IGM Financial

IGM Financial Embeds Sustainability in their Procurement Process 

IGM Financial is a leading wealth and asset management company supporting financial advisors and the clients they serve in Canada, and institutional investors throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Through its operating companies, IGM provides a broad range of financial planning and investment management services to support Canadian’s in meeting their lifelong financial goals.

In 2022, IGM Procurement identified a strategic opportunity to further embed the company’s top-level sustainability priorities within its procurement processes and hired Reeve to support them in developing a framework for internal capacity building on sustainable procurement for Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), and procurement operations.

Reeve engaged a multitude of key internal stakeholders in a series of formal interviews to inform a current state benchmarking assessment. This provided a snapshot of IGM’s baseline on sustainable procurement activity at the inception of the project. This internal current state exercise was followed by a similar external scan of industry competitors and similar organizations to summarize how IGM’s sustainable procurement processes compared to its financial sector peers. Upon the completion of the internal Current State and external Peer Review assessments, Reeve undertook the following:

  • Development of a strategic Learning and Development Plan to guide knowledge and capacity building within IGM’s various procurement teams (Strategic Sourcing, SRM, and Procurement Operations), complete with a schedule and library of key activities as well as various levels of engagement and corresponding desired learning outcomes.
  • Delivery of a 90-minute Training Session on the foundations of sustainable procurement, sharing case studies, and learning and development activities with over 30 stakeholders from Strategic Sourcing, SRM, and Procurement Operations
  • Development of a High Impact Procurement Opportunities List complete with 10-15 of IGM’s spend categories and their unique sustainability risks and opportunities
  • Creation of Key Performance Indicators and example targets for IGM to measure sustainable procurement activity and outcomes over time.
  • Delivery of an Executive Summary Presentation to provide an overview of the project and next steps to senior leadership.

At the completion of Reeve’s phase of work with IGM, the organization was well equipped with a comprehensive roadmap to guide their procurement teams’ learning and knowledge development on sustainability, of which several activities are already underway. Learning activities and internal capacity building is a key priority for IGM Procurement for 2023. The HIPO List has forecasted several key commodity categories that will be actioned on in 2023-2024, with outcomes and processes tracked by IGM’s set of Key Performance Indicators for sustainable procurement.