Supply chain

Ensuring we manage our supplier relationships fairly and ethically is a priority for us. In support of this the UK Procurement team have developed a CR strategy which focuses on embedding sound social, ethical, and environmental principles into our procurement processes in order to -

• Ensure PwC's interaction and dealings with the external market in fully in line with the firms' values and Code of Conduct.
• Manage reputation risk by ensuring that the firm does not suffer through its association with 3rd party suppliers.

Our procurement process includes a responsible purchasing policy supported by evaluation tools to ensure we achieve these objectives.

Supplier engagement

As a part of our supplier engagement programme we have set out our expectations and aspirations in this area in our supplier-briefing document, which commits us to fair and ethical dealings with our suppliers.

It is important to us to build good working relationships with our suppliers and as such seek feedback on their opinion on working with PwC. This year we commissioned our second independent survey and we were pleased to find that all of the suppliers surveyed considered us to be fair in our dealings with them compared to 85% in last years survey however this will still remain a key area of focus for us. We are also pleased to note that there has been an increase from 80% to 85% in the supplier’s perception of our willingness to collaborate and 75% still consider us to be more professional in our dealings than their other major clients.

“They do seem to be going out of their way to make the relationship work ……… I haven’t seen other clients work as hard”

Quote from 2007 supplier survey

Payment Terms

One of the more visible indicators of a companies dealings with its suppliers is timely payment. PwC standard payment terms are 45 days from the date of receipt of an invoice (subject to contract variation). Our target is to pay our suppliers within our generic 45 day terms, and for 2007 our average supplier payment days was 15. Supplier payment days is a defined term under the companies act based upon the ratio of the amount outstanding at year end as a percentage of total year spend, including inter territory transfers.