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Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. [1] The term may also refer to a contractual obligation to "procure", i.e. to "ensure" that something is done. When a government agency buys goods or services through this practice, it is referred to as government procurement or public procurement. [2]
Procurement as an organizational process is intended to ensure that the buyer receives goods, services, or works at the best possible price when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. [3] Corporations and public bodies often define processes intended to promote fair and open competition for their business while minimizing risks such as exposure to fraud and collusion.
Almost all purchasing decisions include factors such as delivery and handling, marginal benefit, and fluctuations in the prices of goods. Organisations which have adopted a corporate social responsibility perspective are also likely to require their purchasing activity to take wider societal and ethical considerations into account. [4] On the other hand, the introduction of external regulations concerning accounting practices can affect ongoing buyer-supplier relations in unforeseen manners. [5]
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) defines procurement as an organizational function that includes specification development, value analysis, supplier market research, negotiation, buying activities, contract administration, inventory control, traffic, receiving and stores. Federal US legislation defines procurement as including
all stages of the process of acquiring property or services, beginning with the process for determining a need for property or services and ending with contract completion and closeout. [6]
A company's procurement function, specifically its spending on suppliers, typically accounts for more than half of the company's total budget. [7]
Purchasing is a subset of procurement that specifically deals with the ordering and payment of goods and services. Organizational procurement is also referred to as "organizational buying" or "institutional buying", for example in studies of the buying behaviour of staff involved in purchasing decision-making. [8]
Procurement activities are also often divided into two distinct categories, direct and indirect spend. Direct spend refers to the production-related procurement that encompasses all items that are part of finished products, such as raw materials, components and parts. Direct procurement, which is the focus in supply chain management, directly affects the production process of manufacturing firms. In contrast, indirect procurement concerns non-production-related acquisition: a wide variety of goods and services, from standardized items like office supplies and safety equipment to complex and costly products and services like heavy equipment, consulting services, and outsourcing services. [9] [10]
Direct procurement | Indirect procurement | ||
---|---|---|---|
Raw material and production goods | Maintenance, repair, and operating supplies, outsourcing | Capital goods and services | |
Quantity | Large | Low | Low |
Value | Industry-specific | Low | High |
Nature | Operational | Tactical | Strategic |
Process | Scheduled | Unscheduled | Capital Project |
Examples | Steel, Resin, Rubber | Safety Equipment, spare parts, IT | Warehouses, Vehicles, Oil Wells |
The first record of procurement activities dates back to 3,000 BC when the Egyptians managed materials and labor for the pyramids using scribes. The scribes recorded how much material and how many workers were needed for different tasks. [11] [12]
Formalized acquisition of goods and services has its roots in military logistics. The Romans developed a system of supply depots that were located throughout their empire. These depots were stocked with food, weapons, and other supplies that could be quickly distributed to troops in the field. This system helped to ensure that the Roman army was always well-supplied, even when it was fighting far from home. [13]
The first record of what would be recognized now as the purchasing department of an industrial operation relates to the railway companies of the 19th century:
"The intelligence and fidelity exercised in the purchase, care and use of railway supplies influences directly the cost of construction and operating and affect the reputations of officers and the profits of owners." [14]
Procurement is one component of the broader concept of sourcing and acquisition. Typically procurement is viewed as more tactical in nature (the process of physically buying a product or service) and sourcing and acquisition are viewed as more strategic and encompassing.[ citation needed ] Multiple sourcing business models and acquisition models exist.
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) defines strategic sourcing as the process of identifying sources that could provide needed products or services for the acquiring organization.[ citation needed ] The term procurement is used to reflect the entire purchasing process or cycle, and not just the tactical components.
Procurement software (often labeled as e-procurement software) manages purchasing processes electronically or via cloud computing.
