Strategic Supply Management Roles and Responsibilities

Functional groups carry out certain duties on behalf of the organization. We refer to this as a function’s responsibility or span of control. Purchasing must have the legitimate authority to make decisions that fall within their span of control. Span of control is established through senior management policies and support. Although internal customers influence many important decisions, final authority for certain matters must ultimately be assigned to the purchasing department. This section details those decision areas that are rightfully part of purchasing’s operating authority in most organizations. (Further details on the factors that influence how senior management determines purchasing’s span of control are discussed in Chapter 5.)

Figure 2.2 shows some of the more common strategic roles and responsibilities.

We will cover each of these briefly, then provide more detail in later chapters.