The International Buyer Mini MBA

Day 1: People Management and Leading Teams

• The importance of sociotechnical management
• Techniques for effective communication
• Motivating for results
• Enhancing your coaching skills
• Empowering employees for improved performance 
• Characteristics of a successful manager 
• Obtaining the benefits of teamwork
• Characteristics of ineffective teams
• Characteristics of effective teams
• Managing conflict in a productive manner
• Understanding team member styles 
• Creating a virtual team 

Day 2: Strategic Planning and Negotiating for Results

• Analysing the strategic planning process
• Achieving competitive advantage
• Utilizing dynamic SWOT analysis
• Focusing on vision and mission
• The importance of contingency planning
• Examples of strategic success and failure 
• Gaining insight into the negotiating process
• Characteristics of an effective negotiator
• Developing negotiating strategies
• Employing persuasive negotiation techniques 
• Achieving the benefits of effective negotiating 
• Negotiation exercises 

Day 3: Operational Excellence and The Modern Buying Function 

• The Malcolm Baldrige quality award-standard of excellence 
• Lessons from the best performing companies 
• Benchmarking your operation against the best 
• Creating employee commitment
• Managing continuous improvement 
• Creating the high performance organization 
• Globalization and its effects
• Utilizing the internet for procurement
• Modern buying practices
• Assuring supplier performance
• Methods for determining price
• Procurement’s role in the organization
• Procurement performance measurement
• Long term contract pricing formulas 

Day 4: International Buying and International Supplier Sourcing 

• International buying operations
• International countertrade
• Achieving the benefits of global procurement
• Overcoming the difficulties of international buying
• Utilizing the learning curve
• Ensuring the quality of material deliveries
• International buying and inventory management
• Reducing costs in inventory management 
• Preparing to move beyond domestic sourcing
• Global sourcing
• Locating international sources
• Determining the type of supplier to utilize
• Single source vs. multiple source policy
• Source evaluation criteria
• Managing exchange rate risk
• Dealing with issues of ethics 

Day 5: Negotiation And Contract Preparation and International Movement Of Goods

• Insights into the negotiation process
• Characteristics of the effective negotiator
• Preparing to negotiate
• Negotiating techniques
• Obtaining the benefits of supplier partnering
• International buying legalities
• Drafting the international contract
• Dispute resolution mechanisms 
• International commercial terms
• Buying transportation services
• Utilizing air transportation
• Utilizing ocean transportation
• Securing marine insurance
• Calculating total landed cost
• Strategic purchase planning
• Reengineering purchasing operations