DEVELOPING PURCHASING POLICIES, PROCESSES AND SLAs

This event has passed

Why Attend

Purchasing policies, processes and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) guide the activities of purchasing professionals and their business partners, and provide a functional and moral compass. To ensure eﬀectiveness, these documents must be aligned to the strategic intent and the broader environment of the organization. They must also be written using an appropriate language level and style. In this course, we will demonstrate how to develop such policies, process flowcharts and SLAs in a simple, specific and appropriate style that meets the requirements of a modern organization. We will also illustrate how performance against processes and SLAs can be measured and analyzed for continuous improvement.

Event Date: 07/03/2024 – 09/03/2024

Request an In-House Proposal

Download 2024 Training Calendar

Overview
Course Outline

The strategic role of purchasing
- Purchasing terms and definitions
- Evolution of purchasing into a strategic function
- Purchasing relationships within the organization
- Purchasing process
- Ethical principles governing the purchasing function
Using an appropriate writing style
- Writing in an impersonal style
- Organizing paragraphs and sentences
- Writing applications
  - Simple language
  - Specific language
  - Positive language
- Using active verbs
- Applying easy and effective grammatical rules
- Gunning fog index for writing complexity
Writing purchasing policies
- Purchasing policies: what are they and why do we need them?
- Guidelines for writing purchasing policies
- Purchasing policy scope
- Policy contents and exclusions
- Developing purchasing policies – practical application
Designing purchasing processes and procedures
- Defining processes and procedures
- Considerations in developing processes and procedures
- Process development
  - Artistic processes
  - Scientific processes
- Process hierarchy
  - Abstract processes
  - Strategic processes
  - Operational processes
- Measuring and improving process performance
- Rules governing the use of flowchart symbols
- Mapping your processes using swim lane flowcharts
- Writing detailed procedures to support process maps
Developing service level agreements
- The role of SLAs
- Understanding departmental inter-dependencies
- Principles for developing SLAs that add real value
- Typical SLA table of contents
- Writing SLA practical applications
- Service level management
  - Internal SLAs
  - External SLAs
- Measuring the purchasing function performance against SLAs