Some aspects of a procurement process may need to be initiated ahead of the majority of the project, for example where there are extensive lead times. Such cases may be referred to as "advance procurement". [15] [16]
Many writers also refer to procurement as a cyclical process, which commences with a definition of business needs and develops a specification, identifies suppliers and adopted appropriate methods for consulting with them, inviting and evaluating proposals, secures on contract and takes delivery of a new asset or accepts performance of a service, manages the ownership of the asset or the delivery of the service and reaches an end-of-life point where the asset becomes due for replacement or the service contract terminates. At this point the cycle would recommence. [17] [18]
The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) recommends involvement of procurement staff and skills from an early stage in the cycle, noting that such "early procurement involvement" can have a beneficial impact on the nature and timing of any approach to market, the specification and the sourcing strategy and supplier selection approach adopted. [19]
Procurement decisions fall along a continuum from simple buying transactions to more complex buyer-supplier collaborations,[ citation needed ] and the buying behaviour of staff involved in purchasing decision-making has been widely studied. [8] There is a consensus among scholars and marketing managers that buyers utilise various decision processes as appropriate to each buying situation, and some purchasing decisions are especially complex. [20] Some writers treat purchasing decisions as examples of rational behaviour made in the context of a business aim such as profit maximisation and make the assumption that decision-makers have access to the information they need for their decision. Feldman and Cordozo questioned this approach in a 1969 article, suggesting that industrial buyer decision-making had similarities with consumer buying behaviour. [21] Wilson suggested in a 1971 article that an individual buyer's personality should be considered in understanding buyers' decision processes. [22] Three distinct personality traits have been described in the literature on this subject:
Wilson found that there was some correlation between personality traits and decision-making styles among the Canadian buyers in his research study. [22]
There are a number of models along the sourcing continuum: basic provider, approved provider, preferred provider, performance-based contracting, managed services model, vested business model, shared services model and equity partnerships.[ citation needed ]
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Government procurement or public procurement is when a governing body purchases goods, works, and services from an organization for themselves or the taxpayers. [24] [25] [26] In 2019, public procurement accounted for approximately 12% of GDP in OECD countries. [27] [28] In 2021 the World Bank Group estimated that public procurement made up about 15% of global GDP. [29] Therefore, government procurement accounts for a substantial part of the global economy.
Public procurement is based on the idea that governments should direct their society while giving the private sector the freedom to decide the best practices to produce the desired goods and services. [30] : Chapter 1 One benefit of public procurement is its ability to cultivate innovation and economic growth. [31] [32] [33] The public sector picks the most capable nonprofit or for-profit organizations available to issue the desired good or service to the taxpayers. This produces competition within the private sector to gain these contracts that then reward the organizations that can supply more cost-effective and quality goods and services. Some contracts also have specific clauses to promote working with minority-led, women-owned businesses and/or state-owned enterprises. [34]
Competition is a key component of public procurement which affects the outcomes of the whole process. [35] There is a great amount of competition over public procurements because of the massive amount of money that flows through these systems; It is estimated that approximately eleven trillion USD is spent on public procurement worldwide every year. [36]
To prevent fraud, waste, corruption, or local protectionism, the laws of most countries regulate government procurement to some extent. Laws usually require the procuring authority to issue public tenders if the value of the procurement exceeds a certain threshold. Government procurement is also the subject of the Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), a plurilateral international treaty under the auspices of the WTO.Sustainable procurement or green procurement is a process whereby organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a life-cycle basis while addressing equity principles for sustainable development, therefore benefiting societies and the environment across time and geographies. [37] Procurement is often conducted via a tendering or competitive bidding process. The process is used to ensure the buyer receives goods, services or works for the best possible price, when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. [38] Procurement is considered sustainable when organizations broadens this framework by meeting their needs for goods, services, works, and utilities in a way that achieves value for money and promotes positive outcomes not only for the organization itself but for the economy, environment, and society. [39]
Sustainable procurement is a spending and investment process typically associated with public policy, although it is equally applicable to the private sector. Organizations practicing sustainable procurement meet their needs for goods, services, utilities and works not only on a private cost–benefit analysis, but also with the intention to maximizing net benefits for themselves and the wider world. In doing so they must incorporate extrinsic cost considerations into decisions alongside the conventional procurement criteria of price and quality, although in practice the sustainable impacts of a potential supplier's approach are often assessed as a form of quality consideration.Electronic procurement is the purchasing of goods by businesses through the internet or other networked computer connection. [40] Electronic data interchange (EDI) was a forerunner to electronic procurement, this consisted of standardized transmission of data such as inventories and good required electronically. Schoenherr argues that EDI developed from standardized manifests for deliveries to Berlin during the Berlin Airlift which were applied by DuPont in the 1960s and argues that Material requirements planning and Enterprise resource planning were both forerunners to electronic procurement. [41] : 35
