Advanced Global Procurement and Sourcing Specialization

This course is primary focused on Procurement Organization-how to integrate procurement into the business and with your suppliers, review different types of procurement organizations, the importance of having policy and and procedures, how to establish meaningful Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) , and lastly examine the criterial roll of talent. All of this learning is meant to create a "real" competitive advantage for your procurement organization and your firm.

After a brief introduction, this course will first cover the on-going rational and challenges of worldwide sourcing. There were a lot of lesson learned as a result of Covid and the subsequent disruption of many supply chains. After reviewing the even more important topics of Supplier Quality and Risk Management, the course will cover three strategies to minimize risks: China +1, Near Shoring and Reshoring. Lastly, the very important topic of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is covered which is needed to evaluate these strategies.

This course covers the very important topic of Supplier Partnerships. After a brief introduction to the course, the course will cover why partnerships are important and what exactly is a partnership. The course will give a "real life" example Partnership Model that has been successfully used in over 150 companies.

After a brief introduction, this course will first explain hedging, and how one might use hedging as a risk management tool. Then the course will look at both Commodity Hedging and Currency Risk Management and Currency Hedging. Actual examples will be provided and recommendations how to move forward using these risk management techniques.

After a brief introduction, this course will cover procurement technology solutions that will help achieve your goals. First, the course will cover Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), a large software program that is used across the entire organization. The ERP segment will focus on just the procurement segments and how one can use this information to achieve your goals. Then the course will cover Procurement-to-Pay solutions that can either be integrated into ERP or as a stand alone solution. Lastly, the course will cover some of the "new" digital and other enabling technologies (e.g. AI, ML & RPA). All of these technologies and processes will make your procurement department more efficient and effective such that you can work on more value add activities.

This is the final course in the Specialization. After a brief introduction, the course will cover two Special Topics that weren't covered in the previous courses, but considered very important. The first topic is procurement's role in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and the second topic is Suppliers Diversity and reviews why both of these initiatives are important to procurement and your firm any how to implement them.

From there, the course has a review of the entire Specialization by restating all the Key Take-Aways from all the courses. This is meant to be a review for the Final Assessment. Lastly, there is a Final Assessment consisting of 40 multiple choice question.