Purchasing education and research for European competence transfer Firms are nowadays struggling to find effective and efficient ways to cope with a low depth of production and a high reliance on international suppliers. This highlights the need for employees possessing the necessary skills and competences in the field of purchasing & supply management {PSM). PSM does not have any harmonized PSM higher education curriculum yet. Companies often have to hire university graduates with other specializations and spend years bringing them up to an appropriate skilllevel. For students, a significant challenge lies in finding university courses to match their course portfolio during international exchanges. lf a harmonized PSM curriculum in higher education was implemented, the currently unused human potential could be made available to European companies and student mobility in international programs could be increased significantly. This project's main target is the development of a pan-European, empirically validated harmonized European Curriculum for PSM education. The international studying program is supposed to be implemented by the participating universities, but simultaneously it can be disseminated through the relevant associations and be thereby available to any higher education institution in Europe. Therefore, the project improves the quality and relevance of higher education, contributes to the development of a European Area of Skills and Qualifications considering the increasing labour market relevance of PSM. The PERFECT project includes the following main activities and outputs: 1. PSM Skill Concept (IO1/Al) 2. Benchmarking study (IO2/A2) 3. Company survey (IO3/A3) 4. Harmonized European purchasing curriculum (IO4/A4) 5. PSM skills self-assessment tool (IO5/AS) 6. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) (IO6/AG) ln order to achieve the objectives and milestones, a consortium is formed which brings tagether leading universities, European project management competence and practical exposure with a very strong background and international network in PSM. The consortium consists of Prof. Dr. Michael Henke, Technische Universitaet Dortmund, Prof. Dr. Holger Schiele, University of Twente, Dr. Stephen Kelly, Staffordshire University, Prof. Dr. Lydia Bals, Hochschule Mainz, Prof. Dr. Jukka Hallikas, Lappeenranta University of Technology, and other researchers of the mentioned institutions joining the project team. So far, the first project activity (Al) "Development of Purchasing & Supply Management (PSM) Skills Concept" is terminated. Several sources have been analysed with regard to required PSM skills and summarized in a "Maturity Modell PSM Skills Concept" (IO1/Al) and published as a white paper. The results represent a collection of the current status of PSM competences in literature, up-todate papers and studies with an outlook to trends and future skills, job advertisements, associations' and universities' PSM programs. The second activity (A2) "Development of Benchmarking Cases" is running. Interviews are being conducted and transcribed to code and analyse them in the coming weeks. The first two intellectual outputs act as a basis for the coming activities. ln summary, the impact envisaged with the project results is to increase the awareness for the procurement field and to pay attention to the importance of procurement in times of changes in the industry (e.g. digitalisation, industry 4.0). The curriculum/study program will provide well educated employees for procurement functions and improve student exchange possibilities.
More than half of the total turnover of a modern industrial firm in Europe is directly transferred to suppliers and it is the responsibility of the purchasing & supply management (PSM) function of a firm to manage these external relationships. In addition, many suppliers are no longer of domestic, but of European and global origin. Firms struggle to find effective and efficient ways to cope with the emergent challenges of network economies with a low depth of production and high reliance on international suppliers. At the same time, an increased expectation of the professionalism and wider skill and competence set of PSM staff were put forward as important performance drivers. Despite this importance, unlike other disciplines, PSM does not have a harmonised higher education curriculum. Contemplating existing programmes shows that there is a mismatch between supply and demand for PSM education and that there is no equality of opportunity to study across Europe. For students, a significant challenge lies in finding appropriate university courses, a problem heightened when trying to match them to their course portfolio during international exchanges. For companies the circumstances in PSM education make it necessary to hire university graduates with other specializations and spend time bringing them up to the required skills level. Consequently, higher education institutions face challenges in the developing of new study programmes to cover future skills requirements for PSM. Recognizing this gap and opportunity, the overall objective of project PERFECT (Purchasing Education and Research for European Competence Transfer) was to develop an empirically validated harmonised European curriculum at Bachelor’s and Master’s levels in PSM and lay the foundations for establishing international study programmes for higher education in PSM at participating universities and beyond. In order to achieve these objectives, a consortium with five project partners and an advisory board was formed bringing together leading universities: TU Dortmund University (Chair of Enterprise Logistics) and Hochschule Mainz (School of Business), Germany, University of Twente (Department Technology Management and Supply), Netherlands, Staffordshire University (Business School), United Kingdom, and Lappeenranta University of Technology (Supply Management at School of Business and Management), Finland. The evaluation and dissemination of project results was conducted with national and international PSM associations, such as IPSERA (International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association) and IFPSM (International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management), as well as regional representatives and associations. To find out which skills and competences to incorporate in a PSM curriculum, project PERFECT followed an integrated approach. Firstly, the project mapped the PSM skills landscape by performing a literature review, an analysis of courses in universities and of 300 European PSM job advertisements. Based on a conceptual skills model developed by research in various sources, the project conducted 46 expert interviews with representatives of various purchasing functions and job roles from 16 companies analysing best practice examples from corporations in various industries and of various sizes and types of companies. The insights gained from this output were validated by a survey with European firms with more than 500 completed questionnaires, in order to identify those skills and competencies that account for successful PSM activities. As the central project output, based on this comprehensive competence assessment, project PERFECT designed an empirically validated, harmonised European PSM curriculum, which draws on the skills and competencies required by PSM practitioners and maps them to a range of relevant modules. It provides opportunities for students to gain international experience and increased employability in PSM related jobs. For the academic organisations, the project results provide an opportunity to strengthen their PSM curricula and reflect the requirements of industry. In order to promote fast and broad dissemination as well providing useful tools for a broad target group, PERFECT developed a PSM skills self-assessment tool and installed an introductory Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for PSM fundamentals, which can be used by students and organisations to gauge and raise their PSM skills. The tools support a long-term exploitation of the project outcomes resulting in sustainable benefits for users and providers. All the outputs are useful standalone and the results are published as in-depth white papers, which provide additional and more detailed insights. Detailed descriptions of the project, partners and results can be found on the project website www.project-perfect.eu.