Joint procurement takes place when two or more organisations share purchasing activities, and therefore has a more specifically buyer-side focus than many examples of collaborative buyer-seller relationships. Companies may decide to work together for the following reasons: [42]
Joint or collaborative procurement is a common practice within public sector procurement. There are central purchasing bodies in many countries which coordinate joint purchasing activities for public sector organisations. A report commissioned by the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) has recommended that EU Member States "should consider creating Central Purchasing Bodies (CPBs)" in order to secure "coherent and coordinated procurement". [43]
On a trans-national scale, Guyana, Barbados and Rwanda announced "a programme of mutual support for the local manufacturing of vaccines and medicines" in July 2023 for which a "pooled procurement mechanism" would be required. [44]
The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) promotes a model of "five rights", which it suggests are "a traditional formula expressing the basic objectives of procurement and the general criteria by which procurement performance is measured", namely that goods and services purchased should be of the 'right quality', in the 'right quantity', delivered to the 'right place' at the 'right time' and obtained at the 'right price'. [45] CIPS has in the past also offered an alternative listing of the five rights as "buy[ing] goods or services of the right quality, in the right quantity, from the right source, at the right time and at the right price. [46] 'Right source' is added as a sixth right in CIPS' 2018 publication, Contract Administration. [47]
Delivery on savings goals is an important part of the procurement function, but this objective is generally seen as value generation rather than cost reduction. [48] CIPS also notes that securing savings is "one measure of purchasing performance", but argues that savings should only be used as a measure of performance where they are "a reflection of the [organisation]'s ... expectations of the purchasing and supply management function". CIPS distinguishes between "savings", which can reduce budgets, and "cost avoidance", which "attempts to thwart price increases and to keep within budget". [49] Examples of savings as a beneficial outcome include:
Ardent Partners published a report in 2011 which presented a comprehensive, industry-wide view into what was happening in the world of procurement at that time by drawing on the experience, performance, and perspective of nearly 250 chief procurement officers (CPOs) and other procurement executives. The report included the main procurement performance and operational benchmarks that procurement leaders use to gauge the success of their organizations. This report found that the average procurement department manages 60.6% of total enterprise spend. This measure, commonly called "spend under management" or "managed spend", refers to the percentage of total enterprise spend (which includes all direct and indirect spend) that a procurement organization manages or influences. Alternatively, the term may refer to the percentage of addressable spend which is influenced by procurement, "addressable spend" being the expenditure which could potentially be influenced. [50] The average procurement department also achieved an annual saving of 6.7% in the last reporting cycle, sourced 52.6% of its addressable spend, and has a contract compliance rate of 62.6%. [51] A more restrictive definition of "spend under management" includes only expenditure which makes use of preferred supplier contracts and negotiated payment rates and terms. [52]
Consultants A.T. Kearney have developed a model for assessing the performance of a procurement organisation or the procurement function within a wider organisation, known as ROSMA SM (Return on Supply Management Assets). [53] According to the 2016 ROSMA Performance Check Report, What Good Looks Like,
the procurement profession has a top-tier group of standout performers, a middle-tier that is delivering value, but performing well below the top tier, and a large group of bottom-quartile performers that add limited value to their organizations. [54] [55]
CIPS promotes organisational self-assessment using the ROSMA Performance Check, arguing that it enables a procurement department to "measure and explain procurement and supply's value in terms your CFO and CEO will understand, using a common financial standard". [54] Findings in 2020 suggested that "top quartile procurement performers have ROSMA scores two to three times higher than those in the middle two quartiles". [56] A.T. Kearney's report suggests a close match between the self-reported performance of CPOs in the best performing departments and the view of procurement held by the CFO and the organisation more widely, and also notes that weaker performers or "inconsequentials" share a distinct profile marked by lack of "identifiable leadership accountable for procurement's performance. [55] : page 5
Spend under management also contributes to an additional measure of procurement performance or procurement efficiency: procurement operating expense as a percentage of managed spend. [57]
Personnel who undertake procurement on behalf of an organization may be referred to as procurement officers, professionals or specialists, buyers or supply managers. [58] The US Federal Acquisition Regulation refers to Contracting Officers. [59] Staff in managerial positions may be referred to as Purchasing Managers or Procurement Managers. The ISM refers to "the supply profession". [60]
A Purchasing or Procurement Manager's responsibilities may include:
Category management represents a system of organising the roles of staff within a procurement team "in such a way as to focus ... on the [external] supply markets of an organisation", rather than being organised according to the organisation's internal departmental structure. [61]
Specialist procurement roles include construction buyers and travel buyers. [62] Part of the work of a corporate travel buyer is the formulation and implementation of a corporate travel policy. [62]
In many larger organizations the procurement and supply function is led by a board-level or other senior position such as a Director of Supply Chain [63] or a chief procurement officer (CPO). In other cases, procurement is overseen by the chief financial officer (CFO) or Director of Finance, or the growing need for liaison between the CFO and the procurement function has been recognised. A 2006 report by the National Audit Office in the UK commented that in the further education sector, where procurement practice was not well developed and college organisations were relatively small, oversight of procurement by the Director of Finance was a typical arrangement. [64]
