Supply Management Skills

Course Snapshots

Supply Management Training Courses

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

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

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.

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.