CPSM Blog

Promissory Estoppel, Fixed Prices and preparing contracts

I am always looking for interesting things in the CPSM notes and I thought Promissory Estoppel was pretty impressive. The concept follows from British contracting law and generally speaks to one of the many points to consider when preparing contracts. This section has 29 pages with 8 types of "Fixed Prices". Most of these are definitional but quite a lot of material to cover.Coming back to promissory estoppel the key message is that an implied agreement can also result in conflict and disagreement. It is therefore important to spell everything out in writing so that things are clear going forward to contract implementation. The suggestion to follow verbal orders with written documents brought back some of the classic practical learnings I had in my early days after my MBA which basically taught me the same thing  in the real world...

Preparing solicitations for competitive bids

This section provides a great overview of what the supply manager must consider while preparing a SOW (Statement of Work) ; electronic solicitations (RFx) ; Request for information (RFI). The section also discusses the role of bonds and surety, problems related to solicitation of offers and receipts of offers , questions of conflicts of interest,confidentiality and debriefing.

The coolest thing in this section were the  terms oligopsonistic and monopsony. Do check them out.

At a conceptual level this section tries to emphasize that in competitive bidding the supply manager must be clear, fair and be seen to  fair and clear by the supplier community.

Foundations of Supply Management

What I like about the the CPSM study guide is the rather clear manner in which the exam is described. For example the first exam "Foundation of Supply Management" has a Section A - Contracting and Negotiation that has five sections with a total of 26 questions. The very first section (Task 1-A-1) asks the examinees to be familiar with preparing solicitations for competitive bids,quotations and proposals with pertinent specifications, terms and conditions. There are 14 pages here with eight sections. More on what the sections contain later...