Independent or third party personnel who undertake procurement or negotiate purchases on behalf of an organization may be called purchasing agents or buying agents, although the term "purchasing agent" has a longer and broader history: the Institute for Supply Management in the United States was originally called the National Association of Purchasing Agents from its formation in 1915. [65] A commercial agent may both purchase and sell on behalf of a third party. [66]
US Bureau of Labor Statistics research found that there were 526,200 purchasing manager, buyer and purchasing agent positions in the United States in 2019. [67] Various writers have noted that businesses may reduce the numbers of purchasing staff during a recession along with staff in other business areas, despite a tendency to become more dependent on bought-in goods and services as operations contract. For example, US business executive Steve Collins observed that in one major company the purchasing staffbase "was downsized some 30% during the [2010] recession, 'but the expectations for the remaining employees remained unchanged ... The additional workload placed on the remaining employees following the downsizing created a much more challenging environment'". [68] In 2021 the Australasian Procurement and Construction Council (APCC) put forward an appeal asking everyone working in the procurement profession in Australia to include the term in their occupational title when completing their August 2021 census return. [69]
The European Commission issued a recommendation in October 2017 directed towards the "professionalisation of public procurement" so that Member States could "attract, develop and retain" staff in public purchasing roles, focus on performance and "make the most out of the available tools and techniques". [70] Research undertaken in 2020 highlighted the importance of social or "soft" skills within the skill sets of professional procurement staff. [71]
Some writers have observed that there is limited opportunity for women to enter procurement because of stereotypes viewing some roles as not appropriate for women. [72]
Management consultant Oliver Wyman reported in 2019 that, based on a survey of over 300 CPOs in Europe, US, and Asia working across 14 industries, 38% of the staff in the procurement organizations surveyed were women: 60% of CPOs stated that there were more women in their organization than three years previously, while 6% said that the number of women had decreased. The effect of this growing involvement of women in procurement was recognised in the form of "more creativity and innovation", acknowledged by 76% of the CPO's surveyed. [73]
A contractual obligation to procure refers to an absolute obligation to ensure that the action is done or the condition is met, [74] for example a contract with a principal supplier may include a clause requiring the company to "procure" that its subsidiaries, holding companies and other associated businesses undertake the same commitments as those contractually imposed on the principal. [75]
The use of the word "procure" in a joint venture agreement between Nearfield Ltd., Lincoln Nominees Ltd., and other partners, in relation to the utilisation of a bank loan, gave rise to a dispute between the parties regarding the meaning of the word "procure", which was resolved in 2006 by the judge, Peter Smith, confirming that the "normal meaning of the word" is clear and well understood:"I do not see that procure means anything other than as Nearfield [the claimant] puts it 'see to it'". [76] In this case, the obligation to "procure the payment" of the loan amounted to a guarantee of that loan. [77]
Various commentators have made projections regarding the future of procurement. [78] Charlotte Payne, general manager of CIPS in Australia and New Zealand, suggests that "procurement's role in sustainability is going to be massive", while a CIPS general overview anticipates that "there is little chance that procurement and supply will enter a period of calm any time soon". [78]
In commerce, supply chain management (SCM) deals with a system of procurement, operations management, logistics and marketing channels, through which raw materials can be developed into finished products and delivered to their end customers. A more narrow definition of supply chain management is the "design, planning, execution, control, and monitoring of supply chain activities with the objective of creating net value, building a competitive infrastructure, leveraging worldwide logistics, synchronising supply with demand and measuring performance globally". This can include the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, finished goods, and end to end order fulfilment from the point of origin to the point of consumption. Interconnected, interrelated or interlinked networks, channels and node businesses combine in the provision of products and services required by end customers in a supply chain.
A supply chain is a complex logistics system that consists of facilities that convert raw materials into finished products and distribute them to end consumers or end customers. Meanwhile, supply chain management deals with the flow of goods in distribution channels within the supply chain in the most efficient manner.
A value chain is a progression of activities that a business or firm performs in order to deliver goods and services of value to an end customer. The concept comes from the field of business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The idea of [Porter's Value Chain] is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources – money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.
A purchase order, often abbreviated to PO, is a commercial document issued by a buyer to a seller, indicating types, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services required. It is used to control the purchasing of products and services from external suppliers. Purchase orders can be an essential part of enterprise resource planning system orders.
Purchasing is the procurement process a business or organization uses to acquire goods or services to accomplish its goals. Although there are several organizations that attempt to set standards in the purchasing process, processes can vary greatly between organizations.
E-procurement is a collective term used to refer to a range of technologies which can be used to automate the internal and external processes associated with procurement, strategic sourcing and purchasing.
