Purchasing Activities in Temasek Polytechnic

This assignment analyzes the vital role of purchasing activities within an organization, focusing on Temasek Polytechnic as a case study. It delves into the importance of supplier selection, efficient Information Communication Technology (ICT) integration for stakeholder communication regarding product purchases, and accurate cost estimation to ensure organizational sustainability. The analysis highlights how effective purchasing practices contribute to maintaining infrastructure and providing quality education services.

Running head: PURCHASING MANAGEMENT
Purchasing Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Supplier Selection Criteria...............................................................................................................4
ICT for Purchasing Operations........................................................................................................6
Purchasing cost Analysis.................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Purchasing management is one of the important departments within an organization,
which is responsible for all types of purchasing activities that are needed to maintain
infrastructure within the organization. It is the duty of the purchasing department of an
organization to ensure that all the raw materials and goods that are needed for the operation of a
business are being properly maintained with the help of proper supply chain. The overall cost
and price of the product that are being sold by the organization are deceived by the policies of
the purchasing department.
The primary objective of the purchasing department is to ensure that good quality of
products is being purchased by the organization at minimum amount of pricing. It is also
essential to ensure that the organization have a proper relationship with all the suppliers. By
maintaining proper data, it is possible for the purchasing department to keep record of all the
relevant information related to business transaction.
The current report will analyze the components of purchasing department within the
Temasek Polytechnic of Singapore. This is one of the premium learning institutes of Singapore
and the third of its kind in the nation. The education institute is mostly famous for its high level
of infrastructure that is being offered to the students. The institute was established in the year
1990 only 30 hectare of plot, which offers all type of modern facilities that are needed for
learning procedures. The institute currently has more than 15000 students and almost 1200
administrative staffs. It is essential for the purchasing department of the Polytechnic College to
ensure proper policies are being implemented that can ensure smooth functioning of the
organization. The current report will focus upon few of the primary elements related to

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purchasing department of the Temasek Polytechnic that includes criteria for supplier selection,
application of ICT in purchasing operation and also the cost analysis of purchasing department.
Supplier Selection Criteria
Sebtin et al., (2015), have mentioned about the importance of setting up for the
purchasing goals, which can help to improve upon the cost effectiveness of the policies that have
been implemented by an organization. The purchasing management goal for an education
institute need to have all the policies that are needed to maintain high level of infrastructure for
providing quality education service. In case of Temasek Polytechnic, it is the duty of the
purchasing managers to ensure that all the students and the administrative staffs are capable of
dealing with the challenge related to the providing of high quality of education service. It is
important to develop effective purchasing policies, which can help to ensure that only authorized
suppliers can provide materials to the institute. It can also help to ensure that only genuine
materials are being obtained for the operation of the institute.
It is the duty of the purchasing officers to act as one of the responsible working staffs to
establish effective relationship with that of the major supplier groups, which will ensure that all
the working agents are able to get all types of products that are necessary for the functioning of
the organization. Quality of the product is also one of the essential criteria, which needs to be
insured by the purchasing manager.
According to Adomßent et al., (2014), proper selection of the suppliers is the initial
primary challenge of the purchasing manager. In case of an education institute like Temasek
Polytechnic, suppliers need to provide proper technological infrastructure, which is one of the

