Managing Purchasing: Sourcing and Contracting.

As stated in the introduction, the primary purpose of this book is to provide purchasers with the theoretical and practical knowledge base essential to the effective execution of their jobs. Because the author explicitly states that the book is written for "staff," not managers, from an American perspective the book would have been more appropriately entitled Fundamentals of Purchasing.

That is not to take away from the value of this highly readable resource. It is designed to assist candidates preparing for assessment against the purchasing standards developed by the British Purchasing and Supply Lead Body (PSLB), which form the basis for the National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in this field. In fact, the introduction contains a synoptic chart relating the chapters of the book to the various units and levels of the NVQs.

While written for a specific purpose, Erridge's book should not be confused with a study guide. Rather, it is a handy compendium of the rapidly evolving field of purchasing, highlighting purchasing's strategic contributions to organizational performance. The book is clearly structured along the lines of the model underlying the PSLB purchasing standards. As the book's subtitle indicates, this model postulates two major phases or core functions of purchasing: sourcing and contracting. After discussing the supply chain concept and presenting this model, the specific tasks to be performed within these two sequential sets of activities become the subjects of the remaining chapters of the book:

Sourcing

* Analyzing the supply market

* Vendor appraisal

* Supply base optimization