Business-to-business is a situation where one business makes a commercial transaction with another. This typically occurs when:
Strategic sourcing is the process of developing channels of supply at the lowest total cost, not just the lowest purchase price. It expands upon traditional organisational purchasing activities to embrace all activities within the procurement cycle, from specification to receipt, payment for goods and services to sourcing production lines where the labor market would increase firms' ROI. Strategic sourcing processes aim for continuous improvement and re-evaluation of the purchasing activities of an organisation.
Supplier relationship management (SRM) is the systematic, enterprise-wide assessment of suppliers' strengths, performance and capabilities with respect to overall business strategy, determination of what activities to engage in with different suppliers, and planning and execution of all interactions with suppliers, in a coordinated fashion across the relationship life cycle, to maximize the value realized through those interactions. The focus of supplier relationship management is the development of two-way, mutually beneficial relationships with strategic supply partners to deliver greater levels of innovation and competitive advantage than could be achieved by operating independently or through a traditional, transactional purchasing arrangement. Underpinning disciplines which support effective SRM include supplier information management, compliance, risk management and performance management.
Procurement software refers to a range of business software designed to streamline and automate purchasing processes for businesses and organizations. By managing information flows and transactions between procuring entities, suppliers, and partners, procurement software aims to cut costs, improve efficiency, and boost organizational performance.
Contract management or contract administration is the management of contracts made with customers, vendors, partners, or employees. Contract management includes negotiating the terms and conditions in contracts and ensuring compliance with the terms and conditions, as well as documenting and agreeing on any changes or amendments that may arise during its implementation or execution. It can be summarized as the process of systematically and efficiently managing contract creation, execution, and analysis for the purpose of maximizing financial and operational performance and minimizing risk.
Industrial marketing or business-to-business marketing is the marketing of goods and services by one business to another. Industrial goods are those an industry uses to produce an end product from one or more raw material. The term industrial marketing has largely been replaced by the term business-to-business marketing (B2B).
Sustainable procurement or green procurement is a process whereby organizations meet their needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a life-cycle basis while addressing equity principles for sustainable development, therefore benefiting societies and the environment across time and geographies. Procurement is often conducted via a tendering or competitive bidding process. The process is used to ensure the buyer receives goods, services or works for the best possible price, when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. Procurement is considered sustainable when organizations broadens this framework by meeting their needs for goods, services, works, and utilities in a way that achieves value for money and promotes positive outcomes not only for the organization itself but for the economy, environment, and society.
A chief procurement officer (CPO) undertakes an executive role within an enterprise, focusing on sourcing, procurement, and supply management.
Supplier evaluation and supplier appraisal are terms used in business and refer to the process of evaluating and approving potential suppliers by quantitative assessment. The aim of the process is to ensure a portfolio of best-in-class suppliers is available for use. Supplier evaluation can also be applied to current suppliers in order to measure and monitor their performance for the purposes of ensuring contract compliance, reducing costs, mitigating risk and driving continuous improvement.
In a supply chain, a vendor, supplier, provider or a seller, is an enterprise that contributes goods or services. Generally, a supply chain vendor manufactures inventory/stock items and sells them to the next link in the chain. Today, these terms refer to a supplier of any goods or service. In property sales, the vendor is the name given to the seller of the property.
Spend analysis or spend analytics is the process of collecting, cleansing, classifying and analyzing expenditure data with the purpose of decreasing procurement costs, improving efficiency, and monitoring controls and compliance. It can also be leveraged in other areas of business such as inventory management, contract management, complex sourcing, supplier management, budgeting, planning, and product development.
A reverse auction is a type of auction in which the traditional roles of buyer and seller are reversed. Thus, there is one buyer and many potential sellers. In an ordinary auction also known as a forward auction, buyers compete to obtain goods or services by offering increasingly higher prices. In contrast, in a reverse auction, the sellers compete to obtain business from the buyer and prices will typically decrease as the sellers underbid each other.
Indirect procurement is the sourcing of goods and services not related to manufacturing for a business to enable it to maintain and develop its operations. The goods and services classified under the umbrella of indirect procurement are commonly bought for consumption by internal stakeholders rather than the external customer or client.
Category management is an approach to the organisation of purchasing within a business organisation, also often referred to as procurement. Applying category management to purchasing activity benefits organisations by providing an approach to reduce the cost of buying goods and services, reduce risk in the supply chain, increase overall value from the supply base and gain access to more innovation from suppliers. It is a strategic approach which focuses on the vast majority of organisational spend. If applied effectively throughout an entire organisation, the results can be significantly greater than traditional transactional based purchasing negotiations, however the discipline of category management is sorely misunderstood.
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