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Keep calm and be creative : exploration of purchasing added value in technical universities

Zhu, Jinfeng (2017) Keep calm and be creative : exploration of purchasing added value in technical universities.

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Abstract:Top technical universities strive to be the pioneers of teaching qualifications and advanced science. Every year, a significant amount of government grant is invested in higher education and research institutes. Therefore, it is important to implement financial control and improve purchasing performance in technical universities. This paper aims to investigate how purchasing services create more added value to faculties, research institutes and other service departments. The literature has been reviewed to examine the types of purchasing added value, as well as the affecting factors and influential strategies. It is found that the purchasing maturity and early involvement positively affect the value added by purchasing. The empirical findings are based on mixed methods research conducted in 58 top technical universities in the world. It is found that purchasing in technical universities serves diverse customers and the commodities can be divided into two groups: facility procurement (“hygiene” nature) and scientific & laboratory procurement (value “motivator”). An attempt has been made to design a creative roadmap to achieve more purchasing added value in a Dutch university. Starting with the assessment of the status quo, a gap analysis has been followed to compare the current performance and desired future position. Subsequently, the step-based development scheme provides the improvement proposals: 1. Develop a more mature purchasing function to nourish value creation, including differentiating purchasing strategy based on portfolio management, creating a technology buying team for the Purchase-to-Pay system and designing a SMART purchasing performance measurement and evaluation system; 2. Promote added value in earlier involvement with internal customers; 3. Explore added value with partner departments and suppliers, as well as other universities through purchasing alliance. The main contribution of the research is a creative purchasing roadmap based on multidisciplinary concepts and best purchasing practices identified in the benchmarking study.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:85 business administration, organizational science
Programme:International Business Administration BSc (50952)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/72892
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