Supply Management

The SUM module will mainly consist of four integrated components, content wise covering the year cycle of a purchaser and preparing an understanding of the work of a “commodity buyer”, i.e. a buyer responsible for sourcing a certain group of materials:

Tactical buying:

This component covers the period from demand identification, over supplier selection till negotiation and contracting.

Strategic sourcing:

This component covers the supplier performance evaluation, as input for new commodity group strategy formulation and the required organizational and operational knowledge for its implementation. Tactical buying and strategic sourcing represent the main knowledge transfer part of the elective.

Supply management experiments/game:

The students conduct experiments which covers a different topics from the “tactical buying” and “strategic sourcing” components. The aim of this skill development component is to familiarize students with behavioural methodologies and to provide a deeper understanding of the social interactions involved in supply management. The experiment stream includes a serious game.

Project Research on leading topics:

The project will form the backbone of the module. In the project the students can apply the knowledge and skill gained in the individual components described above and expand it on particular topics. Students will conduct a research on leading topics in both practice and academia such as preferred customer status, public procurement, sustainable procurement, innovation driven procurement, purchasing – r&d interface and strategic supply management. The end product has the form of an academic paper which the students write in a project group. This paper will be presented on closing seminar where all students present their findings. The groups are supervised by content tutors that are expert in the defined topics as well as in academic methods. In this seminar project the students are also trained in professional business presentation.