Comcast: Diversity and Inclusion in all its forms is part of our DNA
February 6, 2020
At Comcast, we believe that a diverse and inclusive company is a more innovative and successful company, which is why we strive to infuse diversity and inclusion (D&I) into all aspects of our culture and our business.
For us, D&I is not a program — it is a central element of our credo and our DNA. Our approach to D&I is focused on five key pillars: Governance, Workforce, Supplier Diversity, Programming, and Community Impact.
It’s a privilege to share details of our company’s Supplier Diversity efforts in the hope that our experiences will help inform and educate your business, but first here’s some history on our approach.
Locally, Comcast was one of 10 founding companies of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Pacesetters Program in 2018. The Comcast Greater Boston Region, which includes all of Eastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod and the Islands and portions of New Hampshire and Maine, partnered with dozens of diverse suppliers (72) in the last year.
Supplier Diversity Accomplishments
Comcast Corp. as a whole has a proven track record of working with hundreds of diverse suppliers, which we believe has strengthened the company’s purchasing power, built value for shareholders and created wealth in the communities in which our diverse suppliers live and work.
For example, Comcast spent more than $18 billion with Tier 1 diverse vendors, including minority-owned, women-owned and veteran-owned businesses since 2010. As a result, Comcast NBCUniversal became the first media and technology company to join the Billion Dollar Roundtable as the organization’s 21st member in 2015.
The significance is that member companies of the Roundtable commit to spending at least $1 billion annually with a combination of minority-owned, woman-owned, veteran-owned, disability-owned and LGBT-owned businesses.
How we built our Diverse Supplier Network
In order to connect with 3,000+ diversely-owned companies in our supplier network, we have participated in a variety of outreach events each year around the country.
We actively collaborate with organizations such as the Billion Dollar Roundtable, the National Minority Supplier Development Council, the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, Disability:IN, the National Veteran Business Development Council and chambers of commerce in Boston, New England and across Comcast markets in the US to identify and work with diverse suppliers.
We also seek out diversely-owned businesses with other targeted outreach such as local events or direct solicitation.
As we shared in Comcast’s 2019 “Our Values in Action” Report, our procurement strategy goes beyond simply purchasing from diversely-owned businesses to developing — when possible – long-term relationships that provide insights, advocacy and other benefits.
For example, Comcast also has a subcontracting program that helps our primary vendors secure strategic partnerships with other diverse suppliers, creating a virtuous cycle of growth and opportunity.
To further assist small diverse businesses, we’ve launched incubator programs at Comcast and NBCUniversal to help support vendors who have the capability, but lack the scale, to work with large corporations and educate them on how to become diverse-certified, ways to improve interactions with Fortune 500 companies and other valuable insights.
Comcast’s Diversity & Inclusion efforts have been widely recognized by Fortune, DiversityInc., and Black EOE Journal (BEOEJ) among others.
“We applaud the Chamber for its ongoing work to encourage more businesses to increase their supplier diversity efforts with the Pacesetters program,’’ said Jackie Gadsden, Vice President of Customer Experience and Diversity and Inclusion for the Greater Boston Region. “We believe other Chamber members will not only find ROI in D&I, but also become more creative, innovative, successful and better connected with customers and audiences as a direct result. It’s an honor for us to be a part of this great program and we are committed to help it grow.’’
More about Comcast’s core Diversity & Inclusion values, including our five focus areas, can be found here.