Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) account for 60% of our supply chain. As well as spending directly with these businesses, we’re exploring further ways to support them and the voluntary, community, and social enterprises (VCSEs) that serve the areas where we operate.
Could our business expertise help them improve their strategies and processes? Could we support them to grow? Could we help prepare them to win more work from larger companies such as WSP?
Hackathons help us address questions like these and put Social Value into action.
The concept is simple: the events bring together organisations that need help with WSP specialists who can provide it. But the sessions are about much more than this.
This approach reflects a corporate strategy founded in purposeful growth and WSP’s determination to bring about social transformation in the course of our work.
Mayur Vyas, ESG & Social Value Lead for Procurement, WSP
Hosted by our procurement team and enabled by WSP specialists, hackathons are part of WSP’s broader programme to foster an inclusive supply chain. Our events are facilitated by BUD Leaders, an organisation dedicated to seeing more global majority women represented and visible in leadership positions.
So what have our hackathons achieved? It’s been humbling to see just how much difference tightly focused support can make to these organisations.
Spring Community Hub crisis support service came to a hackathon needing a better way to communicate and attract more funding. Our volunteers produced ideas to simplify their services so they could improve their communications and attract more funding.
Partisan – a small, Black-led community interest company focusing on mental health – needed help with its three-year strategic plan. A hackathon resulted in a robust delivery roadmap structured around five key areas.
“It’s been absolutely amazing,” is how Tiffany Barone, Old Kent Road Family Zone Coordinator, described the hackathon experience. Her organisation works with the community to positively impact lives and wellbeing. It needed help to improve processes, so our volunteers created a framework for its events and a customer journey process map.
It was intensely powerful to have people in different fields give their perspective on what I’m doing. “It’s been so gratifying to hear that I’m doing things well, and there are ways I can change my practices to make them even better.
Tiffany Barone, Old Kent Road Family Zone Coordinator
Our latest hackathon in June focused on key net-zero issues for small suppliers. We welcomed five organisations from BUD’s Supplier Springboard – a unique 12-month programme that brings together corporates and global-majority-led MSMEs for transformational leadership training, mentorship, and networking.
We helped the organisations through the process of understanding their carbon footprint, before identifying steps to reduce emissions and how to measure, track, and evidence their progress. This included sharing insights and examples from WSP’s own approach to carbon management.
“I genuinely went from zero idea to feeling really confident about the topic in one day,” Emma Bennett from the inclusive jobs board Patchwork Hub said about her hackathon experience. Disabled-led business Patchwork Hub connects an invisible and skilled talent pool, from disabled people through to carers and parents, to employers.
A rewarding experience
Hackathons also enable WSP’s people to give something back, which we know they’re keen to do. Two members of my team, including our corporate carbon management specialist, supported our latest hackathon using one of their two annual paid volunteering days. Following the session, they hosted a virtual follow-up activity to feed back on the sustainability statements that participants had taken away to complete.
I’d love to see the hackathon concept grow further. Our procurement team will continue to collaborate with BUD and other social enterprises on future events. They’ll also offer bespoke hackathons to support WSP’s Social Value commitments with clients. The chance to put Social Value into action in this way is simply too good to miss.
WSP are a headline sponsor for the Social Value Conference 2025, and you can join a number of their experts across various panel sessions from the 21st to the 23rd of October. Find out more and buy your tickets today.