Sourcing and Procurement
Glossary
Your trusted guide to exploring sourcing and procurement terms & definitions,
from the world’s leading procurement experts and companies
Credit Agency
A credit rating agency (CRA) is a company that assigns credit ratings for issuers of certain types of debt obligations as well as the debt instruments themselves. In some cases, the servicers of the underlying debt are also given ratings.
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Credit note
A document issued to correct mistakes on an invoice – a credit note reduces the amount owed on the invoice document
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Critical Products / Services
Also referred to as strategic products/service. Critical products and services fall under one of the four Kraljic Matrix quadrants. In general these are products or services that are high-tech and high volume, which are often supplied at the customer specification.
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Cross-Functional Team
A cross functional team is made up of individuals that come from different departments or functions within an organization. When managed properly, the cross-functional sourcing team approach can provide flexibility, multifunctional knowledge and control/coordination mechanisms for fast responses to new competitive demands that traditional structures/approaches usually cannot achieve.
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Culture
The shared values, practices and beliefs within an organisation that determine how its procedures are carried out and how it is run overall
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Customer Analytics
These analytics can look at the data about an enterprise's customers and present it so that better and quicker business decisions can be made. For example, customer relationship analytics provide customer segmentation groupings, dividing customers into those most and least likely to repurchase a product. It also provides profitability analysis, meaning a list of customers that lead to the most profit over time.
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Credit rating
A score given to an organisation which is based on the amount of risk they propose to the debtor
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Cross Docking
A practice in the logistics of unloading materials from an incoming semi-trailer truck or railroad car and loading these materials directly into outbound trucks, trailers, or rail cars, with little or no storage in between. This may be done to change the type of conveyance, to sort material intended for different destinations, or to combine material from different origins into transport vehicles (or containers) with the same destination or similar destinations. Advantages of retail cross-docking include:
- Streamlines the supply chain, from point of origin to point of sale
- Reduces labor costs through less inventory handling
- Reduces inventory holding costs by reducing storage times and potentially eliminating the need to retain safety stock
- Products reach the distributor, and consequently the customer, faster
- Reduces or eliminates warehousing costs
- May increase available retail sales space
- Less risk of inventory handling
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Crowdsourcing
According to Jeff Howe, "Wired" journalist and author of "Crowdsourcing", crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job or service traditionally performed by a designated person or team and sourcing it to a large group of people in the form of an open call.
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Customer
The person who purchases and pays for (but doesn’t necessarily use) a product or service
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Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
The principles, practices, and guidelines that an organization follows when interacting with its customers. From the organization's point of view, this entire relationship not only encompasses the direct interaction aspect, such as sales and/or service related processes, but also in the forecasting and analysis of customer trends and behaviors, which ultimately serve to enhance the customer's overall experience.
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