Sourcing Analytics (Coursera)

Offered by Rutgers University,
Sourcing Analytics (Coursera)

From 2007 to 2010, Apple made $27 billion from iPhone with a profit of $15.6 billion. Apple could not achieve this success without its global sourcing strategy. However, one of Apple’s key suppliers, Samsung Electronics, became a competitor and used its cost advantage to over-take Apple in the global market. Meanwhile, many new suppliers and products are emerging constantly. To continue the success, Apple must explore the global markets to identify and select new suppliers that are capable, inexpensive and financially robust. The question is, how to do it right for this year?

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What Apple experienced is typical in practice, as a company may have thousands of suppliers, and numerous new suppliers and products / services emerge constantly and globally, which requires a frequent adjustment of the supply base.
In this course, you will learn sourcing analytics which applies data analytics and business intelligence to supplier development and management. Specifically, you will learn market intelligence, bargain power analysis, and supplier analysis, to identify and select suppliers with the objective of getting more value with less spend.

What You Will Learn

  • Sourcing intelligence to help companies identify and select suppliers for critical components.
  • Sourcing analytics framework on how analytics can help with sourcing.
  • Bargain power analysis to support better negotiation and bargaining with suppliers.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Welcome!
Welcome to sourcing analytics! Through the story of Apple's iPhone, you will learn some sourcing pain points, sourcing metrics and analytics framework, and the best practice of a sophisticated buyer.

WEEK 2
Sourcing Criteria and Market Intelligence
In the second week, you will learn how to set the supplier selection criteria (to match the company’s needs). To identify potential suppliers, you will learn market intelligence to assess the trend, stability and competition intensity of the global markets.

WEEK 3
Bargain Power and Supplier Analysis
In the third week, you will learn bargain power analysis to assess your and your suppliers’ leverages and bargain power. You will also learn supplier analysis to analyze individual suppliers’ capability, pricing, financial robustness and efficiency.

WEEK 4
Supplier Score Sheets and Mini-project
This is the last week of Sourcing Analytics, you will wrap up all the analysis learned so far into supplier score sheets so as to select the best suppliers. You will perform a mini-project on sourcing intelligence.

Go to Class
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