Our Suppliers

Working with Suppliers

In 2007, Abbott purchased an estimated $12 billion in goods and services from more than 20,000 suppliers worldwide. More than $8 billion of these purchases supported our operations in the United States, including Puerto Rico. We are committed to the highest supplier standards and have management systems in place to review and audit our suppliers in a number of areas, including quality and financial stability.

Supplier Guidelines

Our goal is to enable our suppliers to understand Abbott's expectations and their vital role in ensuring the integrity of our global supply chain and its ability to deliver products to patients. Abbott's Supplier Guidelines address our expectations regarding ethical behavior, human rights, animal research, environmental stewardship, and health and safety practices. These guidelines are widely communicated across our businesses and translated into multiple languages, including Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Chinese Modifi		Itali
Chinese Simplifi		Japane
Engli		Portugue
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Supplier Diversity

In the United States, we actively work to identify opportunities for small, women-, veteran-, and minority-owned businesses, as well as businesses located in HUBZones (Historically Underutilized Business Zones). We work with government agencies, minority business groups and advocacy organizations to identify suppliers and communicate sourcing opportunities. We also provide guidance to these suppliers through informal mentoring, advocacy and outreach efforts.

We are active members of supplier diversity and benchmarking groups, including the National Minority Supplier Development Council, the Chicago Minority Business Development Council, Inc., ISM Pharmaceutical Forum, and the Conference Board's Council on Supplier Diversity. We participate in small business matchmaking fairs and conferences across the United States, including Puerto Rico. To nurture fair and ethical relationships, we require our suppliers to comply with the Abbott Supplier Guidelines and applicable portions of our Code of Business Conduct.

We educate employees about the advantages of a diverse supplier base. In 2007, supplier diversity became a part of the required training curriculum of our ethics and compliance program for more than 17,000 Abbott employees in the United States. We hosted a supplier diversity fair near our company headquarters and based on its positive impact, we will host a similar event in 2008. We will also collaborate with our employee networks on raising awareness about supplier diversity.

Abbott Recognized for Commitment to Supplier Diversity

Last year, Abbott received the National Minority Business Council (NMBC) Corporate Supplier Diversity Award in recognition of our support of minority- and women-owned businesses and our commitment to establishing best practices in purchasing. The NMBC highlighted our Supplier Management System – a U.S. supplier database that allows our suppliers to update their information directly, and enables potential suppliers to enter their new information for review by our Purchasing department. Once entered, employees can search the database to identify new suppliers for goods and services. The NMBC is an advocacy group assisting small, minority- and women-owned businesses with procurement, education and training, advocacy, financing and business development.

Abbott's Advocacy Organizations Program was also honored by Premier, the nation's largest health care alliance, for its recognition of supplier diversity as an essential strategy for managing product costs and creating fair market conditions for all.

Working with Suppliers in Europe

In 2007, a European Union regulation came into effect and placed greater responsibility on companies to manage risks certain chemicals may pose to human health and the environment. Abbott supports the directive's intent, which is to protect employees in manufacturing facilities from exposure and to reduce impact on the environment.

Known as REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), the regulation requires manufacturers and importers to gather comprehensive information on chemical usage, assess these materials annually and register them for safe use with the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki. The scope of REACH encompasses the manufacture, importation and/or use of many chemicals used as raw materials in the manufacture and or packaging of our products within the European Union. Many of the raw materials Abbott purchases come from suppliers within the European Union. Although pre-registration and registration are the responsibility of the supplier, to ensure compliance of our company and suppliers we took action in advance of the regulation taking effect. We formed a senior team of critical functions, including Corporate Purchasing, Global Manufacturing, and Environment, Health and Safety to assess our manufacturing sites in the European Union and to develop standardized processes to ensure Abbott compliance. To ensure prompt response to questions and concerns, a central repository was created for questions about REACH and Abbott sites and suppliers, Abbott.REACH@abbott.com. In 2008, Abbott will work closely with our suppliers on REACH guidance, implications and registration.

Supplier Recognition

Abbott recognizes that supplier relationships can have a significant impact on our success. As a result, we have developed a formal metrics program to drive supplier performance and recognize suppliers who consistently demonstrate superior operations and share our corporate values. In 2007, we identified and tracked more than 100 suppliers' performance, and recognized 23 suppliers for their 2006 performance. We will also recognize superior performers in 2008.