OPM 692 Advanced Procurement (Spring)

Content

Looking back over the past twenty years, competitive purchasing approaches created significant value for firms by driving substantial cost savings to the bottom line. However, the widespread usage of professional procurement techniques has eroded the advantages that they had for pioneers in the 1990s and in the early years of the current century. In addition, environmental, competitive, geopolitical, and technological changes have created an uncertain business environment in which a mere focus on purchasing cost will not be sufficient to support sustainable competitive advantage.

Against this backdrop, this module covers advanced approaches in procurement that aim at creating “value beyond cost”. Based on an end-to-end analysis of the key procurement processes, the module addresses the following core topics: Demand and supply analysis (need identification and specification management; supply market analysis; RFx; cost modeling; optimization levers), sourcing decisions and awarding of business (analytical models for supplier selection, auctions, negotiation), relationship governance (contracts and price models; fairness, reciprocity, justice), operational purchasing (purchase-to-pay process), management of non-performance and conflicts, and technological enablers.

Objectives

This course is of interest to students seeking more in-depth knowledge of the processes and tools in modern procurement. For each topic covered, concepts, frameworks, and analytic tools are presented.

Organization

The module consists of regular lectures and exercise classes in which extended and short cases will be discussed. Guest speakers from industry will share their management and consulting experiences in procurement.

Details

• Teaching team: Prof. Dr. Christoph Bode, Sebastian Gehrlein
• Language: English
• ECTS: 6
• Format and hours per week: 2h lecture + 1h exercise class
• Form of assessment: Written exam
• Teaching material: There is no mandatory text book. Teaching material, additional readings, and information regarding supplementary text books will be provided in class.
• ILIAS Group: ilias.uni-mannheim.de/goto.php