International Journal of Physical Distribution & Materials Management: Volume 11 Issue 2/3
Table of contents
Source Decision Making in the Multinational Company Environment
David FarmerIn his textbook entitled A Concept of Corporate Planning, Russell Ackoff states that:
The Impact of Supply Markets on Corporate Planning
David FarmerMany writers have commented on the difficulties associated with the reduction of the myriad of functional objectives within the company to a consistent corporate objective. The…
Training Procurement Personnel in Negotiating Skills
David FarmerConsiderable interest has been shown recently in developing the negotiating skills of procurement personnel. This article outlines one approach to such development which has been…
Corporate Planning and Procurement in Multinational Firms
David FarmerIn Chapter One it was argued that multinational companies should give adequate emphasis to procurement factors in their corporate planning. While this argument is difficult to…
The Role of Procurement in New Product Development
David FarmerExperience in industry has emphasised the importance of supply markets in planning. Those experiences, particularly over shortages, have resulted in many organisations taking…
Drawing Lessons from History
David FarmerIn order to know where we are going it's often useful to know where we have been. Accordingly, Dr David Farmer draws on some historical examples to illustrate the growth of…
Getting your Structure Right
David FarmerThe analogy that an organisation structure is like a suit of clothes is apt. Not only does it suggest the necessary individuality of “fit”, it also indicates something of the…
Effectiveness and Efficiency Between Firms
David Farmer, Keith MacMillanMaterials Administration, Materials Management and most of the other integrative concepts which have been proposed, have one feature in common. They emphasise the need to view the…
Voluntary Collaboration vs Disloyalty
David Farmer, Keith MacMillanThere was an air of artificial heresy about the paper published by Green and Nordstrom in 1974. They hailed the merits of being a “disloyal buyer” at a time when the world reality…
Controlling Procurement Costs in Inflationary Conditions
David FarmerThe most significant element in manufacturing costs is materials. To be more precise, manufacturing companies, on average, dispose of more than half the money they receive from…
Erratum
This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb014411. When citing the article, please…
Confessions of an “Academic”
David FarmerWhen David Farmer began his career in purchasing education, “academic” was a word he fought shy of. Now he is recognised as the foremost purchasing “academic” in the UK today. In…
Developing Purchasing Strategies
David FarmerThe concept of strategy as applied to purchasing has not attracted the attention of many writers in the management field. The reasons are not difficult to find. They reflect the…
The Buyer's Influence on Pricing Decisions
David Farmer, Brian FarringtonLittle effort seems to have been made to understand the buyer's role in pricing. The weight of comment and discussion implies a passive or, at least, reactive role for the buyer…
Buyers and Risk
David FarmerThe case that the industrial buyer is a risk avoider is not difficult to sustain. Every buying organisation, to a greater or lesser degree, demonstrates symptoms of such behaviour…