Since 2009 BERODE GmbH is a cooperation partner of Cologne Business School and encourages young academics future careers. The employment of student assistants and the provision of business cases enable students to gather practical experiences in the field of procurement and to become familiar with the daily business in a consultancy firm.

The procurement function developed into a considerable parameter. A company’s procurement department faces global competitive pressure, price volatility in energy and raw material markets and technological improvement implying new strategic challenges and further opportunities for successful differentiation. Which organizational concepts and tools are available in procurement? The articles provide a successful combination of both theory and practise which reveals procurement’s complexity and recommends processes for procurement optimizations.

Prof. Dr. Lisa Fröhlich is professor for procurement and marketing at Cologne Business School. Dr. Tanja Lingohr is manager at BERODE GmbH.

Today's companies consider value orientation as its first maxim to pursue. Value orientation also applies to a company’s procurement department. Particularly within times of the economic crisis, it is advantageous if procurement controlling has already accomplished required transparency of procurement activities. Dr. Kenneth Sievers, project manager at BERODE GmbH published an article about “procurement controlling – support for value oriented procurement management” in the well-known journal “Beschaffung Aktuell” (02/2010).