Today we are going to talk about a tool widely used by our colleagues in Marketing and Business Administration, which we buyers end up using for our analysis: The 5 forces of Porter.
Michael Porter (1947) is an American academic, famous for his theories in Economics, Business Strategy and social causes. He was one of the founders of “The Monitor Group”, a consulting group now part of the giant Deloitte. In 1979, Porter published his studies in an article named "The Five Competitive Forces...

In the first part of the article on the 5 forces of Porter, we explained the origin of the model and discussed the 1st, 2nd and 3rd forces (Rivalry between competitors, Bargaining power of Suppliers and Bargaining power of Buyers), how they move the economic scenario and why it is important for the buyer to understand and consider them not just during a negotiation but throughout the supplier relationship management cycle.
In this second part, we will discuss the two remaining...

I've previously written that Procurement professionals often “fall” into Purchasing. Except for a few examples - so far, I've only met one (ONE!) person who chose to work in the Purchasing area, when he was an intern.
In my case, I was an intern at a multinational in the cosmetic industry in the field of Packaging Engineering. The Purchasing and Packaging Engineering areas shared the same floor in the office building and I often bumped into Purchasing staff in the cafeteria. Months passed and...