Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Dovrex Procurement Diagnostic

Laseter, Timothy M...

Case

Dovrex Procurement Diagnostic

Laseter, Timothy M.; Lindsey, Robyn

OM-1747 | Published December 13, 2022 | 5 pages Case

Collection: Darden School of Business

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The task before Siddhidhar Parulekar seemed challenging. Only eight months before, in March 2021, he had joined Dovrex Company (Dovrex) as senior director of global strategic supply chain. In an industrial-equipment company that utilized roughly a thousand suppliers and tens of thousands of part numbers, he knew there were bound to be opportunities for savings and supply chain improvements—but where were they? And how should he start to find them? Parulekar formed an internal team to partner with a consulting firm to conduct a procurement diagnostic, which he hoped would justify investment in a transformational strategic sourcing initiative. The consultants produced a “spending cube” (included in the accompanying student spreadsheet) that covered every line item of every purchase order over the prior 11 quarters. As Parulekar perused the spending cube, he realized the team needed to prioritize a subset for the initial analysis. This case is taught at Darden in the second-year “Operations Strategy” course in a module covering strategic sourcing. It could also be used in a course with the focus or one on the broader topic of supply chain management.