Purchasing Fundamentals for Today's Buyer

Rating:
Summary: Best book for business buyers.
Review: An excellent book about how to buy for business and how the purchasing professional buys. Gives everything the new buyer needs to know, such as where to find sources, how to negotiate, and the essentials of purchasing law.

Rating:
Summary: Purchasing Demystified
Review: Dr. Harry Hough's latest text is a quick and easy guide to learn and apply established purchasing techniques.

Purchasing Fundamentals for Today's Buyer is broad in scope and aimed primarily at the new and relatively inexperienced buyer. There are however new practices and procedures that can be adopted by even the most experienced supply chain professional.

Dr. Hough studied both economics and mechanical engineering and holds an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is the Founder and current President of the American Purchasing Society, as well as a full time author and consultant, having held senior positions in purchasing, given seminars and taught at several colleges. Hough authored a previous version of this text in 1992 with James Ashley.

The appendices are my favorite part and I feel the appendices alone are worth the price of the text. Many points are self-evident for experienced practitioners at the management level, but their implications from both an ethical and a strategic perspective are large.

I really enjoyed the approach of this text: simple yet effective.

Rating:
Summary: Waste of money !
Review: The information in the book is so general, and a lot of it is already well known info even for the new buyer. The essential information could be written on a couple of pages. Hoped to learn a lot from it, unfortunatly, will have to follow the advice in the preface : new buyers learn by observation.