Program Overview

The goal of this course is to enable procurement students to: better understand procurement contracts; improve their relationship with the procurement lawyers at their organizations, and better represent their organization to external stakeholders, suppliers in particular. More specifically, this course exposes participants to a brief introduction to eight (8) areas of contract law subject  most relevant to sourcing professionals:  the basics of contract formation; basics of contract interpretation; the concept of “good faith;” making contracts better with certainty; representations and warranties; assignment; termination; as well as indemnity and liability.

This course teaches the basics of accounting and finance for supply management. The focus is on practical accounting and financial skills. In order to understand the context for numerical analysis, some background and theory of business operations will be covered.

The goal of this course is to assist participants in understanding how an organization can use strategy formulation and implementation to take advantage of opportunity and mitigate risk at all levels of the organization, including supply management. In an attempt to help the participant internalize the material, certain exercises will focus on the participant’s career plan using the methodology and tools covered.

The goal of this course is to have participants appreciate the big picture of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and recognize that through its evolution SCM has driven significant value and competitive advantage to those organizations that expend efforts in their SCM activities. Essentially SCM boils down to ensuring that your customer’s needs are satisfied through the effective management of processes and activities, from the sourcing of materials and services, through the conversion/production phases, then finally to the customer through a distribution network.

Marketing is the business’s link to its external environment. The role of marketing is to reach out into the environment and attract and retain those customers whose needs they can satisfy. The start of the marketing process, therefore, is an assessment of changes in the environment that give rise to unmet customer needs that could result in new products/services. As a company cannot be all things to all customers, a selection of the group of customers to target must be made.

Operations management is the art and science of ensuring that goods and services are created and delivered successfully to customers. This course will cover the basic aspects of this field of study at the tactical level. The focus of this course is on matters of tactical significance to operations management staff who would be employed at factories, warehouses and service operations.

The goal of this course is to help participants understand the procurement process and appreciate how it fits into the overall field of supply management. The procurement process extends well beyond the boundaries of the procurement department. For instance, senior management will be heavily involved in selecting supply partners. Similarly, design departments will be heavily involved in selecting key technologies, which will have major implications in selecting suppliers. However, in most organizations, the procurement department plays an integral role in all major procurement activities, in either a lead or a supporting role.

Transportation of goods is a key element of Supply Chain Management (SCM) as it provides the physical flow of the goods and transportation systems often provide a great deal of the knowledge or information to make SCM work well.The goal of this course is to have participants appreciate how to use transportation to gain maximum value and competitive advantage in their supply chain management activities. Upon completion of this course, they should be better able to work with or potentially within the transportation function.

The goal of this course is to develop the abilities of SCML students to become more effective negotiators. This course is supported by selected chapters of Leigh Thompson’s The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, along with several articles on negotiation in the supply chain context and several role simulations.This course focuses on issues in negotiation, such as assessing your own negotiating skills and assessing the other party’s; differentiating between distributive and integrative negotiation; establishing trust and building relationships; and power, persuasion and ethics.

Supply chain leaders and supply chain management professionals lead groups of people and manage change. The objective of this workshop is to develop the oral and written communication skills of SCML students to enable them to meet their professional goals. This course focuses on strategic issues in communication and relational skills. Candidates will develop the skills to effectively communicate in an organization, and manage strategic information sharing within supply chains.

This seminar provides an opportunity for the student to apply the techniques and processes for developing a career path and to learn lifetime career management tools and skills. Topics include career-planning, job searching, developing career search documents, refining interview skills, and preparing for a new position.

The internship component of the program is the practical application of a student’s knowledge and skills in an industry environment. The industry shall be directly related to Supply Chain Management and Logistics. The internship requires full-time day attendance working in the industry setting. The duration of the internship is one and one half months, during which the student must satisfactorily complete 240 hours spread over 6 weeks of work.