The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) has recognized 12 of its top performing External Business Partners with its prestigious Partner of the Year award. P&G has worked extensively to become better connected with its external business partners in recent years, especially in product and supply innovation. At the awards ceremony, P&G leaders specifically thanked several companies for their collaboration and business results in this area. P&G has now expanded its business partner integration into citizenship, where governance, sustainability, and diversity and inclusion are just three topics targeted for better synchronization. The passion applied to innovation and citizenship are examples of a supply network transformation that has seen P&G and its community of partners cooperating anew, making step-changes in areas of production, creating breakthrough ways to connect, and pioneering new opportunities to collaborate. P&G is extremely pleased and proud of the spirit of partnership it is receiving from these companies.

Additionally, P&G also awarded over 30 other companies The External Business Partner Excellence Award, including two for superior performance in Supplier Diversity. 

Speaking at the event honoring those recognized as Partner of the Year, David Taylor, P&G’s Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer, asked P&G’s external business partners to continue to strive for the best collaborative relationship with P&G, saying: “We’re focused on getting back to balanced growth. Our supplier partners have a key role to play in our ability to deliver top-line, bottom-line and cash. The more integrated and connected P&G and our supplier partners are, the better able we are to be more innovative and productive in meeting consumers’ needs and, as a result, deliver balanced and sustainable growth and value creation for our shareholders.” He made several requests of those in attendance, including more business transparency with each other and helping P&G become faster in getting products to market.

Among P&G’s more than 50,000 suppliers and agencies, the twelve that received the highest honor of being named Excellence Award winners and “External Business Partner of the Year” were:

• EY*
• Fameccanica.Data S.p.a.
• FIBERTEX PERSONAL CARE
• Firmenich
• Logoplaste
• Nippon Shokubai Company Limited
• Novozymes
• PEGAS NONWOVENS*
• Rialto Enterprises Pvt. Ltd.
• RONCHI MARIO S.p.A.*
• SUPERPAC, INC.* ++
• Technimark LLC

* These four companies were named External Business Partner of the Year in 2015 as well.
++ This company is a women- and/or minority-owned business.

In addition to the select few “External Business Partner of the Year” awards, the following 32 companies received Excellence Awards for consistent high performance:

• Arkay Packaging
• Brammer Europe Limited
• Citizen Relations
• DAWSON Integrated Marketing Communications Co. Ltd
• Diamond Packaging++ ^
• The Dow Chemical Company
• DuPont
• Fluor Corporation*
• Grupo Plastar
• Gulsan Sentetik
• Hitachi Metals America, LLC
• Ho Tung Chemical Corp.
• Jones Lang Lasalle*
• Kelheim Fibres GmbH
• Kostwein Maschinenbau GmbH
• Mindtree Ltd.
• MonoSol, Kuraray WS Film Division#
• MULTI-COLOR CORPORATION
• Nihon Kolmar Co., LTD.
• Nippon Shokubai Company Limited
• NORDSON CORPORATION
• One Asia Network
• Publicis Worldwide
• Quigley-Simpson++
• Saatchi & Saatchi X
• SAP
• Sasol
• Tata Consultancy Services
• Van Genechten Packaging
• Warwick Chemicals
• Yamada Electric Ind. Co. Ltd.
• ZRP Printing Group Limited

* These two companies were recognized for their commitment to Supplier Diversity.
^ This company was recognized for excellence in Sustainability.
# This company was recognized for excellence in Innovation.
++ These companies are women- and/or minority-owned businesses.

Two companies, Fluor Corporation and Jones Lang Lasalle, were specifically recognized for their citizenship efforts and results on Supplier Diversity. These two companies have consistently grown their spending with minority and women-owned suppliers and have demonstrated a strong focus on this important business strategy. P&G is celebrating its 40th year of supplier diversity, and earned the Corporation of the Year award from the Ohio Minority Supplier Diversity Council in 2014 and 2015.

“Part of our supply chain transformation has been altering the way we work with our external business partners, and I’m proud
of the steps we’ve taken to co-locate and really become one integrated eco-system in supply chain management,” said
Stew Atkinson, Chief Purchasing Officer. "We are at the beginning of this journey, but what we’ve achieved to date makes
me excited for the possibilities of what we can accomplish together."

P&G works with all business partners to reach excellence levels, and therefore there is no limit on the number of excellence
awards that can be achieved.