Course Snapshots

Foundation Buying Skills

Principles of Purchasing - One Day

This workshop is designed to equip people new to purchasing with the tools and techniques to ensure effective expenditure of company and organisation budgets. The programme, delivery style and objectives for the day reflect the aspirations, experience and background of participants.

The programme starts out with defining the key objectives of purchasing and the opportunities it creates for adding real value. It works through the procurement cycle taking in the types of specification, promoting and managing competition, interpreting supplier tenders and selecting the right contract terms. The basics of negotiation are reviewed together with real-life case studies.

How to Buy Professionally - Half Day

Primarily intended for people of all levels whose role includes a purchasing responsibility but not exclusively so. It sets out where purchasing fits into the general business structure of most large organisations. Key issues are broken out together with a basic understanding of the drivers for achieving value for money. Distinctions are made between price and cost, including whole life costing. The whole purchasing process is walked through. The course can be adapted to incorporate client-specific procedures as part of a campaign to raise awareness of professional procurement.

Introduction to Negotiation - One Day

The aim of this course is to explain the planning and execution of all the steps leading to the achievement of a successful business negotiation. Negotiation has been defined as ‘the art of seeking agreement’. It’s never easy but with the right training it can be immensely profitable. The first principle is to know when to negotiate and to understand the alternatives. Preparation is the key success factor plus assessing the value of every negotiable element on the table. It’s a game of tactics that can be learned in the quest to close the right deal.

Contract Management - One Day

This workshop is designed for professionals who need to have an understanding of the practical side of managing and delivering contracts for goods and services.

Negotiation contracts and managing them often involve different people in different departments. Buyers and contracts co-ordinators must work together to ensure that the aims of the contract are delivered. It is essential that the roles are defined and networked together to achieve clean and clear relationships at all levels.

Intermediate Buying Skills

Effective Negotiation - One Day

This workshop builds on the basic tools presented in the introductory level. Much emphasis is placed on team building and working through the process of trading off between the musts and the wants. The art of bargaining and the classic models of negotiation need to be understood as part of developing a strategy that aims at win/win. There are numerous practical sessions in which participants can assess their own styles as well become aware of verbal and non verbal clues to negotiating behaviour.

The Law for Buyers - One Day

A working knowledge of legal concepts and awareness of statute law is essential for buyers whose responsibility includes protecting their Principal’s interest. In this workshop participants are introduced to the principles of English commercial law that applies to purchasing professionals working with contracts. A working knowledge of legal concepts and awareness of statute law is essential for buyers whose responsibility includes protecting their organisation’s interest. It explains the basic legal concepts and rights and responsibilities to ensure that agreements with suppliers are clear, enforceable and, above all, legal. The programme will cover current and proposed legislation relating to procurement matters to help delegates understand the fundamentals.

Writing Specifications - One Day

A specification is the core of all contracts. After the contract has been placed, the specification becomes the definitive document for almost every activity that follows. Clarity and inclusiveness are the most essential characteristics of a specification whether it deals with performance or service levels or both. Developing a specification also calls for effective relationships with a network of experts.

We present the fundamentals of developing a sound specification and its relationship with contract performance. It’s a process of integrating the technical needs with the right commercial and legal vehicles while minimizing risk.

EU Procurement Directives - One Day

European procurement legislation applies to all public sector buyers, budget holders and suppliers covering Public Works, Supplies and Services procurement.

The workshop offers a combination of theory and practice as it discusses the main elements of the law and the effects on UK public sector procurement. It also provides the opportunities to work on a procurement scenario taking account of the latest legislation.

The background to the legislation is highlighted and an examination of the Compliance Directive that offers redress to potential contractors, suppliers and service providers should public sector buyers fall short of their legal obligations under the legislation.

There will be an opportunity for participants to put forward questions on working within this legislation.

Finance for Procurement - One Day

As the function responsible for committing millions of pounds, purchasing professionals frequently have to assess the financial health of potential suppliers. The consequences of miscalculating a company's true trading position can be disastrous. This course starts out with basics such how to read a balance sheet, profit and loss accounts and cash flow. Equally essential are understanding concepts such as over trading, gearing and key ratio analysis as a tool for assessing supplier health. The workshop also explores beyond the numbers, looking at creative techniques used by companies to massage profit.

