Careers in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management

Case Study 1

Careers in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Josh Longborne is a second-semester student at Cuyahoga community school (affectionately known as Tri-C). Josh is not sure what other class to take for his next semester, he asks his friend Harry for an idea about which class he should take which do not require much work.

Harry suggests a class which is all about purchasing and supply chain management, which he further stipulates to Josh that a lot of work will be required from him, however it will be incredibly profitable and will increase his chances with prospective employers.

On the other hand, the problem is that Josh appears to have no idea what purchasing is and he thinks it sounds boring.

INTRODUCTION

Purchasing is a practice commonly used by businesses and companies, which is the basic process of acquiring goods, services and equipment. The objective of these processes is to ensure the purchase of right goods or services is of the right quality, in the right quantity, received at the right time and also right price.

Harding and Lu (2001, 2) have stated that Purchasing is a set of work to be done for acquire materials focusing in adding some value to this practice (for example negotiation with suppliers). Purchasing is also considered as a part of establishment and development of relationships, for instance with suppliers and requestors, management of all the paperwork such as purchase orders, request for quotations, requisitions, etc. In other words, Purchasing is an operational process with some touch of transcendence.

Purchasing also seems to go further and that is one of the reasons as to why policies in organization have becoming more important if this process has to be in a legal and ethical manner.

ANALYSIS

The process of purchasing has grown in importance in the last decade compared to other areas or functions inside business or companies. This growth has been influenced by the constant...