The saying goes: “The only constant is change.” Nowhere is that statement truer than in procurement and supply chain management.

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Procurement and supply chain are fields that have changed tremendously throughout the years. They are much more multi-faceted disciplines than they were even just a few years ago.
If you’re a procurement or supply chain professional and you haven’t adapted to new ways of carrying out your work, the world is passing you by. But it’s not enough to try to get to where procurement and supply chain are today. You must prepare for the future of these important business functions.

The scope of procurement is interpreted very differently from professional to professional. At one end of the spectrum, you have people who consider “good procurement” to be limited to the efficient placing of orders with suppliers. At the other end, you have people who consider good procurement to include exerting a positive influence on both the internal business and the external world.

There are 18 competencies that procurement organizations must master in order to be world-class today. But, world-class procurement isn’t a black-or-white issue. Getting to world-class isn’t like flipping a switch. It is a journey. And like every journey that you undertake, it is best to know the direction in which you need to go.

The Next Level Purchasing Association has recently released a whitepaper entitled “The Future Direction of Procurement & Supply Chain Management” designed to help you map out your journey to world-class capabilities. It divides those competencies into four levels that you can use to plan and measure your progress over time.

You can download the whitepaper for free from https://certitrek.com/nlpa/supply-chain-white-papers.