The Science of Negotiation, Part 1, and The Art of Negotiation, Part 2 Negotiation is the core competency of the purchasing profession. Until now, there has never been a negotiation program written by purchasing pros exclusively for purchasing pros. The American Purchasing Society and Robert Menard created this defining work on purchasing negotiation and makes it available in convenient online format.

The December issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive will be devoted to sustainability. It will feature a story called “Green Purchasing, Sustainability, and Cost Savings”. Robert Menard authored this story to clearly demonstrate that the very underpinnings of sustainability are found in green purchasing. Sustainability is all about preservation and conservation. A synonym for those words is savings, the forte of the purchasing profession. The story cites many instances of how cost savings come in tandem with true sustainability efforts.

The American Purchasing Society’s benchmarking and salary reports for 2012 are now on the Society’s website and available to members. The salary report for 2012 shows an average decline in base salaries of 1.2% compared with 2011 for all purchasing titles. The median annual salary is $55,700 for buyers and $65,000 for purchasing managers.

Economists believe there is a normal or natural unemployment rate that is not connected with the state of the economy. That natural rate used to be considered about 4.8%, but has been now revised upward to about 6.7%. If that is true then real...

Applied Cost and Price Analysis,a new online course by Robert Menard results from the demand of American Purchasing Society members and the purchasing community at large for an education and skills solution to one of the most vexing problems in the purchasing profession, how to manage, apply, and benefit from Cost and Price Analysis.

Based upon your input, these are the three primary goals for this online course.

1.Identify, define, describe, and differentiate the constituent elements of both Cost and Price Analysis
2.Provide step by step processes, lists, and actions that must be taken and/or avoided in selecting and managing suppliers and their performance
3.Furnish specific tools and templates that make the Cost and Price Analysis decisions based on hard “Dollars and Numbers” criteria.
Cost and Price Analysis skills are amongst the most effective purchasing management tools. They reduce prices by eliminating unnecessary costs which leads to mutually beneficial results for supplier and customer.

Some of the important skills you will learn are:

•The eight most common Pricing Strategies revealed and explained
•How prices are established
•Dozens of tools, techniques, and modifiable, reusable templates
•How to identify and apply Cost Drivers
•How to apply Cost and Price analysis to basic Spend Analytics
In addition, the course will demonstrate with tables and templates how to use Cost and Price Analysis for better results in

•Supplier negotiation
•Bid analysis
•Supplier performance evaluation
Some web site sources investigated and found to be useful for purposes are included as supplementary resources. As with all of my online courses, practical advice is punctuated with personal experiential anecdotes experience, and scores of pointers on what to do, what not to do, what to expect, and what you need to understand about the Cost and Price Analysis.

This course goes live in late summer. When it does, notify me of your order and I’ll send you You’re the Buyer – You Negotiate It free! Choose from paper or ebook version.

Various websites and hotels have been accused of price fixing. An article by Edvard Pettersson in the Bloomberg News and ...

It is difficult for buyer to obtain good information about products because there is so much available and insufficient time to check out everything. Today, there is an abundance of information about products and technology.