Dell publishes a list of its suppliers, following in the footsteps of Hewlett Packard and Fujitsu.

Dell has just published a list of its suppliers, following in the footsteps of Hewlett Packard and Fujitsu.

Dell is disclosing a list of 'more than 95% of its suppliers as measured by its spending.'

Hewlett Packard first published a list of its suppliers in FY07. The suppliers published on HP's FY08 list represent 'more than 95% of HP's procurement expenditure for materials, manufacturing and assembly of HP's products all over the world'. The HP list includes 'contract manufacturers, electronic manufacturing services providers, original design manufacturers, and commodity suppliers.'

Fujitsu has also published a list of its supply chain contributors. The suppliers on this list represent 'more than 90% plus of Fujitsu's purchase volume per annum and consider all aspects of its supply chain. The Fujitsu list includes procurement expenditure for materials, manufacturing and assembly of such FTS's products as well as contract manufacturers and commodity suppliers all over the world.'

There is significant overlap in the suppliers bases of these three brands. See attachment for a comparison of the three suppliers lists.

Although this step towards further supply chain transparency is certainly laudable, a lot of information about suppliers is still not available. The relative importance of the different suppliers; the terms of the buyer-supplier relations; the exact location of the suppliers; further information about 2nd, 3rd or 4th tier suppliers; aggregated information about code compliance on supplier level , etc. etc.  - all such information is still lacking.