Enhance your knowledge and skills in this increasingly important procurement area

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Understand why category management is an essential procurement tool
• Appreciate the benefits of successfully implementing category management
• Decide which approaches to category management are best suited to your organisation
• Utitlise a range of tools and techniques to develop category management in your organisation
• Identify an appropriate implementation strategy 

Understand how to identify potential future demand so you can make efficient inventory management decisions

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Make your demand forecasts more accurate and more useful
• Understand different forecasting methods, including the basic techniques as well as some of the more complex models
• Produce demand forecasts more efficiently
• Use your knowledge of potential future demand to keep your level of inventory right, improving stock availability, creating cost efficiencies and reducing obsolescence
• Establish your overall inventory management policy and management framework
• Address any day-to-day problems that can occur.

A two-day overview of the essentials of procurement from end-to-end, exploring the various ways each process can add value.

Upon completion of this course, delegates will be equipped with:

• An understanding of the procurement process from end-to-end, with a particular focus on how value is added with each component. Within this, delegates will also understand how the role of procurement is far more intensive than straightforward transactional purchasing.
• A look at appropriate demeanour and approach when going out to tender and dealing with suppliers, and how to mitigate potential risks posed by supplier behaviour.
• The ability to identify and separate the tools used to engage the market, such as Requests for Information and/or Proposals, and ultimately the usage of those systems.
• An understanding of how expertise in the procurement field is ultimately essential, particularly around how that expertise is applied.
• The ability to demonstrate and define value by implementing a variety of evaluation tools and theories.

A different skill set is needed to buy services – this is how to acquire it

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Identify opportunities for value enhancement, improving supplier delivery in relation to business objectives and maintaining the quality of service delivery
• Understand the key differences and approaches to buying services
• Try out your learning on your next services purchase through syndicate exercises and case studies
• Be confident in interpreting supplier objectives and be better equipped to explore service delivery cost drivers.