The session will be highly interactive and will include an opportunity for you to assess real life companies including your suppliers and equip participants to approach supplier financial data with confidence.

Supply Base Management - One Day

The development and management of the supplier base is crucial to the successful delivery of procurement strategies. Procurement’s perceived excellence in an organization will be measured through the performance of key suppliers. Vendor management is therefore a fundamental skill within the skills portfolio of the purchasing professional.

This workshop begins with an analysis of core business and various relationship models involving the different tiers of a supply network. We continue with supplier profiling and the various tools available to buyers for assessing the actual and potential capability of the required supply base.

Managing Risk - One Day

The development and management of the supplier base is crucial to the successful delivery of procurement strategies. Procurement’s perceived excellence in an organization will be measured through the performance of key suppliers. Vendor management is therefore a fundamental skill within the skills portfolio of the purchasing professional.

This workshop begins with an analysis of core business and various relationship models involving the different tiers of a supply network. We continue with supplier profiling and the various tools available to buyers for assessing the actual and potential capability of the required supply base.

Advanced Buying Skills

Advanced Negotiation - Two Days

This programme is designed for experienced negotiators who want to refresh and/or extend their skills. Some theory will provide a framework but the emphasis throughout will be on style and practical application. There will be opportunities for participants to experiment using various simulations against a background of competitive pressures. Selling skills as well as buying skills will be tested as part of the process of understanding the sales mindset. The general principles underpinning effective negotiation will be recalled and distinctions drawn between tactical and strategic situations in today’s challenging supply management environment

Cost and Price Analysis - One Day

Heavy competitive pressures on purchasing budgets have led to a renewed emphasis on understanding the chemistry of the costs of ownership. Just demanding price reductions is no substitute for a forensic examination of all the components of cost. Similarly, the time for probing costs is at the bid stage even though it may be the lowest. This course goes through the types of market place that influence price behaviour, cost structures, including whole life costing, and areas where suppliers try to insert unjustified cost. The many different ways of discounting are illustrated and reviewed with real-life examples throughout the day. Value analysis will be covered to understand their direct relationship between cost and product function and features.

Marketing Procurement - One Day

This workshop provides a route map for managing the transition of procurement from a process-led back office support function to a customer-responsive provider of services. The programme begins with a base line assessment of the role of procurement within the participant’s organisations. This will be developed into a review of added value services and how they can be marketed to internal clients.

Customer segmentation, knowing who and where they are and understanding their needs, are essential prerequisites to successful relationship management. Success will depend on having the focused skills and products to market that fulfil customer expectations. Traditional promises of money savings are being replaced with new concepts. Today’s service models devolve real purchasing power to the customer’s workplace through e-procurement and other seamless links direct with suppliers. Setting the new mission, upskilling the resource, preparing the implementation and transition will all be covered.

This is a workshop for purchasing departments actively working on re-shaping their professional services offer.

Strategic Purchasing - One Day

Strategic planning is fundamental to any business and each operational department must develop an implementation support plan in order to deliver the focused corporate targets.

Strategic procurement planning falls into 3 interrelated categories:
Long-term company aims-the vision and values
Medium-term management plans involving clear commitments
Current operational performance targets and deliverables

This workshop invites participant organizations to position themselves against the leadership criteria developed by the top performers. The process drills down through the layers of supply chain management to test for alignment with corporate goals and understand the processes required to drive them.
The development of supply chain strategic plans with team ownership and commitment is a strong success factor. The teamwork sessions introduce the building process of strategic plans and then the subsequent management and measurement of the elements within an ever changing operational environment. This demands a positive level of team working skill and a subsequent management time investment to ensure that the chosen objectives are achieved.

