Towards more effective supply market analyses

Reducing the level of vertical integration has been an ongoing trend in manufacturing businesses for a number of decades. With in-house depths of production averaging about 30% and more and more technologically complex parts being outsourced to suppliers, strategic technology management must inherently be accompanied by effective supply and purchasing management concepts suited to todays challenges. A fundamental strategic purchasing task is the performance of systematic supply market analyses. Such analyses aim to capture the characteristics of the supply markets relevant for all different purchased goods and to integrate the market perspective into the development of supply strategies. With value-add ratios continuing to shift towards the supply side and increasing product variety, the number of different supply markets relevant for an individual company is increasing. Furthermore, as an effect of shorter product life cycles, more variant-rich and technologically complex products and highly fragmented global supply chains, also the dynamics of supply markets have risen. Facing more complex and in transparent supply markets, there is a need for comprehensive methods to assess supply markets in strategic purchasing. In this paper, an overview and an assessment of theses approaches is given. Besides approaches and methods presented in literature on purchasing and supply management, approaches from related management disciplines such as technology management and strategic management are integrated into the analysis. The different approaches are assessed in view of their capability to increase the efficiency and effectiveness in creating supply market transparency and developing supply strategies. The analysis reveals that profound methodological support well-suited to todays challenges is yet lacking. The majority of methods have been developed from a sales/distribution perspective and have not sufficiently been adapted to supply-side boundary conditions. They furthermore do not provide adequate support in mapping the complex supply market structure and in deducing strategic recommendations for purchasing. In addition, too little attention is payed to the purchase of technologically complex parts. Aiming to contribute to the development of more effective methodological support, this paper concludes by deriving requirements for more enhanced and comprehensive concepts for analyzing supply markets.