Product Buying Analysis

The purpose of this Course Project is to apply the various purchasing elements that you encountered in the course. This is an individual project. This is not just limited to lesson and textbook; you may use personal experiences, interview coworkers, and use the DeVry’s online library databases to assemble the information to be contained in this report.

You will serve as a product buying manager or purchasing manager and will select a specific product, component, or commodity from a select company of choice (e.g., semiconductor chips, face masks, vaccines, capital equipment, raw materials for reworking such as wire, aluminum, fabric, etc.) to produce a Product Buying Report. The company can be your existing company or a company that you are interested in. Additionally, you can opt to create a fictitious company or a start-up company.

The selected product will be the subject for all parts of the project and you will be writing the Product Buying Report from the perspective of a Product Buying Manager or Purchasing Manager.

Please note that this is a Product Buying Report and not an RFI, RPQ, or RFP.

For this assignment, you are to produce a Product Buying Report, which is all of the information a buyer needs to intelligently purchase the selected product identified in Week 5. In selecting and presenting the data you will assemble, you should indicate what use a buyer will make of this information. Based on what you determine from your research, you are expected to make a recommendation about whether the chosen product should be acquired and how you would plan to negotiate its purchase.

Guidelines

Clear writing is an important element of good business communications, and you should strive to demonstrate such skills in this paper. Because economy is a hallmark of good business writing, your paper should be around seven to eight pages but should NOT exceed 12 double-spaced pages (not counting title page, executive summary, and references). You are expected to submit your best work for this assignment, which means knowing and using good grammar and APA style.

Report Components

Your Product Buying Report must contain the following sections.

1. Title Page
2. Executive Summary: This is a one-page summary of your overall report. Recognizing that many executives will only read this portion of your report, you are expected to summarize the key information, critical data, and your final recommendation.
3. Intended Use and Requirements: In this section, you are to outline the intended use for the product and the requirements to be met by the item purchased. To do this effectively, you should create a scenario explaining the background of these requirements, as well as all the buying influences that need to be considered. Note that this is an appropriate time to consider make versus buy versus partner factors; however, because this is a buying report, your analysis should support the attractiveness of the buy alternative.
4. Available Products: In this section, you are to catalog the available products that might meet these requirements and the characteristics of those products. These characteristics, which would include classifications, grades, and properties that distinguish one product from another, need to be defined. From this list of available products, you will select one for detailed investigation.
5. Technical Product Data: This is where you outline the technical data required to specify and inspect the quality and suitability of the selected product.
6. Analysis of the Product’s Sources and Availability: This is where you identify the various sources for this product, along with critical information about their abilities to source the product. If how the product is manufactured is an important consideration for your ability to select suppliers and appraise its quality, be sure to quality those requirements.
7. Supplier Selection Criteria: In this section, you are to discuss the basis by which supplier selection should be determined and why. For instance, is this product best sourced through the competitive bidding process, negotiation, collaboration with a partner, or some other mechanism?
8. Pricing Factors: Here you are to discuss factors that will affect product pricing, including supply, demand, pricing, and inventory requirements.
9. Supplier Relationship Management: In this section, you are to discuss how the relationship with the selected supplier should best be managed, including the associated costs and effort necessary to do so.
10. Legal and Ethical Considerations: Identify legal and/or ethical considerations that are appropriate for this decision. Be sure to discuss the expected contract type and key terms that need to be incorporated into the prospective agreement.
11. Recommendation: In previous sections, you have identified a prospective supplier and all the relevant operational and cost information necessary to make a decision about the viability of this procurement. In this final section, you are to provide your recommendation on the prospective purchase. Your recommendation needs to follow from the information you have presented above; for example, you should not logically recommend purchasing a product for which you have identified a number of shortcomings. However, it is possible that you may determine that the available product does not appear to be a viable solution for your intended use and requirements. If that is the case, you should recommend against the purchase but suggest alternatives that might be taken in a follow-up analysis.
12. References: You are to indicate the sources you included as citations in your paper.