Edited by Jeffrey Rothfeder and Georgina Grenon
With an introduction by Patrick W. Houston, Detlef Schwarting,
Robert Spieker, and Martha D. Turner
Published 2008
176 pages

In today’s risky global business environment, supplier networks are the ultimate lifeline for many companies — delivering the far-flung materials, goods, and services that drive worldwide commerce. The sourcing function has thus become an indispensable contributor to strategic goals and competitiveness in every industry. But charting a course that positions the corporate purchasing department as a catalyst for growth is no easy matter.

This strategy+business Reader, Sourcing Reloaded: Targeting Procurement’s New Strategic Agenda, is packed with insights and prescriptive advice that senior leaders and purchasing executives can use to navigate today’s most vexing sourcing problems. Its main theme: how to balance traditional sourcing strategies with the new, collaborative approaches needed to drive sourcing’s effectiveness and help it attain its full potential in the face of the demands of globalization, resilience, sustainability, complexity, and customization.

The Reader’s 14 chapters, written by Booz & Company’s foremost sourcing experts, cover the latest ideas and trends, including the next wave of sourcing excellence, the new role of the CPO, green sourcing, collaborative supplier relationships, improved strategies for commodities procurement and supply chain resilience, and global and low-cost-country sourcing.

Sourcing Reloaded is aimed directly at companies that are determined to build fresh purchasing capabilities that leave behind old, unprofitable sourcing routines forever. For them, this Reader will be a helpful guide to a revolution in the making.