Role of Purchasing in New Product Development

Innovation is the most efficient strategy to ensure to a company strong growth. To realise innovations quickly and efficiently, innovative companies need to cooperate with suppliers who know better than anybody else does what they buy, the new trends and technologies, risks and opportunities of the market. What information do companies get from them? Suppliers must be involved in NPD to transform purchasing from operational efficiency to a source of competitive advantage. Building trust in relationships is also a vital matter to leverage suppliers. This book gives a definition of the concept as well as a process to assess and to build customer-supplier trust. We will insist on the key points to make purchasing integration in NPD a success: create a good process where buyers are involved very early, manage your strategic suppliers with trust, introduce a win-win mindset and long term relationships. Skilled staffs are also required, buyers involved in NPD should be engineers so that they will be more credible when discussing with marketing and the design office.