This book was created in the spirit of learning from nature in the field of professional purchasing. It describes real-world purchasing problems faced by companies as well as individuals and presents natural hands-on solutions that apply scientific approaches. The book answers what the core of purchasing could be, the inner structure of it or in other words the natural way. Nature masters effectiveness based on immanent laws and ensures efficiency by best results for minimal invest. Especially in complex and ambiguous situations, purchasers benefit from this book by understanding the broader context with the help of recent scientific research.

Focusing on the problems that purchasers face in managerial practice rather than oversimplified generalizations, the book features step-by-step explanations, allowing readers to find tailored solutions to address challenges in key purchasing areas. The book was written in collaboration and with the help of experts in purchasingand logistics, biology, law and economics, human resource development, media and sports, and merges perspectives from theory and practice to provide natural strategies for purchasers.

Applies a scientific approach to understand practical purchasing challenges and their solutions Broadens the scope of current approaches to purchasing management and strategy Integrates pricing, supply chain knowledge with behavioral insights from psychology

Autorentext

Prof. Dr. Florian Schupp is Senior Vice President Purchasing Automotive OEM at Schaeffler Group and Adjunct Professor at Jacobs University Bremen, both in Germany. He has more than 20 years of purchasing experience in different industries. Dr. Heiko Wöhner is Director Supply Management Automotive OEM at Schaeffler Automotive Buehl GmbH & Co. KG, Bühl, Germany.

Inhalt
Introduction to the Nature of Purchasing.- Elements of purchasing in nature.- Upskilling for Purchasing 4.0 How European Automotive OEMs master the future of purchasing with the right skill set.- 0 shades of grey externalization of the quality business philosophy to reach zero defects.- The value of contracts in a long-term context An example based on the Lateran Treaty and the concordat of 1984.- Creativity in purchasing what a team can do.- En garde! What business negotiators could learn from an épée fencing champion.- The True Cost of Mitigating Commodity Price Volatility: Insights from Total Cost of Ownership and Real Options Approach.- Auctions as the most efficient form of negotiations.- Purchasing's Role as an Influencer of Business Outcomes.- Towards efficient financial supply chains: How to leverage inter-organizational working capital by digitalizing the financial flows.- The importance ofbeing confident: evidence from a supply chain experiment.- Prospects of purchasing an evaluation model for data mining approaches for preventive quality assurance.- Ethical purchasing Knowledge- and person-related inhibitors to consumption of fair fashion.- Reframing Buyer-Supplier Relationships: Deep, Sticky, Transient and Gracious.- Innovation scouting: a new challenge for the purchasing function.