Strategic Sourcing Self Assessment
Ask yourself these questions. Are you purchasing goods and services strategically?
Reactive Purchasing
- Focused only on price
- Decentralized plan and execution
- High number of transactions
- Limited support for competitive bid process
- Using blanket orders to execute transactions without contracts in place
- No management of supplier pricing or performance
Sourcing
- Focus on total cost control, not just purchase price
- Management encouragement to think beyond immediate need
- Some leveraging of spending across multiple departments or functions
- Active use of eSourcing or online auction tools
- Some measurements of productivity or supplier improvements
- A sourcing plan
Integrated Sourcing
- Top management oversight and support
- Measurable improvement in cost savings and productivity
- Manual transactions reduced
- Process metrics to support business results
- Specification review and standardization routine part of sourcing planning
- Documented Comprehensive Sourcing Plan
Strategic Sourcing
- Top management including unit and departmental leadership endorse University wide supply integration of supply base
- Active leveraging of spend across Boston University
- Documented and publicized sourcing plans
- Significant improvement in spending productivity
- All employees focused on value creation
- Sourcing and cost reduction metrics routinely included in management reviews