The Strategic Buyer MBA

Day 1:

People Management

• The importance of socio-technical management

• Techniques for effective communication

• Motivating for results

• Enhancing your coaching skills

• Empowering employees for improved performance

• Characteristics of a successful manager

Day 2:

Leading Teams

• Obtaining the benefits of teamwork

• Characteristics of ineffective teams

• Characteristics of effective teams

• Managing conflict in a productive manner

• Understanding team member styles

• Creating a virtual team

Day 3:

Strategic Planning

• Analyzing the strategic planning process

• Achieving competitive advantage

• Utilizing dynamic SWOT analysis

• Focusing on vision and mission

• The importance of contingency planning

• Examples of strategic success and failure

Day 4:

Negotiating for Results

• Gaining insight into the negotiating process

• Characteristics of an effective negotiator

• Developing negotiating strategies

• Employing persuasive negotiation techniques

• Achieving the benefits of effective negotiating

• Negotiation exercises

Day 5:

Operational Excellence

• The Malcolm Baldrige quality award-standard of excellence

• Lessons from the best-performing companies

• Benchmarking your operation against the best

• Creating employee commitment

• Managing continuous improvement

• Creating the high-performance organization

Day 6:

The Modern Buying Function

• Globalization and its effects

• Utilizing the internet for procurement

• Modern buying practices

• Assuring supplier performance

• Methods for determining a price

• Procurement’s role in the organization

• Procurement performance measurement

• Long term contract pricing formulas

Day 7:

International Buying

• International buying operations

• International counter-trade

• Achieving the benefits of global procurement

• Overcoming the difficulties of international buying

• Utilizing the learning curve

• Ensuring the quality of material deliveries

• International buying and inventory management

• Reducing costs in inventory management

Day 8:

International Supplier Sourcing

• Preparing to move beyond domestic sourcing

• Global sourcing

• Locating international sources

• Determining the type of supplier to utilize

• Single source vs. multiple source policy

• Source evaluation criteria

• Managing exchange rate risk

• Dealing with issues of ethics

Day 9:

Negotiation and Contract Preparation

• Insights into the negotiation process

• Characteristics of the effective negotiator

• Preparing to negotiate

• Negotiating techniques

• Obtaining the benefits of supplier partnering

• International buying legalities

• Drafting the international contract

• Dispute resolution mechanisms

Day 10:

International Movement Of Goods

• International commercial terms

• Buying transportation services

• Utilizing air transportation

• Utilizing ocean transportation

• Securing marine insurance

• Calculating the total landed cost

• Strategic purchase planning

• Re-engineering purchasing operations