Evocurement

CIPS has announced new study guides that will be effective from March 2024 exams onwards. This has raised a lot of questions and concerns among CIPS students worldwide. In this post, we will compare the content of L4M1 in the 2018 syllabus and the 2023 syllabus. Chapter 1: Some reorganization and addition Chapter 1 of L4M1 has been reorganized, with 1.1 starting with supply chain, supply chain network and tiering. This is a minor change as the content of this part is the…

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The questions on this topic tend to be one of the following: When writing about the Five Rights, you are expected to describe the following: Right quality means that the acquired product/service is fit for purpose. In other words, the product/service effectively solve the problem that the organisation expects it to solve. For example, you are procurement specialist at a toothbrush manufacturer. Your marketing team reports that the customers prefer softer brittles. To push sales and expand the market share,…

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Having positive relationships with stakeholders is just a beginning. The real objective here is getting work done by facilitating the information flow between stakeholders and procurement. The information is exchanged voluntarily, even when an organisation forces its people to dutifully exchange the information with other co-workers, some can still withhold for their own sake. Good relationships with stakeholders will reduce the motivation for withholding the information and increase the collaboration. Still, the procurement professional should know how to communicate effectively…

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Managing stakeholders is an important part of procurement. Though the role is sometimes called buyer, a procurement professional rarely use company budget to buy for procurement own needs, but for the needs of other departments. Having good relationships with other stakeholders will facilitate the communications between procurement and user departments, thus accelerate the workflow and help the organisation achieve its objectives. Relationship building process is sometimes complex as different persons prefer different approaches. If you are starting new role as…

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Identifying all relevant stakeholders involved in procurement and supply process is very important. Procurement professionals need to define and profile them so that they know more about how each stakeholder affects to the business or be affected by the business. The fact that different stakeholders have different priorities often leads to conflict. For instance, the organisation wants to maximise their profit by spontaneously increasing the revenue and reducing the total costs. However, the community adjacent to the organisation concerns about…

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To support good governance, the presence of written policies is a must. In procurement, clear policies and guidance will promote good ethical practice and collaboration. Eventually, these outcomes will translate to higher synergy and productivity. In an organisation regardless of the size, the procurement function should have the following policies: Policy on roles and responsibilities of procurement officers Like any other function, procurement should deploy the division of labour. The larger an organisation is, the more important this policy plays….

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In the past, procurement was considered as a secondary function of which the only job was consuming the organisation’s budget. Recently, due to the development of professional bodies who educate and improve procurement’s competencies, more and more organisations pay attention to procurement and supply chain, consider these functions as strategic parts to achieve long-term objectives. What makes procurement so important? We believe that procurement can play the following roles within an organisation: Profit generator: When talking about procurement, most people…

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To any organisation who commits to integrity and sustainable development, conflict of interest is an issue that needs to be constantly monitored. With conflict of interest under control, the senior management may encourage meritocracy, diversity and innovation within an organisation. To get that objective done, the organisation should have policies and strategies in place. In this post, we suggest a few methods you may use. What is conflict of interest? Before we approach to managing and preventing conflict of interest,…

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