A CHANGING ROLE FOR PURCHASING?

When organisations such as manufacturers and national and local institutions make a purchase the various decisions involved are frequently made by a group of people rather than one individual, so that we can say that such industrial type customers have within them 'buying units' or 'buying centres'. The size and composition of the units will vary depending on a host of factors—for a discussion of these see references (10, and (11). Within each unit there is usually a professional element, particularly in the case of medium and large companies, and this is generally referred to as the procurement function in the United States, and as the buying or purchasing function in the United Kingdom.