Buyer Skill Development – Training that builds buyer skills that directly link to purchasing performance
In the world of procurement, it is critical to keep your employees’ technical and soft skills sharp. APD provides training that improves the skills of purchasing organizations and individuals in critical areas, including cost management, collaborative strategies, and negotiations.
Let APD work with you to review your objectives and your employees’ current skill sets to develop a customized approach to rapidly improve your team’s efforts.
The starting point can be an assessment of buyer skills and knowledge or the configuration of existing course materials for a specific need.
Following are the training topics that provide critical buyer skills and knowledge:
- Understanding and Managing Supplier Pricing and Costs
- Building and Using Should-Be Cost Models
- Strategic Commodity Leadership
- Strategic Negotiations
- Effective Strategies and Analysis for Buying Capital Equipment
Case study
The CPO of a global automotive supplier came to us because his teams were having trouble implementing global commodity strategies. APD assessed the strategies that averaged over 25 pages each and lacked basic strategy elements. Based upon the review we asked the client if the business unit leaders were questioning the value purchasing was delivering to their organizations. He confirmed they were. APD developed and conducted training that helped the buyers tie their efforts to the visions for the business units with clear metrics and concise action plans. As a result. the teams prospered and leadership became believers in the process.