After completion of this course, students can:
- Explain the contribution of the purchasing function to the strategic goals of a company and explain how a corporate strategy is influenced by the characteristics of the supply market.
- Explain the required purchasing systems needed to support the implementation of a strategy.
- Discuss latest developments in strategic management theory and its implications for purchasing and supply management.
- Link technology, processes and methods as well as key performance indicators to the implementation of certain strategies.
- Demonstrate maturity gaps of an organisation in the field of strategy definition and systems implementation. How to add value to the organisation and use the knowledge about the process of becoming a strategic (business) partner
- Analyse competition in supply markets.
- Distinguish between different competitive actions initiated by the purchasing functions.
- Solve current business cases by applying theoretical perspectives and understanding of complex problems
- Advise the board, lead and manage change processes, make decisions and know how organisations are governed.
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The effective management of the purchasing department is essential to the success of a firm. The aim of the purchasing department is to support the Chief Purchasing Officer (CPO) with strategic positioning of purchasing and work with the board of the firm. This course will discuss the contribution that purchasing makes to the competitive advantage of a firm, based on theories of strategic management. Some firms aim to become preferred customers of their strategic suppliers. Success in this positioning subsequently determines the firm’s strategic options. In our vision, the CPO should hold a position on the firm’s board. Purchasers should be fully equipped to engage in discussion at the board level. The strategy component of this course contributes to this purpose. In this course, students will gain an understanding of the tasks of this group within the purchasing department, both from a conceptual perspective as from an implementation perspective.
The first part of the course will focus on the tasks of the department systems and strategy. Most larger purchasing departments include a group involved with ‘purchasing systems’. In smaller organizations, one person may hold this responsibility, in addition to introducing and updating purchasing systems. The systems component of this course prepares students to fulfil this task and discusses how purchasing systems can promote the successful deployment of a strategy. It covers IT systems (e.g. e-procurement) and their introduction, also in addition to supply-risk management and purchasing control. The second part of the course (strategy) will establish knowledge on leading strategic management theories with purchasing relation (such as resource-based theories, principal agent theory, transaction cost economics, resource dependency theory and others).
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An individual written exam counts for 100% of the final grade.
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