The role of purchasing management towards sustainable supply chain: A lifecycle perspective

Abstract

The concept of sustainable growth has been gaining ground to more intense competition in the business world. To contribute a more sustainable business, organizations should reconceive their value creation by inwardly focusing on economic, environmental and societal values simultaneously. As purchasing and supply management has been on the forefront of every business process, the decision making in this process should understand the various potential risks over a long time horizon in term of a product lifecycle perspective. In this view, the paper aims to develop strategic purchasing and supply management based on the Kraljic Model for building a long-term systematic thinking towards supply chain sustainability. The support of the model coupled with a lifecycle perspective would allow the organizations to design suitable long term purchasing strategies, contributing more sustainable values along an entire supply chain.