Supplier.io is a company that powers the most successful supplier diversity programs and provides solutions for implementing effective programs that grow diversity spend, improve supply chain competitiveness, and increase brand value. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Supplier.io CEO Aylin Basom to learn more.
Aylin Basom’s Background
Basom has over 15 years of experience in the technology sector, with a passion for building high-performing teams and working with global customers to deliver innovative SaaS solutions across industries and markets.
Basom said:
I’m dedicated to providing the very best experience for customers, from their earliest interactions with products and people through to achieving the maximum value of their investment.
Currently, I serve as the chief executive officer of Supplier.io, which is a pioneer and market-leading SaaS supplier diversity management platform that helps companies track their diverse supplier spending, grow their program, and measure its impact through inclusion tracker and economic impact reports.
Throughout my career, I’ve served in various executive leadership roles and have driven significant revenue growth through both indirect and direct channels. I’m proud of the extensive industry knowledge I’ve developed and my proven record for leading growth-oriented business strategies and great customer experiences. This background has also helped me understand how to advocate for diversity in the industry and drive meaningful change, and my goal is to inspire, encourage, and support the development of diverse teams.
Before Supplier.io, I served as the chief customer officer of Americas at Infor, which is an enterprise software company that is owned by Koch Industries. I earned my business management degree from Texas Tech University and strategic leadership certification from Harvard University.
As CEO of Supplier.io, I am responsible for setting the company’s vision, strategic goals, and direction, which includes determining our market focus and how we can expand our product to meet our customers’ evolving needs. A major focus is to drive the growth of our business and identify market opportunities while preserving the financial health of the company and aligning with our board of directors.
I play an integral role in building and managing our executive team to ensure they can work effectively and feel supported in their roles. My priority is to build and support a diverse and inclusive company culture, which requires my entire executive team’s commitment.
I dedicate as much time as possible to advocate for supplier diversity across industries, and I do so by partnering with industry groups like the Sourcing Industry Group (SIG) and Minority Supplier Development UK (MSDUK), as well as speaking at leading industry events like the Procurement Technology Summit and Tech Inclusion Conference.
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for Supplier.io so far? “Working for such a mission-driven organization brings me a great sense of pride in my work. Our mission is to help our customers grow and mature their supplier diversity program and increase diverse spend. We work with amazing companies—including most of the Fortune 1000—that are committed to supporting minority communities, including women, veteran, LGBTQ+, and disabled-owned businesses Making a real impact on diversity and inclusion in the business world means that we are creating economic opportunities for underrepresented groups and contributing to a more equitable economy,” Basom reflected. “As a business executive, I am perpetually prepared to face demanding challenges and find solutions to problems. In a SaaS enterprise, it is typical to experience churn and occasionally encounter unhappy customers. Taking on the role of the new CEO, I anticipated a potentially challenging journey ahead. To my pleasant surprise, the reception from our clients was incredibly warm and welcoming. My attendance at the National Minority Supplier Development Council Conference, where I had the chance to meet many of our customers, exceeded all my expectations. The affectionate greetings, as expressed through literal hugs, were heartwarming. Our clients expressed their appreciation for Supplier.io and how significantly our services have contributed to their organizations and goals of growing their supplier diversity program. What we have achieved collaboratively was well echoed in their words, marking a profoundly gratifying welcome for me.”
Has the current macroeconomic climate had any effect on the company?
“According to The Hackett Group, almost every enterprise today has a supplier diversity program and a goal to grow diverse spending. Given the volatile macroeconomic climate, companies are committed to investing in their supply chain competitiveness and diversifying their risks,” Basom noted. “This is where supplier diversity can provide immediate benefits, and we see companies increase their focus on supplier diversity as a way to drive innovation, improve resilience, and meet the expectations of stakeholders, including customers and investors who increasingly value social responsibility.”
Core Products
What are Supplier.io’s core products and features? Basom explained:
Supplier.io provides a complete platform to help organizations manage their supplier diversity program, making it easier to execute and improve results. We help companies know and understand their current diverse spend, make it easier to find more certified diverse suppliers to help them grow their diverse spend, expand their program by adding in Tier 2 suppliers (suppliers that provide materials to Tier 1 suppliers), and share the economic and community impact of their programs. We have the largest database with more than two million certified diverse suppliers globally holding over four million certifications.
