What is Purchasing and Supply Management?

I could find you a definition from a dictionary, a

text book or a theorist, or I could describe what

good purchasing and supply management

practitioners really do. Procurement practitioners

shape the profession through their skills,

knowledge and attitude, and these are the principal

factors for successful businesses. After all, money,

land and buildings don’t have feelings, or contacts

or networks or know-how or-rights people do and

those facts have consequences on how

organisations operate.

In a recent article in The McKinney Quarterly, “The

Talent Factoring Purchasing”, they detailed the

results of a survey of purchasing professionals in

over 200 organisations investigated what talent

looked like in the profession. They found that “top

performing organisations hire better people in

sourcing, set clearer performance aspirations and

create strong sourcing cultures to encourage

purchasers to align their activities with corporate

strategy”. These strong foundations are often

overlooked by a drive to be different, to stand out

from the crowd and to be one step ahead of the

game, instead of building on accepted practice and doing what we do best.The high performing

procurement organisations in this survey realize

that managing people, talent and knowledge was

where it all starts, and policies and processes

naturally follow.

HSBC adopted a buyer development programmer to

second purchasing professionals to other

procurement teams world-wide. They found that

“The fundamentals of buying are the same in any

language – it is the intangibles you learn.” This

knowledge sharing programmer aims to increase the

professionalism of buyers and purchasing

departments world-wide; the key to the success of

the project – people.