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ABSTRACT. Presented herein is a tool for assessing the value contributed by public sector purchasing departments throughout various stages of competitive acquisition processes for consulting services. Both direct and indirect measures are included in this assessment tool. Although direct contributions are particularly important in an environment where the public scrutinizes the way in which public organizations spend money, indirect contributions made by the purchasing department can be even more important due to the significance of these services in terms of the impact that they have on the functioning of organizations and their ability to serve the public. This tool provides a practical means by which to improve the way that public purchasing departments help make these traditionally difficult purchase decisions, and in doing so, positively affect departmental and organizational performance.
INTRODUCTION
An examination of the literature since 1928 disclosed that there was no authoritative basis for assessing purchasing department performance. Gushee and Boffey (1928) said that overhead correctly applied equated to better performance. Heinritz (1947) and the United States Air Force (1962) concurred. Lewis (1946) suggested that the ultimate measure of purchasing performance was likely that of end costs. More recent works (Carter & Narasimhan, 1996; Hendrick, Carter, Siferd & Pous, 1996; Leenders, Fearon, Flynn & Johnson, 2003; Lonsdale & Cox, 1997; Tan, Kannan & Handfield, 1998), have contended that purchasing department performance could also be evaluated on a much wider basis, that is, in terms of the purchasing department's ability to contribute to organizational goals and objectives, beyond the direct measurable benefits of reduced costs. ; j:,
The purchasing department is in an extremely strategic position, due to its intimate relations with other functional departments on the one hand, and its close and ongoing contact with large and diverse groups of outside organizations on the other. As a result of the access to information that the purchasing department has regarding price trends, new and improved products and services, market conditions, and business outlooks-which is of particular importance for the purchasing department to develop-it can also make significant and valuable strategic contributions to the other departments that it serves (Leenders et al., 2003). These contributions provide another basis upon which to evaluate purchasing department performance.
It may also be useful to assess purchasing department...