Do you dream of having the ultimate “modern buying team?” Unfortunately, the perfect procurement team is seldom handed to you. Rather, it is something that needs to be nurtured and developed over time. The good news is that having the ultimate procurement “dream team” is within your reach! The key is successfully mastering recruitment, training, and retention. Procurement talent management doesn’t have to be a complicated endeavor. This course will provide the guidance necessary to minimize the time and potential mistakes involved in procurement talent management. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the advantages and disadvantages to the traditional approach to procurement recruiting
• Understand the advantages and disadvantages to the radical approach to procurement recruiting
• Apply the Certified Procurement Operations Body of Knowledge (CPO-BOK) Mastery Model in planning your procurement team’s training
• Apply principles for constructing a procurement training plan
• Apply five techniques for retaining your best procurement employees

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

Negotiating with suppliers has evolved over the years. No longer is it simply about who can yell the loudest or think the fastest. Today, the most successful procurement negotiations focus on creating win-win situations with suppliers. When two organizations work together creatively, they often produce better business results than ever before. Learn how to negotiate using creative negotiation techniques so that you can start achieving better procurement results today. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Identify creative avenues to pursue in negotiations
• Apply “reverse differentiation” to persuade your suppliers to offer better terms
• Use should cost models in negotiations
• Understand why focusing negotiations on price alone is short-sighted
• Negotiate for value-added services
• Apply psychology to a procurement negotiation
• Negotiate an already-signed contract

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

If creating a fantastic first impression isn’t a part of your supplier negotiation strategy, then you will never maximize your potential negotiation success. Whether you are entering a collaborative or a competitive negotiation, a strong first impression can help keep your suppliers from taking advantage of you and increase your chances at securing the best deal. You only get one chance. The perfect first impression is one where your suppliers immediately know that you are a negotiating force to be reckoned with. If you show signs of weakness, you can bet your suppliers will seek to exploit them—even in the context of a supposed win-win negotiation. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Apply 20 techniques to create the perfect negotiation first impression
• Apply advanced preparation techniques
• Navigate the critical first moments that a supplier enters your organization’s facility to negotiate
• Apply the easy, but not so obvious, ways to alter your speaking style to make a huge difference in the impression you create with a supplier
• Identify and navigate specific interactions during the negotiation itself that can quickly earn you a supplier’s respect

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS®, CPOP®, CPOM®, and CPOE® certifications.

Despite the rapid change in the business world, many procurement departments continue to do things “the old way,” even if the old way is inefficient, outdated, and just plain ineffective. Unfortunately, upgrading procurement processes isn’t always easy. It requires management buy-in. And unless you know how to get that buy-in, you’ll be conducting procurement the same old and inefficient way for the foreseeable future. This course will teach you how to get management to support your ideas, enabling you to make better procurement a reality for your organization. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Apply the seven steps for building a case for better procurement and presenting it to management
• Understand how a procurement department can get the attention of a CEO
• Use metrics for baselining procurement performance
• Express the value of procurement improvements
• Apply two strategies for persuading executives to approve a procurement initiative
• Apply the five tips for giving a procurement presentation to management

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

Is a lack of procurement negotiation preparation setting you up for failure even before negotiations begin? If you want to achieve championship-caliber negotiation results, you have to become a championship-caliber negotiator. And championship-caliber negotiators know that negotiation preparation is not optional; there are no shortcuts to negotiation success. The adage “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail” is very true when it comes to negotiating. By not using the best procurement negotiation preparation techniques, you could be leaving substantial value on the table at each and every negotiation. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Apply the tasks of championship-caliber negotiation
• Understand the negotiation concept referred to as “Expanding the Pie”
• Identify the characteristics of championship-caliber negotiators
• Conduct negotiation research
• Avoid the negotiation risks of backdoor selling
• Establish negotiation guideposts

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

Procurement teams can help other departments identify their current resources and true needs, conduct thorough sourcing events with vetted suppliers, and negotiate best-in-class agreements. Through this process, long-term, strategic relationships can be established with the right suppliers, increasing value to the organization while ensuring the most competitive market pricing is achieved. 

