AbstractsBusiness Management & Administration

Sourcing is not simply a way to find the best price for a certain product but it has become a decision-making process that can shape the business of an entire organization. Nowadays sourcing is a critical activity in order to get a competitive advantage. Managers can apply many different sourcing processes but these procedures should be tightly related to the overall strategy of the company and to customers’ needs. The present thesis was based on a case study; a sourcing service provider for retailers professional in Finland. The theoretical framework was built on literature reviews about procurement, purchasing and sourcing strategies. A synthesis of the concepts found in the literature helped to create a framework and a background for the model of best practices. The purpose of this research was to analyse the current sourcing situation of Spotdealers Oy and understand how to implement a more streamlined sourcing process. This is important because a streamlined sourcing process could help the organization to have a more efficient and faster closure of the projects. A qualitative research was implemented by interviewing the team of Spotdealers and by analysing the activities of a past project. The outcome of the thesis is a model of best practices and a balanced scorecard for the sourcing process for the case study company. The combination of the theory and the current state analysis showed that, in order to have an efficient sourcing, cooperation with customers and suppliers is a crucial factor. The model of best practices focused on the customers’ needs and suggested possibilities of value creation.