Northern’s relationships with SMEs and VCSEs are important to us and aids us to deliver a safe, reliable, and efficient railway for our customers.
We are committed to working with Small to Medium sized Enterprises (SME) and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE), since 2020 Northern has increased its expenditure with SMEs and VCSEs.
Since 2020 we have increased the proportion of our total expenditure spent with SMEs. Whilst we endeavor to improve this position with every year this becomes increasingly more difficult to achieve. That is why we’ve established our SME support to focus on what we must do to make ourselves ‘easier to do business with’.
More information can be found in our SME Support Plan section below.
SME Support Plan
We have developed our SME Support Plan to improve our working relationship with SMEs.
Our engagement with SME suppliers and feedback from industry associations has made it clear that we are not always easy to work with. The Plan looks to respond to these insights and puts in place new working practices that will make a positive difference for SMEs.
Areas of improvement
The SME Support Plan sets out the issues raised by SMEs and the changes we will make to ensure we make it as easy as possible to do business with us.
It focuses on four areas of improvement:
- engagement
- pre-procurement
- procurement
- innovation.
Further details can of each action can be found in the plan (link/documentation coming soon)
Get in touch
Please do not hesitate to contact our us at [email protected] if you have any questions.
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