The Role of Strategic Sourcing in Global Supply Chain Competitiveness

A global supply chain is a core element for an organization's competitiveness. Its success relies on the synchronization of relations, activities, and agreements in order to be flexible, agile, high quality, and cost effective for customers. Strategic sourcing emerges as an important factor to support and integrate the suppliers into the supply chain intelligently. This chapter aims to provide the understanding of how strategic sourcing can contribute to improving a firm's global supply chain competitiveness. In order to do so, it explores the elements to be considered while developing the strategic sourcing: the sourcing process cycle, internal and external relations, sourcing risks, global sourcing application, and supplier development.