AD1 Management in Procurement and Supply Exam Review

Another exam bites the dust and hopefully I don't have to remember the Takeuchi Naoka Matrix again.

This exam was a case study, so you had to apply the theory to the facts given to you. The gist of the facts were:

• Big company with lots of stakeholders dispersed over different geographical areas.
• Bureaucratic and process driven but looking to become more outcome focused.
• New Procurement Manager needs to get his team into shape.
• High turnover.

Question 1

Identify 5 characteristics of a bureaucracy and one advantage and disadvantage for each.

This is similar to question one in January 2015 exam and the answers are on page 37. I could actually only think of 4 off the top of my head but another characteristic came to me when I was doing the last question.

Question 2 

Assess the factors that influence job satisfaction within the procurement team

Similar to a question two in March 2015 exam. For a 25 mark question, I couldn't think of much to write because the textbook only talks about job satisfaction on one page (p54)

Question 3

(a)  Identify 3 potential sources of conflict between the procurement team and stakeholders.

I couldn't remember the exact names of the sources of conflict mentioned in the textbook (p136) but used my common sense.

(b) Suggest 4 conflict approaches to minimise conflict between the procurement team and stakeholders.

Again, I couldn't remember the exact names (p139) and used common sense.

Question 4

Explain Human Resources Management and describe the benefits to the procurement team.

I seriously could not remember and waffled on about HR policies and GAP analysis. The gist of it can be found on page 149.

Conclusion

The exam tested 7/216 pages of the textbook, which is like 3% of the content. I was pissed they didn't have a question about how to build an effective team; it had four learning outcomes and was a common question in the previous exams.

In Law School, case studies were always open book because they were testing your application of the theory, not your ability to remember it.

Other 

You still  have to use your CIPS registration letter and Driver's licence as ID. I don't know why there aren't ID cards.

The exam location when you register online is always wrong and someone always goes to the wrong place. Should be fixed.