The Unisa Graduate School of Business Leadership (SBL) hosted the last lecture in the five day Distinguished Lectures Series on 12 August 2011. This series was initiated by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). Dr Douglas Boateng, the Founder, President and CEO of PanAvest International and Chartered Fellow of CIPS, was the speaker during the event. The theme of the lecture was “The Changing Role of Procurement and Supply Chain Management in Business Society”.
Distinguished Lectures make use of acknowledged experts to enlighten the public on matters of national and global interest. The audience included academics, policy makers, students, business executives, NGOs and captains of industry. According to Dr Boateng there were too many practitioners and not enough professionals within the supply chain environment. This was causing major competitive and service delivery challenges for companies and governments in the emerging world. He believes that a critical look has to be taken at professional bodies and training organisations to come up with standards and innovative ways to assist in repositioning procurement as a supply chain network. The Chief Supply Chain Officer needs to elevate from being a member of the management committee to becoming member of the executive committee.
Dr Boateng defines Supply Chain Management as a set of business processes that seamlessly work together to ensure that requirements of the end user are at all times satisfied within reasonable time and cost limits. “Based on current global trends in CEO appointments, I believe that discerning procurement and supply chain professionals shall increasingly be called upon to take the helm within companies and government departments, because of their vast strategic, governance and performance driven experience and mind-set”, concluded Dr Boateng.
“CIPS and Dr Boateng must be commended for putting together the first supply chain related distinguished lecture tour. As the largest business school on the continent, we are proud to be collaboratively associated with the parties to address the major skills challenges in South Africa and the rest of the continent,” said Ozias Nube, Senior Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain at Unisa SBL.
Unisa SBL and CIPS established a strategic partnership in June 2011 to further develop academic career paths with tertiary level qualifications for CIPS SA members. This partnership benefits from the SBL’s internationally recognised research programmes, with its MBA and MBL programmes extending their reach subjects to include Procurement and Supply Management.
Judging by the overwhelming success and feedback, Andre Coetzee, the
Managing Director of CIPS Southern Africa is confident that the Distinguished Lecture Series in partnership with Dr Boateng shall become an annual event with potential extensions beyond Southern Africa.
