crisis management in purchasing

Take Care: First aid kit for crisis management in purchasing

You can prepare for many things, but every crisis that hits a purchasing department is individual and has its own rules. Nevertheless, it is necessary to react quickly and make decisions as rationally as possible. An important tool for this is a first aid checklist so that nothing is forgotten. Comparable to the procedure models of paramedics, a checklist helps to consider and evaluate the most important points and to derive appropriate measures. Therefore: Take Care for the purchase in a crisis.

The checklist for crisis management in purchasing should contain at least the following subitems:

  1. employees / personnel
  2. supply chains
  3. service provider
  4. demand planning
  5. inventory management
  6. supplier management

With these six points, a purchasing department quickly gains an overview and can initiate measures at short notice.

employees:

Are representative regulations clearly defined? How can employee absences be absorbed in the overall context? Do the employees have the necessary equipment for home office?

supply chains:

Are there critical areas for supply chains from a logistics perspective, such as ports or national borders? Is there sufficient information about deliveries and their status?

Service providers:

Is there sufficient information about necessary service providers (extended workbench, plant security, logistics, etc.) and who controls this information? Are the IT systems and service providers in the purchasing department’s field of vision?

Demand planning:

Does the crisis have an impact on its own value creation? Do order quantities have to be adjusted accordingly? Do framework agreements have to be increased and forecast reports adjusted?

Inventory management:

Are the inventory values in the system up-to-date? Do disposition rules have to be adjusted? Are automatically planned items in the same quantity as in the history still needed?

Supplier management:

Is there a schedule for the regular evaluation of risk suppliers? Has a communication concept been installed for close monitoring of system-relevant suppliers?

Take Care does not end with the first aid kit, when the purchasing department is stabilized of course the new, right attitude for the next months has to be found.  This should be accompanied by a constructive evaluation of the crisis management and necessary conclusions for the future should be derived from it.

The task of our experts is to transfer lived practice into active risk management, also for the case of crisis, and to enrich it with best practice. Please contact us, we look forward to the exchange.

 

Oliver Kreienbrink

Managing Director, ADCONIA GmbH

Gregor van Ackeren

Managing Director, ADCONIA GmbH