Video Transcript

Jacob, Host at Logistics Degree:
Question: What does procurement entail and what would be a few jobs within that field of supply chain?

Corben, Supply Chain Manager:
Answer: So that’s all about sourcing where your things are going to come from. So should we order this from China or should we order from indonesia? Should we order it stateside? And why? What are the pros and cons? You know, there’s a cost of each item, but there’s also a shipping cost. And there’s time delay. There’s credibility of different vendors. You’ve got to weigh all of that. So you could be a purchasing agent in that field. You could be a manager in that area and kind of coordinate more high level. And there’s also a forecasting role that at a bigger company would be its own job. But at a smaller company, you might be do a little forecasting, do a little negotiation, do a little bit of the actual time in the phone to.

Nathan, Logistician:
Answer: Procurement is everything dealing with your negotiations with suppliers? There’s two groups of people. Typically you have the procurement teams that own the commercial relationship with the suppliers, and then you have planners who deal with the day to day operations. So part of procurement is negotiating legal documents, getting quotes, finding good value, finding suppliers. And the other side is making sure that there’s deliveries coming to your factory or your warehouse. You’re reducing inventory levels and you’re making sure that the suppliers are keeping up their end of the expectation.

Alexander, Supply Chain & Procurement:
Answer: Nowadays, I would say procurement has a lot of different opportunities. They have both procurement analytics. You also have buying within procurement as well. You have category management, you have materials management, you have logistics management to within procurement. So there’s really many routes you can take. But a little brief overview of those that I just mentioned. So you can go into Procurement and expect to procure something or to be that strategic partner in procurement. So either you’re the one procuring or you’re the one making a better process for everybody else to procure or find a better way to analyze all of our current procurement expenses and see where there’s opportunities to lower costs, to lower prices of certain materials that we’re getting from two different suppliers, but we’re getting cheaper from one. So I think three roles right there is a buyer. So somebody who constantly communicates with different suppliers and sends POWs and negotiates the prices to. And those quotes you have a category manager, which is somebody that manages really the whole category of spends. Then you have the logistics carrier side, which is somebody who manages the logistics carriers, such as the trucking companies, DHL, Fedex, one of the cases has that relationship with them and keeps that negotiation and kind of making sure that they’re on track and they’re making their KPIs along those lines.