Specific Supplier.io capabilities include:
– Data Enrichment – Allows companies to get accurate and detailed analysis of their current diversity spend by enriching their procurement supplier data.
– Benchmarking – The company analyzed $1.4 trillion in spend data in 15 industries to ensure companies can look at their supplier diversity program results against industry peers to set goals. Through this benchmarking report, we also provide actionable insight to help companies identify growth opportunities.
– Diversity Analytics & Reporting – It allows teams to effortlessly track, analyze, and report spending with diverse suppliers and have boardroom-ready data at their fingertips.
– Supplier Registration – Makes it easy for diverse suppliers to register and provide more information via a centralized portal, so companies can gather the data they need to maximize their program.
– Supplier Explorer – Helps companies grow their diversity spend by enabling their entire team to easily find credible, certified diverse suppliers in just a few clicks.
– Tier 2 Spend Reporting – Allows companies to expand their supplier diversity program to their current suppliers, which includes the platform, data, training, and managed services for them to collect and report Tier 2 Spend.
– Economic Impact Analysis – Quantifies the economic benefits of supplier diversity programs on the communities that our customers serve.
Evolution Of Supplier.io’s Technology
How has Supplier.io’s technology evolved since launching? “The Supplier.io team has been focused on supplier diversity data and software for over 20 years. Over that time, we’ve continued to innovate and find new ways to grow our diverse supplier database, increase accuracy, and make it easier for companies to manage their programs. We constantly expand our global data to include key certifications, including new data integrations from B Corp to source socially responsible suppliers, U.S. Military Spouse Chamber of Commerce to source from military spouse-owned businesses, and Minority Supplier Development U.K. (MDSUK) to find diverse suppliers in the U.K.” Basom explained. “Beyond our diverse supplier database, we’ve invested in the ability to do Tier 2 spend reporting analytics. Also, we introduced Economic Impact analysis to help companies quantify their impact in communities by showing how many jobs they have created, and their impact on GDP, taxes, wages, etc. Further, we built a ranking system for suppliers in our system—based on their experience, number of years in business, and company size—to help companies quickly find high-ranking suppliers. A notable recent development is our new Benchmarking product, which helps a company compare their diverse spend with industry peers, identify specific areas where they can improve with actionable insight, and have visibility to diverse suppliers available, down to the commodity level specific to their industry and business.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Supplier.io’s most significant milestones? “There have been many milestones throughout Supplier.io’s growth. In 2015 we launched our Supplier Explorer, which made it easier for companies to find new diverse suppliers. In 2017, we launched our centralized Tier 2 reporting platform and Supplier Diversity Analytics solutions, which helped companies better quantify the results of their programs,” Basom highlighted.“In 2019, we acquired CVM Solutions from Kroll, a division of Duff & Phelps., which further expanded our scope, reach, and overall offerings in the supplier diversity field as well as additional expertise— particularly in financial services and pharmaceutical sectors. The acquisition strengthened Supplier.io’s existing footprint in industries like automotive, insurance, advanced manufacturing, and healthcare. This move also added significant scale to our team and operations, increasing the overall capacity to deliver superior services. 2021 was a significant year given that Norwest Venture Partners invested in the company to help us rapidly grow our solution and business. In 2022 I joined the company, and we also launched our Benchmarking solution.”
Customer Success Story
Upon asking Basom about a customer success story, he cited:
A Fortune 500 company was facing significant challenges with their supplier diversity program. The existing processes were manual and labor-intensive, leading to inefficiencies and potential for errors. With suppliers across the globe, they also struggled with visibility into their diverse supplier base.
The company decided to implement Supplier.io’s comprehensive solution. Right from the start, they noticed the difference. Supplier.io’s intuitive and robust platform provided real-time visibility into the supplier base, while the analytics tool allowed the company to track and manage its diverse spend effectively.
Furthermore, Supplier.io’s advanced technology helped the company identify new opportunities to work with diverse suppliers, thus aligning more with its corporate social responsibility goals. The platform also streamlined its certification tracking process, making it easier than ever to maintain compliance with government contracting regulations.
