Specialised training & development programme

Develop & refresh your category strategy

Develop the skills to drive a value creating category strategy:

• Evaluate the current situation within the business and existing sourcing, market structure and dynamics.
• Perform market analysis to develop and evaluate options to meet the business requirements through an aligned category strategy.
• Communicate the category strategy to stakeholders, for formative purposes and to disseminate an approved strategy.

Who is this course for? Category managers, Category specialists, Sub-category managers and Procurement professionals who are responsible for a significant level of spend.

Contact us

Set up & run sourcing projects

Capture the value defined in the category strategy with this “Sourcing skills refresh” course which includes a workshop and an assignment model of applied learning. Learn how to:

• Conduct category, internal and supplier research to identify and validate opportunity areas.
• Develop relationships and suppliers selection matrix. Define sourcing strategy.
• Prepare negotiation plan and RFI/RFP documents.
• Implement and develop supplier strategy.

Who is this course for?  Category managers, Category specialists, Sub-category managers and, Procurement professionals who are responsible for a significant level of spend.

Contact us

Leading complex commercial negotiations

Capture and deliver value to the business. With a focus on the technical and behavioural aspects of complex commercial negotiations, with this module learn how to:

• The multi-dimensional aspects of complex commercial negotiation by considering utility, time, contractual and pricing components.
• The bargaining behaviour at the core of a negotiation.
• What pre-negotiation research should be done and how it can be used.
• The best practices for the negotiation of key contract schedules.
• How trust, collaboration and value are created within the negotiation context.
• Negotiation tactics used by organisations.

Who is this course for? Procurement professionals

Contact us

Contract & performance management

Enhance the value that sourcing delivered with this module covering the essentials of post-contract supplier management, learn how to:

• Examine and optimise the lifecycle approach to supplier management.
• Learn cross-business stakeholders engagement techniques.
• Assess contracts as a basis for performance management and the role of SLAs and KPIs for driving continuous improvement through balanced (two way) scorecards.
• Build on performance management to use predictive KPIs, and root cause analysis to enable effective oversight of the risk that a supplier brings.

Who is this course for? Category managers, Category specialists, Sub-category managers and Procurement professionals who are responsible for a significant level of spend.

Contact us

Supply chain risk management

Learn how to protect the value that has been sourced with this practical approach using structured techniques and tools to proactively:

• Map critical supply chain elements, risk drivers and vulnerabilities. Benefits and issues of outsourcing from a risk perspective.
• Assess risks, quantify impact and setting tolerances.
• Lower the likelihood of a risk event occurring and reduce the impact if it does.
• Understand and revisit acceptability in terms of appetite, tolerance, context of business continuity and regulatory factors (where appropriate).
• Add risk management into the relationship strategy context. Clarify responsibilities and contractual liabilities.

Who is this course for?  Supplier managers who are responsible for oversight and management of the risks that key suppliers introduce to the supply chain.

Contact us

Supplier relationship management

Develop and create new value though your most important suppliers. Understand and guide your supplier’s account management objectives are important steps in fostering a collaborative relationship. The process of joint account planning helps drive transparency and trust to facilitate alignment of documented, actionable and shared customer and supplier objectives. Learn how to:

• Become a better student of the suppliers’ business to uncover value release opportunities.
• Engage stakeholders as part of a cross-business and cross-functional virtual team to drive greater levels of collaborative working.
• Understand the supplier perspective on account planning, and using joint account planning to build strategic relationships.
• Build quantified value release plans.
• Stimulate and managing supplier innovation.

Who is this course for? Supplier managers who are responsible for oversight and management of the risks that key suppliers introduce to the supply chain.

Contact us

Facilitating collaborative working

Adopting the behaviours that deliver trust and engagement. Delivered as a series of topics, this step by step training build into a complete treatment of stakeholder engagement and communication skills. Learn how to:

• Develop stakeholder insight to identify and map the key players, anticipate their agendas and build a stakeholder engagement plan.
• Use behaviours that manage and facilitate stakeholder engagement more proactively.
• Apply active listening methods.
• Create engaging communications and messages.
• Build trust and engagement.

Who is this course for?

• Anyone who needs to engage and influence stakeholders,
• Cross-functional relationship settings, for example supplier managers, supplier relationship owners and vendor managers who have to use influence in order to drive results.

Contact us

Inside the buyers head training

In today’s cost-conscious environment, the power of the procurement department has grown dramatically as organisations seek improved value and lower costs. Inside the buyer’s head is comprehensive training revealing the technical knowledge and skills needed to neutralise the techniques that procurement professionals use and engage them on their own terms. Learn how to:

• Build influence and power by knowing procurement structure and objectives.
• Align to the buying process – create differentiation by selling the way procurement buys.
• Turn the supplier management strategies that procurement uses to your advantage.
• Deliver RFP presentations and sales pitches that work the way that procurement thinks.

Who is this course for? Primarily designed for sales professionals.

Contact us