A truly accessible and inclusive workplace incorporates accessibility into your procurement processes. When you invest in accessible goods and services, your employees, customers, and community can all enjoy a seamless and exceptional experience with you
This means working with suppliers and partner organisations to make sure their goods and services are accessible for anyone who will use them.
When you invest in accessible goods and services, your employees, customers, and community can all enjoy a seamless and exceptional experience with you.
Research, such as in a Forrester Total Economic Impact study, has shown there can be substantial costs to retrospectively incorporating accessibility into products and services. Costs are more manageable if accessibility is considered as a standard requirement and built in from the very beginning.
Accessible procurement practices are good for business
Applying accessible procurement practices today helps you:
- Deliver a more inclusive and positive employee and customer brand experience.
- Connect with, reach and serve more employees and customers.
- Provide access for as many users as possible.
- Meet your legal responsibilities under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.
- Save money by meeting employee and customer needs effectively upfront rather than funding expensive individual adaptations or retrofitting later on.
Information and Communication Technology Procurement
Overview
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is integral for the productivity, efficiency and connectivity of your employees, customers and your business. The recent shift to remote or hybrid working models has only increased this reliance.
Procuring accessible technology gives people with disability the tools and technology they need to actively contribute to the success of your business, while fostering an inclusive environment where all employees can connect, collaborate, and share information.
How to implement accessible procurement practices
In 2019, we developed an Accessible Procurement Taskforce to help organisations improve the accessibility of their procurement processes and acquire accessible goods and services.
With the support of this Taskforce, we have developed a series of valuable tools and resources that will enable accessible procurement, specifically for your Information Communication Technology (ICT).
These tools will help you understand:
- What questions to ask your suppliers and partner organisations during the procurement process.
- How to evaluate their answers without subject matter expertise.
- How to easily build accessible procurement into your supplier contracts.
- How the governance process should work.
Tools and resources
Technology Accessibility Selection Tool
The Technology Accessibility Selection Tool supports organisations to procure accessible and inclusive Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The tool can also be used to evaluate and determine the accessibility of ICT resources.
Watch our short video on how to effectively use the Technology Accessibility Selection Tool in your procurement process.
To access this powerful and free Technology Accessibility Tool, please provide your name, email, and organisation in the form below. We are capturing these details to understand how often and widely the Tool is being utilised.
Resources to help you use the Technology Accessibility Tool
| Accessible procurement Process Map (PDF) Accessible procurement process Process Map (Word) |
This document explains how the use of the Technology Accessibility Selection Tool, developed by the Taskforce, can be used to remove the key perceived issues when including accessibility requirements into scope. |
Other resources
| NZ Government Accessible Checklist | This is a checklist provided by the New Zealand government for embedding accessibility into the procurement of web-based products, services, or development work. |
| Buying accessible digital products and services everyone can use | This page provides information on how to buy accessible digital products and services for everyone, including people with disability. Provided by NSW Government. |
| Accessible IT procurement | A guide to procuring accessible ICT for Higher Education, provided by CAUDIT. |
| OzeWAI’s Product Accessibility List | OZeWAI’s Product Accessibility List (PAL) can be a quick and easy way to build an initial understanding of the accessibility of a software product. |
| University of Melbourne’s Sample requirements for request proposal | This guidance from University of Melbourne contains a list of sample requirements for inclusion in a Product request for proposal (RFP) |
Social Procurement
Overview
Social procurement refers to making purchases to generate social benefits. It is an effective way of linking social, economic and sustainability agendas to optimise societal prosperity.
Considering your access and inclusion practices and employment of people with disability as part of your overall procurement strategy simply makes good business sense.
Social procurement can lead to increased supplier diversity, increased likelihood of innovative approaches, expansion of your customer base and increased standing for your organisation in the market place (competitive advantage).
Resources
| https://disabilityleaders.com.au/business-directory/ | This Directory contains listings of disability led businesses, owned and run by members of the Disability Leadership Institute. |
| https://www.socialtraders.com.au | Social Traders is the national trailblazer of social enterprise procurement. They create a more inclusive and equitable Australia by making buying from social enterprise the norm. |
| https://buyability.org.au/ | BuyAbility is proud to be a successful, one-of-a-kind service in Australia. Since 2011, they have secured many business opportunities leading to successful outcomes for Social Enterprises. |
| Social Procurement Considerations | Some considerations when developing or refining your procurement strategy |
Accessible Procurement Resources
| ILO GBDN Self-Assessment | This tool can be used by organisations to share with their strategic partners as part of a procurement process to understand their supplier’s accessible practices’ |
Examples
These examples showcase how some of Australia’s biggest organisations are influencing their suppliers and partners to embrace access and inclusion
Westpac
Westpac encourage their suppliers and partners to be accessible and inclusive by providing publicly available policies that demonstrate their commitment to access and inclusion through the procurement process.
These include:
Microsoft
Microsoft specifies requirements for suppliers through their Supplier Diversity Program.
Queensland Government
Procurement resources published on Queensland Government’s Accessibility compliance in procurement – ensuring accessibility for people with a disability and Procurement resources webpages, including:
Recognition
The ICT procurement resources have been developed with the expertise, guidance and time of the Accessible Procurement Taskforce, Taskforce Working Group and other partners. A big thank you to;
- Business Disability Forum
- Matt Hawkins
- Suzanne Colbert AM
- ANZ
- Crown Casino
- Digital Victoria
- Digital Transformation Agency
- Microsoft
- NDIA
- OZeWAI
Contact us
For more information, please contact us via email or call us on (02) 8270 9200