Selected for Procter & Gamble Supplier Academy 2021
We’re very excited to be selected for the Procter & Gamble Supplier Academy as part of the class of 2021. We get exposure to a wide range of topics, meet other female founders and get access to members of the P&G executive team. We can’t wait to run ideas and get feedback from them. They manufacture some of the world’s most well-known brands from Pampers to Gillette and have a global supply chain ecosystem that involves thousands of stakeholders. They support a network of more than 11,000 suppliers and small businesses from around the world. It’s an incredible opportunity for us.
Any insights into how they use AI or optimise their operations is really fascinating to us. We look forward to participating.
About the Procter & Gamble Supplier Academy
The P&G Supplier Academy is a structured training and development programme for small and medium-sized businesses that are, or aspire to be, suppliers to Procter & Gamble. Delivered in partnership with WEConnect International — a global network connecting women-owned businesses with corporate buyers — the programme focuses on majority women-owned businesses.
The Supplier Academy covers a range of topics critical to supplying to a global corporation: supply chain management, quality management systems, sustainability requirements, and the commercial standards that global procurement teams expect. For a small business like Nightingale HQ, access to the P&G executive team and insights into how one of the world’s largest FMCG companies manages its supply chain and uses technology is genuinely valuable intelligence.
Why P&G’s supply chain and AI use is relevant
Procter & Gamble manufactures some of the world’s most recognised consumer brands — from Pampers and Gillette to Ariel and Head & Shoulders. Managing the supply chain for that portfolio, across thousands of suppliers and millions of SKUs globally, is an extraordinary operational challenge. P&G has invested heavily in data, analytics, and AI to manage this complexity, and their experience offers lessons that are applicable — at different scales — to any manufacturing operation.
For Nightingale HQ, which was building AI tools for manufacturers at the time, exposure to P&G’s approach to data and operations provided valuable validation. If the world’s largest consumer goods companies are solving their operational problems with data and AI, the same principles apply to a metals fabricator in Wales or a food manufacturer in Ireland — just at a different scale and with different tools.
WEConnect International
WEConnect International is a global network that enables women-owned businesses to compete in the global marketplace. Its corporate members — including P&G — commit to spending a proportion of their procurement budget with women-owned suppliers. WEConnect’s certification process verifies that businesses meet the majority women-owned threshold, giving corporate procurement teams confidence in the supplier diversity claims of businesses on their supply chain.
Nightingale HQ’s participation in the P&G Supplier Academy via WEConnect reflected both the company’s status as a majority women-owned business — co-founded by Ruth Kearney and Steph Locke — and its commercial ambition to work with large enterprise customers as well as SMEs.