You're the director of purchasing at a telecommunications company in Seattle and you've just gone to meet your sister-in-law for coffee at a little cafe off Rush Street. Earlier this week you arrived in Chicago to attend the National Association of Purchasing Managers Convention. As you waited in the café, you couldn't help but hear the conversation in the opposite booth. A group of three increasingly rowdy purchasing agents from different companies were clearly from the same convention.

The one they called Xavier was from Tex Implements. He was warmed up and getting loud. "I just want to know how I'm supposed to get the best price from Prespec Spring, when I cannot even ask for a bid from anyone else."

"You think that's bad?" retorted a stocky guy called Hank, a streetwise purchasing manager at a Big Three auto company. "I got this dude from Magma in my department telling us how many hoses of which type we've got to get each month."

"We've got the same JIT II baloney. I call it JIP, Too," said the woman in the teal suit.

You hoped you had done a better job getting the purchasing people At your firm committed to the concept of vendor consolidation, sole sourcing, and partnering, but the conversation prompted you to jot down a few notes. At tomorrow's conference luncheon you were slated to accept an award for your company for purchasing excellence. You had been planning to make a few simple remarks off the cuff, but your napkin haw has a short summary of the motivation and strategic payoff for this "new era in procurement."

Explain how you might handle these comments and what course of action you would take with your own company. Justify your responses with factual data from the chapters read.