Course Snapshots

Supply & Procurement Management

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.

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.

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.

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.