Overview

The profession of Purchasing and Supply Management has undergone a significant transformation over the last five decades. The 1990s, particularly, was a decade of great change and also a period during which the importance of Purchasing and Supply Management got the special attention of managers in major corporations worldwide.

The accelerated rate of change in the world economy is driven by an empowered consumer; a shift in economic power toward the end of the supply chain; deregulation of key industries; globalization; and rapid change of technology make Purchasing and Supply Management a strategic function in various organizations. Such scope paradigm shift from routine operational activities in 1960s into more strategic approach for the management of the Supply Chain Management as integrated whole in 1990s forced the higher institutions to rethink the curriculum revision. Thus, the Department of Procurement and Supply Management (PSM) conducted a need assessment countrywide.

The target groups of the need assessment were active students of the Department of our college, former graduates, experts in the discipline and employers to whom graduates will offer their knowledge and skills. The findings of the need assessment indicated the existing curriculum limit graduates of the department to be engaged only in traditional and routine buying activities. The syllabus fails to expose students to the strategic dimensions of transport, inventory, warehousing, managing the transformation process, industrial packaging, materials handling, and distribution in particular and the logistics and supply chain functions as an integrated whole. 

On the consequence, the employers of both profit and not-for-profit organizations could not develop confidence on graduates’ managerial and technical abilities to assign them in their filed of specialization. It is learned that these employers are seen reserved from employing graduates of the Department and tend to arrange extra training to make them fit to a specific job position. This in turn entails the organizations to incur extra cost. As a professional, graduates of the Department suppose to successfully perform duties and responsibilities related to procurement, inspection, logistics, transit, inventory/stock control, warehouse management, contract administration/management, and negotiation to mention some. Thus, it is common to see such job positions are occupied either with professionals from different discipline or non-professionals at all.

Therefore, based the feedback of the stakeholders, the Department is revised curriculum and includes major courses which allow students to specialize in their field of study and ultimately overcome the existing knowledge and skills deficiency. Thereby, graduates gain both the theoretical and practical managerial and technical skills to independently manage the value chain from source to destination in government, business and humanitarian organizations.