Supplier Account Management - One Day

Organisations in the public sector are under constant pressure to achieve better delivery of services to satisfy their stakeholders. The procurement process is a key enabler for achieving improvements to a range of service objectives. To be successful suppliers must understand and share their client’s values and sign up to the necessary changes. At the core of the strategy is Supplier Account Management targeted at key providers and structured to deliver stepped performance improvements. This workshop begins with a relationship assessment of a key vendor that includes its current positioning versus future requirements. With the aid of specific tools participants will be taken though all the stages leading to the construction of a Supplier Account Plan.

Managing Procurement - Two Days

In recent years procurement and supply management has come into its own as more and more organisations recognise the importance of getting better value. Participants would most likely have completed a management development programme before attending this course. We look at the function, role and responsibilities of a modern procurement team. Central to its operations is a highly sophisticated network of internal and external relationships that require highly focused orchestration to deliver the bottom line. Most of the broad spectrum of management tools will be covered relating to supplier development, performance measurement, various relationship models, risk, some relevant compliance considerations, CSR and organisational concepts for the provision of procurement services.

Implementing Sustainable Procurement - One Day

Sustainability-meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations to meet their own needs- underpins a wide area of public policy at all levels of government and within the private sector. Company reporting is beginning to be widened to take account of the organisation’s acceptance of responsibility for fair trading, environmental impacts and health and safety of their products and services. The Eco Management & Audit Scheme (EMAS) is widely recognised as a vehicle for change and this together with ISO 14001 and whole life costing has placed procurement in the front line of implementing sustainable supply chains.

Sector & Category Focused Courses

Buying Recruitment Services - One Day

Estimates suggest that there are over 20,000 agencies in the UK specialising in recruitment across almost every sector. This whole area has become a major focus for more government regulation including issues such, EU employment rights legislation and government controls on employment agencies and outsourcing. The market place is polarised between a few very large players and hundreds of boutique specialists while the scope for legal challenge has grown enormously. Increasingly the management of recruitment agency contracts is involving procurement professionals being called on to negotiate deals that strike the right balance between buying leverage and corporate social responsibility. This workshop runs through most of the opportunities and some of the pitfalls of buying temps and other categories.

Buying IT & Services - One Day

Getting the procurement of IT right demands a detailed understanding of the IT market place. This includes knowing the segmentation of the main vendors and their products, understanding the competitive issues and managing the potential risks. It’s a highly innovative business where the benchmarks are moving on all the time. Starting with the specification the programme works through the RFI/ITT process, bid evaluation, setting up a negotiation strategy, techniques employed by sales people, terms of business, the project management plan and risk.

Meeting the Sustainability Challenge - One Day

Sustainable procurement has become the cornerstone of corporate and social responsibility although there are almost as many definitions of what it means as there are consultants.

But the concept of sustainability underpins a wide area of public policy at all levels of government and within the private sector. Company reporting has been widened to take account of the organisation’s acceptance of responsibility for fair trading, environmental impacts and health and even more on the safety of their products and services. The Eco Management & Audit Scheme (EMAS) is widely recognised as a vehicle for change and this together with ISO 14001 and improving standards has put procurement in the front line of implementing sustainable supply chains. We get to grips from the outset with the practicalities of introducing sustainability thinking into the purchase to pay process.

Buying Social Care Services - One Day

Social Care commissioning from commercial providers is now highly significant expenditure in the budgets of single-tier authorities. Higher standards and controls and ever more challenging financial environments are driving the need for greater professionalism.

The programme will covers aspects of social care law, interfaces with health, housing and education together with the regulatory requirements that could be included in service specification. The vendor base can be made up of thousands of providers on the preferred list. Rationalising them will be covered together with methods for achieving better value.

Buying in the Public Sector - One Day

Procurement is central to the delivery of improved public services. The Gershon review has added even more pressure for professionalism in procurement. The increasing use by the public sector of purchased services such as outsourcing, turnkey contracts, the use of third parties and hybrids to deliver public services involves very significant public expenditure and greater risks. It is essential that those with responsibility for procurement, inside and outside the function itself and non-specialists, are aware of the risks and issues involved and how these can be effectively addressed to meet performance review requirements

This course covers the key areas of importance to public sector procurement and touches most of the issues likely to arise in the sector.

Buying Abroad - One Day