Procurement and Purchasing Strategies(Critique) Essay

Procurement and Purchasing Strategies(Critique) - Essay Example In this paper, this concept will be discussed in detail considering three scholarly articles in order to know what benefits does outsourcing provide to companies and what concerns companies usually have in deciding whether they should outsource the procurement process or not. Discussion The articles chosen for this discussion included ‘The Make-or-Buy Decision in the Presence of a Rival: Strategic Outsourcing to a Common Supplier’ by Arya, Mittendorf and Sappington, ‘The procurement function’s role in strategic outsourcing from a process perspective’ by Carter and Yan, and ‘Strategic procurement outsourcing: a paradox in current theory’ by Fernandez and Kekale. The main concept behind all of these articles is that outsourcing is basic need of today for companies to operate efficiently. For example, Carter and Yan (2007, p. 210) state that there are many benefits of adopting this approach some of which include reduced costs, improved compe titiveness, and increased focus on other business processes. Some more benefits of outsourcing the procurement function to external sources include improvement in efficiency levels and reduced transaction costs (Fernandez & Kekale 2007, p. 168). Procurement outsourcing also provides strategic benefits to companies (Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008, p. 1749). Moreover, Fernandez and Kekale (2007, p. 168) also found that reduced cost is a very significant benefit of procurement outsourcing if we consider the increased percentage of external goods and services purchases. Fernandez and Kekale (2007, p. 168) also found that a company outsourcing its procurement functions can achieve at least five times more saving as compared to the savings that achieve from outsourcing other processes, such as, HR activities and financial operations. This figure suggests that procurement outsourcing is really a very beneficial aspect of doing business in the modern world where the competition is conti nuously increasing with every passing day. However, companies usually have some concerns regarding outsourcing their procurement functions to external sources. For example, managers of such companies feel that they will become dependent on other firms if they completely outsource the procurement function. They also feel that this approach will lead to downsizing ion their firms which will out a negative impact on the careers of many employees working for purchasing and procurement department. Manager also have other concerns like what they should actually outsource, whom should they outsource their procurement function, and whether outsourcing to a common supplier in presence of competitors will be a viable option or not (Carter & Yan 2007; Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008). Some managers think that if they outsource their procurement function to a supplier which is also serving some of its competitors, it will increase the cost because of monopolistic power of the supplier. Howev er, in actual, there is no such case and the monopolistic input supplier serves all clients equally (Arya, Mittendorf & Sappington 2008, p. 1747). According to Cohen and Roussel (2005), the purpose of outsourcing is to add value to suppliers while reducing business costs. Procurement means to acquire those goods and services which a company needs to have for completing its manufacturing processes. If these goods and servi

Emotional intelligent leaders Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Emotional intelligent leaders - Essay Example This was later provided by Howard Gardner when he articulated his theory of multiple intelligences categorizing it as intra personal and interpersonal intelligences within the framework of multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983). His concept on intrapersonal intelligence or the capacity and competence to understand one’s self and apply it effectively in its relationship to others and in life in general as articulated in his concept on interpersonal intelligence will serve as the basic building block upon which future theorists will build their research on (Carmeli & Josman, 2006). . Gardner also proposed that there are eight types of intelligences that includes â€Å"spatial, musical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, bodily—kinesthetic, naturalistic, and the traditional academic intelligence: linguistic and logical-mathematical. . . Later, Riggio, Murphy and Pirozzolo (2002) propose these multiple forms of intelligence are possessed by effective leaders and allow these lea ders to respond successfully to a range of situations† (Mandel and Pherwani, 2003 pg.388). Further, recent researchers reported that this emotional intelligence is in fact a requisite for leadership and executive role as what all leaders in recent organization are exemplying. It was however Peter Salovey and John Mayer who formally developed the term â€Å"emotional intelligence† which landed its model in the field of Psychology that researchers later expanded on of which we still use today. The first version of the model was defined as the as the â€Å"the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action† (Salovey and Mayer, 1990 qtd. In Lyusin, 2006: 55). It was interpreted as a complex construct consisting of three types of abilities; (1) the identification and expression of emotion as; (2) the regulation of emotions; and (3) the appli cation of emotional information to thinking and action (Lyusin, 2006 pg. 55). This was later clarified by Mayer and Salovey that emotions contain information on how people or objects could connect at them (Mayer et al., 2001). The ability of connecting these emotions has led Salovey and Mayer to identify the four components of emotional intelligence which are â€Å"(1) the identification of emotions; (2) the use of emotions to increase the effectiveness of thinking and action; (3) the understanding of emotions; and (4) the guiding of emotions. In summary, these components relate to the emotions of others and the individual’s own self. To summarize, emotional intelligence is therefore, â€Å"defined as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual gro wth† (Mishra Mohapatra, 2010 pg. 54) to influence others to achieve an objective. There were also other models of EI that was different to this previous model. Most notable was the work of Daniel Goleman (1995) which were more based on the earlier works of Salovey and Mayer (1990) only that he added other components to it such as zeal, persistence, and social skills and brought together cognitive abilites and