Free 2012 Purchasing Salary Report Now Available!

While the average purchasing salary globally remained consistent between 2011 and 2012, a new report out today reveals that the average purchasing salary in North America has increased by 11%.  This data can be found in the Purchasing & Supply Management Salaries in 2012 Report, published by the Next Level Purchasing Association, which provides purchasers insight into the compensation of their peers throughout the world and delves deeply into salary statistics, including salary by industry, gender, and educational attainment, to provide various benchmarks.

The 2012 report, which is based on a survey of 2,500 purchasing professionals conducted in early 2012, also revealed that with its 11% growth rate, North America passed Europe to claim the top spot as the continent with the highest average purchasing and supply management salary this year.  European purchasing salaries grew a respectable 6% in 2012, but not enough to maintain the top spot.  The North American and European average salaries were $77,226 and $74,671, respectively. 

A shocking statistic was also uncovered in the research: on average, female purchasing and supply management professionals earn more than their male counterparts.  But this summary number comes with a caveat which can be found in the Purchasing & Supply Management Salaries in 2012 Report. This report is free to all members of the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) and membership in the NLPA itself is free and instant.

Here's how to register get your copy of the Purchasing & Supply Management Salaries in 2012 Report:

If you're already an NLPA member: Log in to the members' area at
http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/login.html and navigate to the "What's New" tab. There you'll find a link to a PDF copy of the report. 

If you're not yet an NLPA member: Sign up for your free membership in the Next Level Purchasing Association at http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/procurement-association.php. After doing so, you'll receive an email with information about how to log in. After logging in, navigate to the "What's New" tab. There you'll find a link to a PDF copy of the report.

Animal-Friendly Purchasing Spreads Like Wildfire In The Food Industry; Which Industry Is Next?

 In my October 2, 2007 article, "Purchasing, Social Responsibility & Animals," I predicted that animal-friendly purchasing "will escalate soon" and that we would be seeing "edicts to adopt animal-friendly purchasing practices."

Well, while "soon" wasn't as soon as I would have thought, the time that I foresaw has finally come.  As I reported in February, Chipotle made a big splash at the Grammy Awards with their commercial/viral video that touted their practice of sourcing 100% of their pork from suppliers whose pigs are raised "outside or in deeply bedded pens, are never given antibiotics and are fed a vegetarian diet."  That was quickly followed by McDonald's announcement that it "will require its U.S. pork suppliers to provide plans by May to phase out crates that tightly confine pregnant sows."


Well, good ideas catch on fast.  This week, Burger King made an announcement that will drastically affect its suppliers' operations and perhaps even which suppliers that do business with the fast food giant.  Specifically, Burger King "pledged that all of its eggs and pork will come from cage-free chickens and pigs by 2017," according to an article on Xfinity Finance.


Though the entire article has many great excerpts that discuss the animal-friendly purchasing trend, there is one quote that I took particular interest in.  It was from Paul Shapiro, the Humane Society's vice president for farm animal protection.  "This is an issue that just four to five months ago was not on the food industry's radar," he said. "Now it's firmly cemented into the mainstream in a way that I think few people would have imagined."

This quote sums up how agile you need to be in the purchasing profession.  You need to be able to lead or react to trends at the drop of the proverbial hat.

Of course, if you keep up with the profession by seeking out and subscribing to cutting-edge educational material, you might be more prepared than your competition ;)

Now, if you think that animal-friendly purchasing is going to be limited to the food industry, you're wrong.  It will touch all industries.  In which industry will it be prominent next?  Yours?  Don't doubt it.

To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2
President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association
Author - The Procurement Game Plan
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com

New NLPA Library Offers Authoritative Tools, Saves Procurement Professionals From "Search Engine Scrap Heap"

The pace in today’s procurement departments is accelerating at an exponential rate.  While the procurement departments of yesteryear may have created requests for proposals, supplier scorecards, internal customer service surveys, and checklists from scratch, the time and resources required to develop those tools internally – or even scan through search results full of less-than-authoritative links - are no longer available luxuries.  To address this challenge, the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) today announced the launch of the NLPA Library, a comprehensive resource center featuring a collection of supply management templates, checklists, slide decks, archived webinars, transcripts from interviews with industry experts, and much more.  The NLPA Library has been established to provide procurement professionals with readily available and high-quality solutions to a variety of challenges they are likely to face, whether they are preparing themselves for the future or responding to an urgent need.

