Purchasing and supply organisation during post-merger phase The path towards resilience and harmony
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Supply chain management (MPSCM), MSc
Publicerad
2023
Författare
Hawerman, Andreas
Lidhammar, Martin
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
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Sammanfattning
During the last couple of years, companies in various industries have been forced to
handle significant disruptions in their supply chains. This has affected the various
functions within firms in different ways, where the purchasing functions, which is
the scope of this thesis, have been forced to handle a troubled supplier base. One of
the industries particularly affected by disruptions was the electronic industry. The
industry is also growing due to the world becoming more interconnected. These
factors have led to companies pursuing acquisitions in order to position themselves
inside this growing industry. Thus, capturing the potential value of an acquisition
requires the implementation of a successful integration process involving various
functions such as purchasing, production and R&D. This integration process can be
additionally challenging to manage due to firms, as a result of the recent years of
disruptions, also strives to increase the supply chain resilience.
The purpose of the thesis has been to explore how a purchasing function at a firm
in the electronic industry, in a post-merger phase, can contribute to the creation of
resilience within the supply organisation. The purpose was fulfilled by a qualitative
research design where a single case study was conducted. The chosen case company
consisted of an industrial electronic manufacturing that recently has experienced
shortages, in addition to, having conducted three acquisitions. The data collection
process consisted of semi-structured interviews that were done at the parent com-
pany and at the subsidiaries. For the data analysis process a thematic analysis
approach was, which consisted of provisional coding. The set of codes originated
from a developed framework, which described factors that is important to consider
when organising a purchasing function for resilience.
The empirical findings showed that there exists both external and internal factors,
in addition to a moderator, that is important to consider when designing the or-
ganisation of a purchasing function. Three focus areas for a purchasing function to
consider, when increasing its contribution of resilience to a supply organisation in
a post-merger phase, were identified. The importance of controlling to quantify the
operations, formalising of processes to increase overall collaboration and exploring
an optimal macro-level structure to capture purchasing synergies.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Supply chain resilience , post-merger integration , purchasing , purchasing and supply organisation , purchasing maturity , resilience capabilities