THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF PURCHASING MANAGEMENT IN THE KNOWLEDGE BASED SOCIETY

We are now at the beginning of a new era, the industrial society has become a service society and is on the way to become an information and knowledge society. Because of the fearful competition on the marketplace, organizations are giving more attention to the value concept. Purchasing is the function that has a tremendous impact on these efforts to create value in the organizations. Many of the researchers see purchasing as a strategic contributor to the added value of the organizations. But only a few articles discuss the possible value added by purchasing. With this article we want to fill this gap and review the strategic concepts of value added by purchasing management. Furthermore, this article presents the main value added by purchasing along its evolution stages. Finally, we draw conclusions and we elaborate some guidelines for managers.