Buyer/Planner Management
Part 4 of 4

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The changes discussed so far have centered on internal organizational changes. More global forces are at work, which ensure that concepts such as the Buyer/Planner require a fresh look. The following are only a few of the major global trends affecting organizations and spurring them on toward rapid change:

(1) Global Competition—The notion that enterprises are not just doing business as usual with local, regional, and domestic competitors, but rather with increas­ingly agile, competitive firms scattered throughout the world has wide acceptance. To be effective, profession­als who have become used to buying and planning nationally, must consider this world perspective, and further, that many of their enterprise's suppliers will likely be located off-shore.

(2) Leaner Organizations—Head counts are falling in most all organizations, as management leaders look to gain competitive advantage through more responsive, flexible organizational models.

(3) Multi-Skilled, Multi-Functional Outlook—Workers, no matter their areas of specialty, must recognize that it is no longer adequate to possess skills in depth, but to additionally acquire a perspective which permits an appreciation of how all of the elements of an enterprise function. The CIRM program is an exemplar of this approach, and will likely be seen as a qualitative and quantitative measure of this perspective. Buyer/Plan­ner is a first step toward this outlook.

(4) Team-Based Organizations—In addition to multi-func­tional and multi-skilled workers, the complexity and breadth of enterprise issues will encourage work to be performed in "parallel" rather than in "series," as before. For the Buyer/Planner, reward, recognition, and performance appraisal will increasingly, if not solely, come from teams comprised of professional colleagues, and not from functional organizations, such as Purchasing or Planning Departments.

(5) Supplier Partnerships—That innovation increasingly will come from outside an enterprise, and most likely from an entity known as a "supplier-partner" will once and for all drive a silver stake through the heart of adversarial supplier relations. It will simply be too expensive and risky an approach. Instead, suppliers will become "one with the customer's enterprise," thus ending the traditional purchasing role of supplier adversary. The new "lingua franca" in supplier rela­tions will be negotiations focused on the planning and availability of real factory capacity, as well as involve­ment in design. None better than the Buyer/Planner need apply for the job!

(6) New Communications Technologies—Much of the pa­per now resident in the business enterprise will simply have to go, along with first-generation computing mind sets. "Paperless," real-time information flows will be the objective, reporting activity trends using graphic interfaces, and reporting events by exception, rather than via dump.

The most productive view toward implementation of Buyer/ Planner is to see it in terms of its long-term educational and training requirements. A short-term perspective simply will not do. Good Buyer/Planners are grown and developed over time. The process is not unlike that of producing a fine wine, and not lite beer. The elements of such an education and training program suggest a focus along three seg­ments: people, processes, and structure. Accordingly, there are characteristics with each segment, and individu­alized training (and education) needs in turn associated with each of these. For convenience, Figures 3 and 4 provide an overview for both buyers and planners. Note­worthy is the fact that there is hardly any differentiation in the focus of training needs—a result of the fact that the objective is to develop a collective set of skills in one professional.

It is at this point that note should be taken of the role of the professional education societies—APICS and NAPM—in the development of a "Buyer/Planner Body of Knowledge." As the hallmark of the concept of Buyer/Planner itself, whose chief characteristic is that of integrated skill sets, both professional organizations individually offer a mea­surable body of knowledge, which, as a minimum, should be a foundation for the Buyer/Planner's training and edu­cation program. In other words, nothing less than certifi­cations in CPIM, CIRM, and C.P.M. will do as a minimum. Additional certifications and schooling (of the on-going variety) of course must be tailored. This is an important point: for each and every individual selected for the Buyer/ Planner education and training "pipeline," an individual, career-enhancing program of education and training must be developed. Buyer/Planner is not an "education for the masses" phenomenon. It is not a pathway which can be effectively serviced by a videotape series, nor solely by
attending one or two-day seminars. It is a serious, career-long undertaking, and it deserves the very best in dedica­tion from both the enterprise, and the individuals who embark upon it.

This presentation has offered a review of significant devel­opments in the concept of the Buyer/Planner, as well as a preview of the advantages that the Buyer/Planner offers the modern enterprise now and in the coming years. Allowing that there has been much discomfort and misun-derstanding over terminology, it should now be very clear of what the Buyer/Planner is not:
(1) A simple combination of job description elements of a traditional buyer and material and or production planner. As in the past when progressive firms realized that both "good" buyers and "good" planners had to be developed and nurtured over a relatively long period of time, we realize that nothing less will do for the professional and competent Buyer/Planner; (2) Organized solely within traditional functional organizations, such as Purchasing or Planning. Rather, organization will be along product/process work groups; (3) Focused around purchasing commodity lines of specialty, nor exist in response to short-term release sig­nals from a master-schedule-driven planning construct such as MRP II—instead, the prototypical Buyer/Planner will serve as a part of a supplier selection team, and will be responsible for communicating needs in terms of capacity via such a forward-looking tool as a master production schedule.

Some would suggest that the Buyer/Planner concept itself is not an end in itself, but merely a passage along the road to organizations and individuals who work in fluid, highly cross-functional and integrated environments. Here, there are no buyers, planners, or Buyer/Planners. What has taken their place are supply management professionals who bring their skill sets to the enterprise, and not their job
titles not job descriptions. Patricia E. Moody has outlined such an evolutionary approach in a recent book entitled "Breakthrough Partnering. (See Figure 5.)

Whatever the future for the Buyer/Planner concept, a sizable effort is required in the present by most business enterprises to shed themselves of their traditional mind sets regarding both purchasing and planning. Now is a period of change and transition like little else before—the traditional prescriptions for the business enterprise sim­ply no longer work. The Buyer/Planner concept can offer firms who recognize the need to change a meaningful way in which to ensure survival and profitability in the new age.

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