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essential part of providing high quality education. It is important to mention in the context that
most of the education training plans of the Polytechnic College are made with the help of
technology, which includes IT software development program. Hence, it is essential for the
suppliers to provide the latest technological equipments that are needed in the process of
providing education program. Pepper multimedia equipments and also required to provide
presentation, which is regularly needed for all seminar programs that is a major part of the
education plan (Mason & Mason, 2016).
Proper laboratory equipments are also few of the important requirements of the applied
science and engineering department along with that of the IT education course. The purchasing
manager of the university needs to implement proper criteria for the selection of the suppliers for
laboratory equipments based on the cost and quality of the materials (Weele & Raaij, 2014). The
reliability upon the suppliers is also essential due to the fact that it can help the organization to
ensure about the level of safety. One of the issues that may be faced by the purchasing manager
of the Temasek Polytechnic is due to the fact that in their region they do not have enough choice
of suppliers to select. Hence, in many cases, the Institute will have to depend upon Limited
number of suppliers. The quality of the product is one of the important criteria, which will decide
upon the quality of education service that have been provided by the institute. It is also important
to select the criteria for communication with the suppliers. As it is important for the every
organization to depend upon Effective mode of communication with the suppliers, it is important
to select the supply chain depending upon the source of communication and the level of
efficiency, which can help the organization festival, is healthy relationship with supplier group.
Proper selection of the suppliers is one of the primary duties of the purchasing manager,
which decides upon the infrastructure level and quality of service provided by the organization.

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ICT for Purchasing Operations
Implication of the information and communication technology is one of the essential
duties of purchasing department management that can help the organization to get proper
information related to the supply chain from external environment. As per mentioned by Bernon
& Mena (2013), the applications of the ICT tools is an essential component to monitor the
performance of supply chain management. It is possible to maintain proper documentation with
the help of the process of communication technology that can be used by the purchasing
department in an organization for future references. Birou et al., (2016), have added in this
context that Application of ICT tools is one of the important part of dealing with Procurement of
the resources for an organization that can be used in future during the time of crisis.
The use of information communication technology is an essential part of all types of
education degree programs, which and help ensure that the latest mode of multimedia
Technology are being applied in all types of degree courses. This can not only that at the level of
understanding of the learners but can also help to deal with the challenges related to the complex
level of understanding but can also help in the matters related to the challenges within the
process of communication. The uses and information Technology is essential due to the fact that
it can help to deal with the overall planning process of the purchasing department.
The application of information communication technology is one of the essential parts of
the globalization, which can help an organization to collect all relevant information from the
external business environment Perez (2017). Hence, it is possible for the organization to collect
information about the demand of the products that are needed for managing their operational

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activities. Future planning process can also be implemented with the help of the information that
are gathered from ICT. The process for procurement management can be achieved with the help
of detail relevant information that is needed as a part of maintaining high level infrastructure
within an organization. The supply chain management procedures in an organization can help in
the process of coordinating all complex activities that can help to secure all types of
requirements within an institute. The Information Technology plays a significant part in
implementing purchasing practice for education institutes Temasek Polytechnic. As per the work
of Kanapathy et al., (2016), the investment that is made in the purchasing activities of the
department, can help to focus upon the challenges that are encountered by the purchasing
department. Images of securing infrastructure for an education institute, it is essential to have
effective system of information communication technology, which is needed to deal with the
challenge related to lack of coordination within the departments of the organization. It is with the
help of effective communication technology, which can enable for purchasing manager to get
proper information related to the issues and shortages of resources that are encountered by the
administrative working staffs and students.
Hence, one of the basic fundamentals of maintaining high level of infrastructure with an
education institute can be achieved with the help of securing the infrastructure for ICT.
Purchasing cost Analysis
According to Wengang and Suicheng (2015), one of the important duties of the
purchasing department of an organization is to secure the matters related to cost estimation. The
cost of the purchasing department can vary depending upon the operational activities that are