The NLPA Library is available to organizations participating in the All-Access Corporate Subscription, a new offering also launched by the NLPA today. The All-Access Corporate Subscription is designed to help procurement teams of eligible corporations navigate around supply management obstacles and deliver better results than ever before. In addition to the NLPA Library, employees of the procurement departments of corporate subscribers have access to all of the online education that the NLPA has to offer, including 13 full-length online supply management courses and 5 online Express Courses for one all-inclusive price. Course topics include: Negotiation, Purchasing Best Practices, Project Management, Strategic Sourcing and much more.  Corporate subscribers also have the opportunity for each procurement team member to earn the globally-recognized SPSM^® Certification at no additional charge.

“When a procurement professional seeks a tool or template, it’s because they need to execute a process quickly,”  said Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2 – the President and Chief Procurement Officer of Next Level Purchasing, Inc.  “However, when they have to rummage through the low quality tools and templates that I always come across in the ‘search engine scrapheap,’ they are likely to waste time and unwittingly use a tool or template of substandard quality.  With today’s launches of the NLPA Library and the All-Access Corporate Subscription, we have made it even easier for procurement departments to access tools from a trustworthy source, cut the time required to execute common processes, and be more successful than ever.”

Though currently available only to corporations, the Next Level Purchasing Association plans to make the NLPA Library available on an individual level within the coming months.

Organizations interested in providing the All-Access Corporate Subscription to their procurement team can contact the Next Level Purchasing Association at 1-412-294-1991 or by email at busdev@nextlevelpurchasing.com.

Take Your Child To Work Day At NLPA, 2012

Procurement Transformation Is NOT About Doing What You Do Better

 Procurement transformation.

It's a line item on every procurement executive's list of objectives.

Successfully complete a procurement transformation and you're a hero with an impressive addition to your resume.  Fail and then you'll be one of those people with "seeking new opportunities" as their title on their LinkedIn profile.

One of the important things to realize in the beginning of a procurement transformation is what it is and what it isn't.  And what a procurement transformation isn't is an exercise of doing a better job at the things you do now.

No, what a true procurement transformation involves is adopting best practices.  Some of those best practices replace what you do today.  Some of those best practices add to what you do today.  But if your organization needs a procurement transformation, it's likely that best practices aren't a mere tweak to what you're doing today.

So, you should not be starting your procurement transformation by asking "What can we do better?"

You should be asking "What are we not doing that leading organizations are?"

Trust me, if you explore what you're not doing through benchmarking, you'll see that there is no shortage of articles, books, training, consultants, and other resources available to help you come to know what you don't know.


To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2
President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association
Author - The Procurement Game Plan
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com

Purchasing Salaries in 2012 - Free Webinar!

This coming Monday - April 30, 2012 - at 11:30AM Eastern US time, the Next Level Purchasing Association will be leading a webinar entitled "Purchasing & Supply Management Salaries in 2012." This webinar is free to all members of the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) and membership in the NLPA itself is free and instant.

By attending this webinar, you will be the first to learn of some very revealing - and, maybe, shocking - statistics about purchasing and supply management salaries.  Are they going up?  In what industry do procurement and supply management professionals make the most?  What difference does certification make?  And do women actually make more than men in our profession?

This webinar will have those and many more questions answered, backed up by arguably the most globally-comprehensive research ever done on purchasing and supply management salaries!  This is a webinar you do not want to miss!

Here's how to register for the webinar:

If you're already an NLPA member: Log in to the members' area at
http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/login.html and navigate to the "Webinars" tab. There you'll find a registration link, be sure to enter a valid email address as attendance details will be sent to you by email.

If you're not yet an NLPA member: Sign up for your free membership in the Next Level Purchasing Association at http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/procurement-association.php. After doing so, you'll receive an email with information about how to log in. After logging in, navigate to the "Webinars" tab. There you'll find a registration link, be sure to enter a valid email address as attendance details will be sent to you by email.

