Procurement Principles and Management in the Digital Age, 12e

Book Preface

The original text was written over 40 years ago by Peter Baily and David Farmer and was in its day one of a very small number of specialised texts relating to the field of purchasing and supply. Since that time, purchasing and supply chain management has become recognised as a crucial strategic activity by those concerned with organisational management and as a recognised academic discipline, with a growing number of university professors dedicated to the subject area. It is reassuring to note that the literature on the subject contin-ues to expand, as does the amount of academic and practitioner interest in it, reflected in the now substantial number of university degrees available at both under- and postgraduate level. The visionary and pioneering work that Peter and David took part in, probably to some extent as a gesture of faith, is now fully justified.
The text could not have survived for this length of time without continu-ous change, and of course the idea behind this new edition is to continue that process. It should be pointed out that the change process is evolutionary, and that we have taken care to balance the newer philosophies emerging in our profession with the proven and established thinking and practice. This text is not of the ‘read this and it will change your life’ genre; rather it is, we hope, a reflection of sound mainstream practice, accompanied by comment on the way things seem to be going, and insights into developing ideas and approaches.
This twelfth edition has been substantially updated with many additions in the form of more detailed case studies, additional academic content and the inclusion of more practical examples of best practice in many key areas.

Revisions and additions

Specifically, readers will note the following new elements:

■ the inclusion of three self-assessment tasks at the end of each chapter;
■ a comprehensive review of the future of procurement;
■ material explaining the long-term changes in strategy in response to supply disruptions caused by disasters and by the Covid-19 pandemic inserted into various chapters;

■ a revised chapter considering Industry 4.0 tools such as e-procurement, Blockchain, the Internet of Things, Big Data, artificial intelligence (AI), bots, digitalisation and analytics;
■ diversity and supplier diversity considered in detail;
■ the inclusion of supply chain resilience approaches;
■ considerable coverage of sustainability provided across relevant chapters;
■ the inclusion of social value strategies and approaches;
■ the inclusion of virtual negotiation approaches in response to the growing trend of working from home;
■ in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, updated additional material exploring offshoring/onshoring;
■ third sector/not-for-profit procurement considered;
■ additional material for coverage of risk;
■ consideration of just-in-case inventory as a method of improving resilience;
■ the inclusion of the procurement of consultancy;
■ the inclusion of a Contract Management Cycle;
■ retail procurement completely revised to include omnichannel challenges and digital tools;
■ supplier relationship management (SRM) expanded to include two-way,
360- degree relationship measurement;
■ the addition of quality function deployment (QFD) and the House of Quality (HOQ);
■ ratio analysis for analysing financial viability of suppliers now included.

We are very grateful for the contribution of Alexis Brooks CIMA and David Moore of Cranfield University to the revised Chapter 3 on the subject of buying for government and public services. We also thank Neil Fuller, a chief examiner for the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, for his help and advice, and for his contribution of material included in our treatment of the ‘quality’ theme. Finally, we thank Ray Carter for his permission for inclusion of 10 Cs and Paul Jackson for his permission for inclusion of extracts from his ‘Three Pillars’ article and the ‘Category Management Rainbow’ article.
The text is, as before, organised into four parts. The first, on the theme of objectives and development and covering Chapters  1–3, deals with the scope of procurement activity and its evolution, relevant strategic issues and considerations, the structure and organisation of procurement and public sector procurement. The second part, Chapters  4–10, looks at the key procurement variables of quality, inventory, lead time, sourcing, total cost of ownership and price and negotiation. Part 3, Chapters  11–17, concerns itself with important procurement activities and applications, dealing with processes associated with buying in particular markets or economic sectors. The final part, covering Chapters 18–20, deals with Industry 4.0, contract law and contract management.
We continue to hope that the text will appeal to those in the practitioner and academic communities. We have attempted to strike a balance between the demands of a pure academic text and the sometimes-simplistic treatment of ideas encountered in the literature aimed at managers.
We are grateful for the help and support of many colleagues and friends who have contributed in a great variety of ways, and to the copyright holders of some of the included material. Specific acknowledgements are, of course, made at the appropriate points in the text.

Barry Crocker