The conference theme “Purchasing & Supply Management – from efficiency to effectiveness in an integrated Supply Chain Management” reflects the current discussion beyond Procurement, which has a major impact on the profession.
Where is Purchasing and Supply Management heading? Many organisations are facing this question now. As they have tackled the transactional basics, mastered the fundamentals of strategic procurement and moved firmly into the space of demand management and rationalisation, the question on the lips of many CPOs is “what’s next?”.

Companies are demanding that procurement teams deliver more and integrate better with other elements of the firm along the supply chain. Operational excellence no longer can stand alone as the definition of a high performing sourcing function. The need to lead procurement departments on par with other senior functions is increasingly expected of today’s purchasing teams. But what contributions can the function make beyond its traditional remit? Which roles and responsibilities can it pursue in the future?

These questions should be answered from a scientific perspective at IPSERA 2016 in specialised streams, but also through invited keynote speakers from the corporate world.
The theme offers the opportunity for a broad range of purchasing and supply chain topics which can be divided in the following streams:

  • Financial Supply Chain Management
  • Sustainable procurement and CSR
  • Electronic procurement
  • Global In-/Out- and Backsourcing Issues
  • Purchasing organisation, skills and competences
  • Supply chains and networks
  • Supply chain risk and security
  • Performance measurement and Performance based contracting
  • Supplier selection, evaluation and relationship management
  • Humanitarian supply chains
  • Healthcare procurement
  • Innovation and supplier involvement
  • Supply strategy

In addition to the above mentioned streams we are open to a number of ‘special streams’. These can relate to the core theme of the conference and other ‘hot issues’ in purchasing and supply management that increase our understanding of from efficiency to effectiveness in an integrated Supply Chain Management. Please submit your ideas to: info@ipsera2016.com.

The Educator’s Conference will be running on Sunday the 20th March and focuses on the role education plays in tackling the overall theme of the conference. This day brings together a keynote address, delivery and discussion of education related papers, focused workshops and opportunities for networking.

We are looking for papers on innovation in PSM teaching and education, challenges to current PSM teaching, PSM case studies, or any teaching-related papers that would be of interest to the PSM community.

We extended the deadline for the Educator’s Conference to 14 February 2016!!

Papers for the Educator’s Conference can be Working, Competitive or Practitioner in category and should be submitted according to the guidelines on our website.
Please submit your papers to: educators@ipsera2016.com

Paper categories

Three types of papers will be accepted:

  • Competitive papers based on a full paper
  • Working papers based on an extended abstract
  • Practitioner papers based on an extended abstract

Competitive Papers

Competitive papers should be conceptual or empirical papers that are, in principle, submission-ready. These papers should follow the format and style outlined in the “Submission Guidelines” on the conference website (max. number of pages: 15).

Working/ Practitioner Papers

Working papers indicate “work in progress”. These papers can report on empirical or conceptual research. Practitioner papers can only be submitted by practitioners (also together with academics) and should be objective in their approach and not in the form of commercial promotional material for a business or product.

  • Authors of working/ practitioner papers should submit an extended abstract following the “Submission Guidelines ” on the conference website.
  • Authors will receive further instructions on submitting their paper if it is accepted. The length of a working paper is limited to 10 pages.
  • Practitioner papers should not exceed 5 pages.

Important: Check the “Submission Guidelines” and “Submission deadlines” sections to correctly and timely submit your paper.