The Procurement Executives leading their profession over the past 20 years or so have clearly demonstrated that best-in-class firms have truly expanded their organizations contributions to their Enterprise. They’ve increased their units role beyond “just buying” to include such things as managing both direct and indirect products/services, enhancing supplier relationships, implementing contract management, driving eSourcing capabilities, supporting strategic sourcing practices, using procurement processes in non-traditional categories to show dramatic results, etc. These increased roles and corporate responsibilities have required generally higher skilled resources with a broader range of supply management and procurement competencies.  Many of these skilled resources have come from other internal business and functional units, hiring from well recognized universities and by leveraging well designed training and development programs. Adding to the increased knowledge and awareness has been the ever increasing focus by the various sourcing/procurement professional associations and advisory groups on best practices.  The future for Supply Management/Procurement professionals looks very bright or does it?

Contributors: The Ohio State University
Categories: Whitepaper
SRC Type: Category Management, Sourcing Management