Best Practices in Purchasing Management

Summary

Purchasing management plays a crucial role in the profitability of your organisation by ensuring that you obtain the right goods for the right price at the right time. A proactive approach to purchasing and focusing on flexibility, creativity, and an understanding of the supply market all contribute to organisational excellence in purchasing.

This course provides you with skills to lead the purchasing process at your organisation by learning appropriate management strategies, leveraging continual improvement, and effectively managing suppliers. You will examine Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and use them to guide decision making. In addition, you will analyse the core skill set required for professional excellence in the field of purchasing and procurement.

Elaborate on the methods of developing high performance purchasing departments.
Develop a strategic purchasing plan that supports excellent internal customer service.
Use analysis results to guide the procurement process.
Describe methods for reporting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
Identify the desired competencies for purchasing professionals.

Procurement and Contracts professionals
Professionals in Purchasing, Contract Management, and Project Management
Professionals in Engineering, Facilities, Maintenance, and Finance
Professionals responsible for planning and managing the tender process

This course uses a variety of adult learning styles to aid full understanding and comprehension.

Participants will review case studies to highlight key areas of importance and possible areas for faults.

They will be supplied with the best tools required to carry out learning exercises to improve their skills. Participants will analyse the examples to gain a thorough understanding of how these skills, techniques and methods apply in the workplace.

Course Content & Outline

Section 1: Purchasing excellence

List the phases of the procurement process.
Discuss current purchasing perspectives and trends.
Describe strategic sourcing.
Examine ABC spend analysis.
Review career opportunities for current and future purchasing opportunities.
Outline the required skill sets for a career in purchasing.

Section 2: Asses your own operations

Identify your current best practices.
Develop your purchasing vision and mission.
Examine gap analysis for purchasing.
Elaborate on the strategic plan for your purchasing department.
Determine the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for procurement.
Develop a producer price index.

Section 3: The art of continuous improvement

Examine cost reduction initiatives.
Describe cost reduction strategies.
Explore supply chain waste.
Analyse the components of supplier cost.
Discuss commodity/service strategy and commodity management.
Outline methods to avoid price increases.

Section 4: Approaches to supplier management

Discuss how to establish a supplier classification system.
Examine the supplier qualification process and identify key supplier performance metrics.
Utilise performance criteria to make purchasing decisions.
Apply process mapping to eliminate low value activities.
Explore the e-procurement process.

Section 5: Improving the procurement process

Review global sourcing and its benefits and challenges.
Compare international labour markets.
Discuss how to develop and maintain customer focus.
Outline common issues in fraud prevention and corruption.
Examine how to enhance procurement professionalism and keep up-to-date with current trends.