Registration is free but may be limited, so sign up soon to ensure access to this event. I hope that you will join me for this exciting webinar!

To Your Career,

Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2

President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association

Author - The Procurement Game Plan

Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com

Procurement & LinkedIn

I hope that you have enjoyed the article "How Procurement Pros Should Use LinkedIn."

Though many of my PurchTips articles are written in bullet form for easy digestion, I opted to write this one in paragraph form.  However, I thought that I could use this blog to communicate - and even expand - on the theme of the article using bullet points.

So, here are some "bulletized" ideas...

Why use LinkedIn?  To accomplish the typical "end goals of social networking" as related to procurement:

• To get a job;
• To learn from others; and/or 
• To connect with suppliers who can help you towards your goals

How should you behave on LinkedIn?  In a way that accomplishes the "objectives of social networking interactions":

• To be known
• To be liked
• To be trusted

What helps you become known, liked, and trusted?

•  Offering advice
• Being careful not to harshly criticize others

It's that last point that is hard for many to adhere to.  And that's where the detail of the article comes in.

If you're in LinkedIn and want to connect, by all means, look me up and also join the SPSM Group.  I'd love the opportunity to get to know, like, and trust you!

To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2
President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association
Author - The Procurement Game Plan  
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career? 
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At  
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com

RFP Tips and More...Much More!

I hope that you've enjoyed the article "7 RFP Planning Tips, Part I."

This article was based on a podcast that I recently recorded with Bill Dorn. Bill is the Vice President of Operations for sourcing consultancy Source One Management Services and is also the co-author of one of my favorite procurement books of all time, "Managing Indirect Spend: Enhancing Profitability Through Strategic Sourcing."

Of course, the podcast covered the RFP tips that are discussed in the above-linked article plus Part II, which will be out next month. But we also covered so much more!

Much of the discussion between Bill and I was based around the topics in Managing Indirect Spend's Chapter 9, "What Not to Do During a Strategic Sourcing Initiative." Like anything that I promote, this stuff is practical, instantly usable material!

So, if the article piqued your interest, go check out the podcast at http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/podcast. It's free!

And if you want even more great RFP and sourcing advice, stay tuned for Part II of the article or go buy Managing Indirect Spend on Amazon.com or your favorite bookstore!

To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2
President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association
Author - The Procurement Game Plan
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com

Is Getting 3 Bids & Choosing The Lowest One A Good Process For Purchasing Decisions?

"Is getting three bids and choosing the lowest one a good process for purchasing decisions?"

A common question.

And one whose answer requires an explanation.

So, here's my explanation...

If supplier qualification was performed; all suppliers were deemed to be substantially equivalent in terms of probability of performing to requirements; and factors such as quality, service, and delivery were deemed to be either not important (likely in very few situations) or the three suppliers given the opportunity to bid had only negligible differences between them in these other factors, then there is nothing wrong with accepting the lowest bid.

However, if price was the only consideration when there are other important factors and supplier qualification was not performed, selecting the lowest of three bids would be a prime example of amateurish purchasing.

Purchasing decisions made solely on price without considering the importance of supplier qualification and non-price factors have a very high likelihood of resulting in poor supplier performance, late deliveries, quality defects (perhaps even safety-related), unresponsive supplier service, disruptions to operations, higher costs of doing business, frustration among employees, poor quality of the end-product or service provided by the individuals who incorporate the purchased product or service into their work, delays that ripple forward through the supply chain, and so on. That's why purchasing is a profession.

A preschooler can identify the lowest of three numbers. That's a basic skill.

Making decisions that ensure that huge sums of money are not wasted and the organization's operations are enhanced rather than inhibited is an advanced business skill!

To Your Career,
Charles Dominick, SPSM, SPSM2
President & Chief Procurement Officer - Next Level Purchasing Association
Author - The Procurement Game Plan
Struggling To Have A Rewarding Purchasing Career?
Earn Your SPSM^® Certification Online At
www.NextLevelPurchasing.com