Marketing is one of the newer categories being addressed by procurement departments in the world today. Like other specialized areas whose spend was traditionally kept separate from procurement and sourcing departments, marketing has some unique characteristics for which procurement professionals must be prepared. You can master methods of working with your marketing department to gain their cooperation, implement a world-class marketing procurement strategy, and, ultimately, achieve better value. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Apply three valuable processes to marketing
• Identify initial marketing categories for consideration 
• Establish a relationship with your marketing department
• Apply the five phases of strategic sourcing for marketing
• Apply the five best practices of sourcing marketing
• Identify when to collaborate with consultants 

This course was developed in close collaboration with SourceOne Management Services—a consultancy with extensive expertise in sourcing Marketing spend.

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

Excel is a powerful tool that can help you be more efficient and effective in your procurement role. This course ensures that you understand spreadsheet fundamentals, so that you can later master more advanced Excel techniques. This express course is great for buyers who may not be ready for the more advanced full-length course, Data Analytics for Procurement Professionals. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Navigate the robust Excel interface
• Understand the terminology that will allow you to better communicate with other Excel users
• Format cell appearance so that you can create more professional looking spreadsheets
• Apply the four mathematical operators for more accurate calculations
• Create and use basic formulas

You must have access to Excel 2007 or later to take this course.

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

The more suppliers that you are responsible for, the more likely you’ll find yourself dealing with suppliers that fail to perform to their full potential. That doesn’t mean that perfect supplier performance is an unrealistic goal. There are certain ways you can work with your suppliers to get closer and closer to that goal. This course will teach you how to get started using supplier development as a weapon in your procurement arsenal. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Identify the characteristics of a good supplier and a bad supplier
• Apply the six steps of the supplier development process
• Identify categories for supplier development
• Understand what the Kraljik Matrix is and how to use it in your supplier development program
• Understand what non-critical, bottleneck, leverage, and critical supplies are and the preferred procurement action for each
• Apply nine supplier development techniques that work

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately two hours to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 2 hours of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

Having a successful procurement career where you achieve higher-level positions and earn your maximum salary won’t happen automatically, or by accident. The good news is that there are defined steps you can take to help set yourself up for career success—both now and in the future. Whether you’re actively seeking a job and need to develop a winning resume, determine salary expectations, and interview effectively, or you have a job and need to prepare for your next steps, you absolutely must prepare. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Properly structure your procurement resume
• Determine a fair salary for a procurement job
• Search for jobs to uncover hard-to-find procurement positions
• Interview in a way that boosts your credibility
• Effectively follow up with prospective employers
• Increase your visibility as an expert
• Prepare yourself for higher-level procurement positions
• Demonstrate your value to your current employer
• Build and maintain a procurement career-growing network, both online and offline
• Distinguish yourself from other candidates competing for the same procurement jobs

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.

When a supplier fails to meet expectations, is it automatically the fault of that supplier—or could your communication skills be to blame? Often, supplier failure is the result of some type of mistake in, or in the interpretation of, the communication and not just a supplier inadequacy. In today’s procurement environment, top-notch business communication skills, both written and verbal, are crucial. Upon completing this course, you will be able to:

• Apply the “3 Bases of Communication” that will guide you to communicate in a way that facilitates good supplier performance
• Identify four of the potential components of a complete specification
• Apply analytical thinking and communication skills in procurement
• Apply the three keys of good pricing communication
• Understand how to apply good communication practices when negotiating supplier remedies
• Identify what to watch out for in suppliers’ force majeure clauses
• Utilize price adjustment clauses that avoid common supplier disputes

This is a self-paced course with no instructor-led forum and you have 30 days from registration to complete all course elements. It should take you approximately one hour to review the material and take any quizzes. All readings are provided in the course.

This course has been pre-approved for 1 hour of CE credit towards the CPOS, CPOP, CPOM, and CPOE certifications.