In addition to our manufacturing suppliers, Cisco works with a number of vendors, many of whom represent small businesses that provide a number of services to Cisco. Diversity among these suppliers is an important part of our supply chain philosophy. We believe diversity is good for our business in a variety of ways:

• Regional diversity gives us access to worldwide skills and markets, and provides business resiliency if disruptions should occur in a particular region. It also helps reduce transportation costs.
• Culturally diverse suppliers offering different viewpoints and styles of interacting help us develop and market products that fit the needs of the global community.
• Social diversity promotes inclusiveness that benefits communities and local economies.
• Regional diversity helps balance the risks to the supply chain posed by such factors as potential civil unrest, natural hazards, and economic uncertainties.

The Cisco Global Supplier Diversity Business Development (GSDBD) program was established more than 15 years ago to provide equal access to businesses owned by minorities, women, people with disabilities, and military veterans, as well as to companies in historically underutilized business zones (HUBzones). Cisco has an internal goal of awarding 10 percent of our supplier expenditures to such businesses.

This program also provides ongoing supplier diversity training throughout Cisco’s business units. To help identify diverse suppliers, Cisco works with external inclusion organizations and with Cisco’s own employee networks. We have also implemented a vendor management tool that allows us to manage certified diverse suppliers.

For the past four years, Cisco has been recognized for our supplier diversity efforts by DiversityBusiness.com. Cisco ranks as one of the top 50 United States companies providing multicultural business opportunities, based on feedback received from more than 350,000 women- and minority-owned businesses.