain high standards of corporate responsibility throughout all of our supply chains, which are many and varied.
We believe this not only makes business sense, it also enables us to make a contribution to sustainable development. We take a risk-based approach to managing supply chain social and environmental issues, focusing on areas where we believe we can make a real difference, and we will work with our suppliers to help them to minimise the effects of their operations.
Our own set of Business Principles outlines our commitment to ethical sourcing but we have developed specific policies on ethical and environmental procurement.
Our approach includes:
