Minor in Strategic Procurement

A minor gives you the opportunity to specialize your master program even further. The minor is a bundle of electives that can be chosen separately, but if chosen together gives you a coherent set of competencies that qualifies you to a specialist or leadership function, in this case within Strategic Procurement.

Many companies now recognize the value added from procurement in a broader term than just cost savings. Mature procurement organizations are shifting focus from “price” and “savings” towards an understanding of value drivers and mind-set of driving the “total business case” for a project, business unit or entire company. Today, few companies in Denmark have a mature procurement organization, and one of the reasons is lack of skilled procurement employees to drive this development. Procurement is climbing up the strategic agenda in many companies these years and hence there will be an increasingly need for young candidates with the right academic qualifications to help develop the Procurement discipline.

In the Capital Region of Denmark, there are 100 companies with a turnover between 2 bDKK and 250 bDKK, and looking at Region Zealand there are additional 50 companies with a turnover between 0.5 bDKK and 28 bDKK. Hence there are at least potentially 150 companies only on Zealand that will have a need for candidates with the right procurement qualifications in the years to come to develop their procurement organization to create value and drive the competitiveness of the company.

In companies with manufacturing, cost of goods sold (COGS) is 50-80%; in service companies, the equivalent cost is 30%. Thereby procurement is an important function in companies where traditionally, focus has been on cost savings by letting suppliers compete for orders. With the last 20 years’ globalization, however, the role of procurement has shifted from that of cost saving focus alone to also finding the right suppliers in evermore complex global supply markets and networks. By this development, procurement is central in finding new business partners and developing relationships with them that can create competitive advantage.  These relationships are based on competition or on collaboration where new products, services and processes are developed.  In addition to external relationship building, procurement also needs to build constructive relationships to internal functions for which they procure. As business acumen is an enabler for earning a seat at the management table, understanding the business to influence their decisions for the shared objectives of the total business case is of specific importance.

The minor in Strategic Procurement gives you a comprehensive set of analytical and management tools to elevate a traditional procurement organization to a strategic level. It provides you with the new skill sets to drive procurement transformation both from a capability and execution perspectives.

The below table lists the structure and the ECTS credits of the individual courses. The course descriptions are available in the online course catalogue. Direct links are inserted in the below table.

The minor combines theories and methods primarily from the supply management discipline - with specific focus on external-internal relationship building - with that of management accounting giving you the financial insight and measures to understand the function and how procurement is connected to the corporate strategy and the business as a whole. In providing you with the tools to develop the procurement organization, the minor further gives insight into leadership issues and organizational change processes.  The minor consists of three courses each equivalent to 7.5 ECTS, namely 1) Performance Measurement in Procurement Organizations that is taught over the whole autumn semester, 2) Global Sourcing Management taught in the first quarter and followed by 3) Procurement Strategy and Organizational Development in the second quarter.

The minor in Strategic Procurement is developed in collaboration with NovoNordisk, Ørsted, Maersk, Danske Bank, ISS, Widex, DFDS, Nilfisk, Leo Pharma, Foss, Novozymes and others.

The minor consists of the examinations listed below. The learning objectives and the regulations of the individual examinations are prescribed in the online course catalogue. Direct links to the individual examinations are inserted in the table below.

Minor coordinator

Professor mso Britta Gammelgaard, PEØ

Study Board

The minor in Strategic Procurement is offered by the Study Board for the Master of Science Programme
in Economics and Business Administration.

How to sign up

If you want to sign up for the minor in Strategic Procurement, you have to
select CCMVM1009U Minor in Strategic when you sign up for
electives.You will then subsequently be signed up for all three courses.You do not have to select all
three courses individually.

Mette Kierkegaard, e-mail mki.om@cbs.dk or Britta Gammelgaard, e-mail bg.om@cbs.dk