Strategic Sourcing

Strategic sourcing is an institutional procurement process that continuously improves and re-evaluates the purchasing activities of a company. In the services industry, strategic sourcing refers to a service solution, sometimes called a strategic partnership, which is specifically customized to meet the client's individual needs. In a production environment, it is often considered one component of supply chain management. Modern supply chain management professionals have placed emphasis on defining the distinct differences between strategic sourcing and procurement. Procurement operations support tactical day-to-day transactions such as issuing Purchase Orders to suppliers, whereas strategic sourcing represents to strategic planning, supplier development, contract negotiation, supply chain infrastructure, and outsourcing models.”

The term "strategic sourcing" was popularized through work with a variety of blue chip companies by a number of consulting firms in the late 1980s and early to mid 1990s. This methodology has become the norm for procurement departments in large, sophisticated companies such as fortune 500 companies.

Strategic Sourcing is the process of developing channels of supply at the lowest total cost, not just the lowest purchase price. It expands upon traditional purchasing activities to embrace all activities within the procurement cycle, from specification to receipt and payment of goods and services.

The steps in a strategic sourcing process were defined, in 1994, as:

A slimmed down strategic sourcing process was defined, in 2012, as:

Note that while the modernized process combines the market assessment and cost analyses steps of the older model into a single "market research" step, and the supplier identification and sourcing strategy development steps into a single "go-to-market" step, negotiation has split into "negotiation" and "contracting". This is due to the heightened importance of market intelligence in modern strategic sourcing, and its ability to deliver value by improving both pricing and contract terms when leveraged against the identified suppliers.

Note also that, while both descriptions of the sourcing process are accurate to some extent, there is no standard set of steps and procedures. As strategic sourcing is put in place and practiced over time, many large, sophisticated organizations will modify the process to better meet their individual corporate needs.

Outsourcing a business practice to another company may also be incorporated into a sourcing strategy for services. This may involve the transfer of staff and assets to the outsource company. Due to the strategic and complex nature of outsourcing, many organizations such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft and McDonald's have created what is referred to as Vested Outsourcing agreements to help create highly collaborative win-win business relationships. Researchers at the University of Tennessee provide guidance on how to create Vested Outsourcing agreements in their book Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules that will Transform Outsourcing.

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