How L’Oréal evaluates its suppliers to stay ahead of the game

The French firm ensures that it adheres to its commitments to innovation and sustainability by carrying out regular evaluations on the basis of five key indicators.

The five sections outlined are: social and environmental responsibility, innovation, quality, logistics, and competitiveness.

Much like many of us in our day-to-day jobs, this then results in a performance review, which the beauty giant says ensures “continuous improvement.”​

Social and environmental​

Nowadays, companies cannot operate without taking social and environmental matters into consideration. In view of this, L’Oréal ensures that its suppliers adhere to current legislation, human rights and labour laws.

The health and safety of workers along with preserving biodiversity are hot topics in cosmetics at present, therefore safety, health and environmental audits are carried out to ensure that good practice is developed.

Innovation​

At the forefront of most cosmetics firms’ operations is innovation and staying ahead of the game, and as a trailblazer in the field, L’Oréal is no different.

The make-up maker has a number of tools for evaluating performance of its suppliers to ensure high quality solutions and this also branches out from ingredients for product formulas to packaging.

Quality​

Quality and safety are elements that you would expect from all manufacturers and suppliers, but L’Oréal also feels it must evaluate this regularly to ensure that standards do not drop, citing consumer trust in the products as the driving force behind this.

Quality audits are regularly carried out, and the quality system of the group, inspired by international standards, continuously develop processes in line with customer expectations and also regulatory requirements.

Logistics​

The intention of the firm’s logistics evaluation is to improve and optimise its means of production and systems, ensure response times are kept low and to reduce the ‘time to market’; which ultimately saves costs and improves processes throughout the entire logistics chain.

As such, L’Oréal has in place a system that defines a standardized operating method for the period before a product launch and defines parameters for procurement.

Competitiveness​

Finally competitiveness is important so that any company can establish a long-term relationship with good suppliers.

For L’Oréal, this is evaluated on the basis of a supplier’s tariff sheets and an in-depth analysis of the costs, once a project has been launched and during the course of the tender procedure.

“There is a joint process of systematically searching for ways to optimise costs in an attempt to find the best global economic equation,”​ it says.