Abstract
The objective was to analyse the integration of and collaboration between strategic
sourcing and supplier development at Eskom, South Africa’s primary electricity supplier, and
to determine how strategic sourcing can be a catalyst for supplier development.
Problem investigated: To address fragmented and inefficient procurement, Eskom instituted
two departments, Commodity Sourcing (CS), to drive strategic sourcing, and Supplier
Development and Localisation (SD&L), to drive supplier development. The problem is that
collaboration between CS and SD&L has not materialised and thus their mandates have not
been entirely achieved.
Research design: A case study research design was employed, drawing from multiple sources
of data to triangulate findings. Managers from two departments, CS and SD&L, were separately
surveyed, while face-to-face interviews were conducted with executive management.
Results: The findings revealed a lack of planning, implementation and monitoring of supplier
development in the strategic sourcing process of CS. Although the procurement spend in CS is
used to drive supplier development objectives, from the perspective of SD&L, in practice this
does not fully materialise...