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being conducted within an organization. With application of proper tools, it is possible to
calculate about the overall expenditure that is a part of the education institute infrastructure. As
Polytechnic College is not only profit making organization, it is important to ensure that the cost
of the purchasing department has to be calculated not only based on the profit margin, it also has
consider the activities related to providing high quality education service to the society. Hence, it
is essential for the purchasing managers not to lower the cost of the purchasing that can
compromise upon the quality of education service provided by the institute.
The use of the cost calculating tools is effective due to the fact that it can not only help to
deal with the matters related to functioning and current expenditure but can also help to predict
the future cost that organization need to spend to maintain sustainability. The software of the
accounting tools and account management can be used in this context to get the detailed
statistical information about the overall expenditure of the organization. This is one of the major
parts of the activities that can lead to deal in the sustainable development. In most of the
organizations, the purchasing manager use the tool of average cost, which is one of the essential
component that can help to predict the overall cost of the company's infrastructural expenditure.
There are various components which are involved in the purchasing management for
maintaining infrastructure within the Temasek Polytechnic. It is the duty of the purchasing
manager of the institute to divide the various components of the infrastructure, which can help on
to decide the overall expenditure. The cost of purchasing can vary depending upon the type of
education that is provided in each of the department. For example, the cost of purchasing
products in the social science department is much less compared to that of the applied science
department due to the fact that in the later case, high level of infrastructure is needed to set up the
laboratory equipments. Hence, it is the duty of the purchasing manager to have separate

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expenditure list depending upon the requirements of each of the department within the education
institute.
It is also their duty to ensure that cost of the purchasing department is calculated by not
compromising on the overall quality of the Purchased products and thereby be able to maintain
high level of education service quality (Zhao et al., 2016).
Conclusion
In the concluding note, it can be said that the activities related to the purchasing
department is one of the essential component of operational activities within an organization. For
a reputed education institute like Temasek Polytechnic, it is essential to monitor the activities of
the purchasing department, which will ensure that proper infrastructure is maintained within the
institute that can help to provide quality education service to the society. Proper selection of
suppliers is one of the essential duties of the purchasing department. It is also important to
implement proper Information Communication Technology, which is needed for the stakeholders
within the organization to communicate about the matters related to product purchasing.
Finally, it is also essential to estimate the overall cost of purchasing product, which is
needed to maintain sustainability within the organization.

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Reference
Wengang, Y., & Suicheng, L. (2015). Purchasing Efficacy: Alignment between Purchasing
Practice Configurations and Purchasing Competitive Priorities. Journal of Management, 4, 012.
Zhao, C., Xu, G., Tian, Y., Ren, W., Lv, C., Yin, B., & Liang, T. (2016, July). A purchasing
management strategy model about grading and classifying railway materials based on material
grouping. In Logistics, Informatics and Service Sciences (LISS), 2016 International Conference
on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Kanapathy, K., Yee, G. W., Zailani, S., & Aghapour, A. H. (2016). An intra-regional comparison
on RoHS practices for green purchasing management among electrical and electronics SMEs in
Southeast Asia. International Journal of Procurement Management, 9(3), 249-271.
Perez, C. (2017, January). Conservatism, Overconfidence and Self-attribution Biases Effect on
Venezuelan Purchasing Managers. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2017, No. 1,
p. 12141). Academy of Management.
Birou, L., Lutz, H., & Zsidisin, G. A. (2016). Current state of the art and science: a survey of
purchasing and supply management courses and teaching approaches. International Journal of
Procurement Management, 9(1), 71-85.
Bernon, M., & Mena, C. (2013). The evolution of customised executive education in supply
chain management. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 18(4), 440-453.
Weele, A. J., & Raaij, E. M. (2014). The future of purchasing and supply management research:
About relevance and rigor. Journal of Supply Chain Management, 50(1), 56-72.

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Sebti, H., Gérard, B. and Perray-Redslob, L., 2015. Identity use of management accounting
systems by the members of a professional group: the case of the purchasing function.
Comptabilité-Contrôle-Audit, 21(2), pp.13-32.
Adomßent, M., Fischer, D., Godemann, J., Herzig, C., Otte, I., Rieckmann, M., & Timm, J.
(2014). Emerging areas in research on higher education for sustainable development–
management education, sustainable consumption and perspectives from Central and Eastern
Europe. Journal of cleaner production, 62, 1-7.
Mason, K. F., & Mason, K. F. (2016). Using student activity trends to inform purchasing: a
layered model for collection management. Collection Building, 35(2), 54-56.