After one year of using Supplier.io, the company saw a significant increase in their diverse spend and a substantial increase in productivity. The supplier diversity managers could now focus more on strategic tasks, thanks to the automation of many administrative functions.
Today, the company considers Supplier.io an essential tool in its supplier diversity program. They are just one of many organizations that have transformed supplier diversity initiatives with Supplier.io.
A few notable Supplier.io customer success stories that I can name would include
- Hyatt Hotels: In 2020, Hyatt set a corporate goal of spending 25% of their total spend with diverse suppliers. In less than three years they were able to meet their 5-year spend goal and grow with African-American enterprises specifically. They went from working with only 37 African-American-owned businesses to over 550 in less than two years.
- Logitech: Logitech was able to grow their diverse spend from only 2% to now 10%+ in just three years.
- Apollo Global Management: In 2021, Apollo was looking to understand their current diverse spend and develop a growth strategy. In partnership with services from Insight Sourcing Group, Apollo Global Management implemented Supplier.io with the goal of increasing spend with minority and women-owned businesses. The team met its goal of $1 billion in diverse spend by 2024 (1 year early!) and set a new goal to achieve $2 billion of diverse spend by the end of 2025.
Funding/Revenue
Supplier.io received investment from Norwest Venture Partners in 2021. And this investment is used to grow the business, and product offerings, and expand operations. Supplier.io operates as a SaaS (Software as a Service) provider and generates revenue by charging customers a subscription fee to use our platform and services.
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Supplier.io pursuing? “Companies around the globe are committed to implementing supplier diversity programs or improving the ones in place in their organization,” Basom assessed. “In fact, according to a 2021 survey from The Hackett Group, they expect diversity supply spend to increase by 50% by 2025, and Gartner reported that the volume of inquiries on the topic grew by 500% in 2021. Therefore, our market opportunity is vast.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Supplier.io from its competition? Basom pointed out:
Supplier.io stands out from our competition in several ways. First, our solution and expertise are unmatched, considering we have been the pioneer and leading provider of supplier diversity solutions for over 20 years. We serve a larger number and wide range of customers across different industries and countries. We’ve continually innovated to meet customer and market needs by offering new products, data, and services to help programs grow globally.
Our data is one of our key differentiators, given that we have the largest, most accurate, and most reliable diverse supplier database in the world. We currently have more than two million certified diverse businesses holding over four million certifications, and our database continues to grow each day.
We offer more superior and advanced technology than our competitors, in terms of both our main platform and tools, which includes advanced analytics, intuitive dashboards, and automated processes that save our customers time and effort. We are regularly adding new features and services, keeping up with the latest industry trends, and adapting to changing customer needs.
Our expert team is instrumental in keeping Supplier.io ahead of the curve, and we have functional experts that previously served as supplier diversity managers to help our customers scale their programs.
Supplier.io’s strategic data and technology partnerships with key players in the industry allow us to offer more integrated or comprehensive solutions.
Finally, our superior customer service and support is a key differentiator from our competitors. We have customer success managers and data managers that work with each of our customers for ongoing success, as well as assigned project managers for implementation and to ensure quick time to value for all customers.
Future Company Goals
What are some of Supplier.io’s future company goals? Basom concluded:
I am excited for the great potential Supplier.io has, and our future will be undoubtedly bright. Looking at our goals, we hope to make strides in the following areas:
1.) Product Development and Innovation: We aim to continually improve and expand our product offering in order to meet the evolving needs of our customers, especially in supplier diversity and ESG space. This includes developing new products and features, enhancing user experience, growing our data as well as providing new capabilities, and enhancing our offerings through partnering or integrating with other software systems.
2.) Market Expansion: Increase our customer base and market share by reaching new customers in different industries and geographic areas.
3.) Advocacy and Thought Leadership: Continue to be the leader in the supplier diversity space, and provide more thought leadership through publishing insightful research and participating in industry events to help companies across industries make progress in their supplier diversity initiatives.
4.) Internal Diversity and Inclusion: Continue to promote diversity and inclusion within our own team, aligning internal practices with our external mission.
5.) Sustainability: Incorporating sustainability more in our business operations and product offerings, as businesses are increasingly considering environmental and social factors in their supplier diversity programs.
