Strategic Skills for Procurement Training

Introduction

There has been a dramatic change in the way that we do business with rapid advances in technology and the breaking down of global and traditional industry barriers. Strategic procurement is a complex process, which has the potential to provide many benefits to the organization in the form of lower costs, higher quality, improved customer satisfaction, and improved supplier performance.

Procurement teams used to be seen as about processing paperwork, but it is now understood that they are key to ensuring that the whole organization has the right equipment and services, has costs under control, and can deliver the right Quality and Added Value. This requires teams with a complete set of Strategic Skills and appropriate Management approaches, who know where and how they can add value to their organizations. This training course explores all the skills need by Professional Purchasers and Procurement Personnel and helps delegates to practice and refine their skills in a no-risk environment.

Participants will develop the following competencies:

• Strategically focused job descriptions for buyers
• Select the right purchasing approach for each purchase
• Select suppliers for short and long term success
• Increased skill sets in strategic sourcing
• Manage suppliers
• Negotiate with suppliers
• Manage cross-functional purchasing approaches
• Greater abilities in leading continuous improvement programs

Objectives

By the end of this workshop, participants will understand the following:-

• Understand the role of Professional Purchasers
• Learn about and practice the key skills Purchasers need to have
• The essential requirements for Purchasing Management
• Team structures and roles
• The benefits of improved purchasing
• Implementing changes within the team and with other departments
• Strategies and tactics for improved buying
• The uses of tendering, negotiation, and other approaches
• Measuring and Improving Purchasing Performance
• Examine how to become more strategic in Purchasing Activities
• Determine the best approach to Global Sourcing
• The review process for international purchasing
• Analyze ways of managing suppliers more effectively
• Enhance negotiating skills
• Learn ways to deal with economic uncertainties

Training Methodology

This is an interactive course. There will be open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises and activities, videos, case studies, and presentations on best practices. Participants will have the opportunity to share with the facilitator and other participants on what works well and not so well for them, as well as work on issues from their own organizations. The online course is conducted online using MS-Teams/ClickMeeting.

Who Should Attend?

• Professionals working in Procurement, Purchasing or Buying
• Buyers / Purchasing Professionals in business, government, and the military
• Buyers working for private companies
• Purchasing section heads
• Users and Technical Specifiers
• Project personnel working with contractors
• Professionals in Contracting or other roles who wish to understand purchasing and improve the interaction with their function will also benefit from this Strategic Skills for Procurement training course.

Course Outline

Day 1: Purchasing in the Organization 

• What is the role of Purchasing in modern organizations?

• What is international Best Practice?

• What do other functions want from Purchasing?

• Supply Chain Management Concepts

• Essentials for Effective Purchasing

• Stages to world-class procurement

• Developing The Strategic Plan For The Procurement Activity

• Procurement performance measurement

Day 2: Essential Skills for Purchasing 

• Purchasing Segmentation
• Supplier Intelligence and planning
• Supplier Selection
• Supplier reduction and optimization
• Requests for Information and Requests for Quotation
• Contract Law and ethics
• Use of Tendering, negotiation, direct sourcing, and e-commerce

Day 3: Strategic Sourcing

• Starting the Strategic Sourcing Process

• Creating time to be more strategic

• New job descriptions for supply management

• Relations With Other Functions

• Developing the Procurement Price Index

• Dealing with issues of ethics

Day 4: Procurement Skills

• Negotiation
• Stock control and Effective order quantities
• Pricing
• Value Analysis
• Cost analysis
• Total Cost of Ownership  & Capital Equipment Life Cycle Costing
• Measuring Suppliers
• Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Procurement

Day 5: International Sourcing

• Global sourcing

• International buying process

• International Labour Rates

• Locating international sources

• Source evaluation criteria

• Managing exchange rate risk

• Action Planning for implementation