Hey, I have a discussion board in Supply chain class which is about answering some questions from the book and discuss it with the students.

First question:  What role can (should) supply play in determining a firm’s strategy in the area of social and environmental issues and trends?

Second question: How does specialization within supply differ in small and large organizations?

For these questions, search about them in google or from any other sources.  

You have to answer them as you are discussing your opinion on them with people not in essay format because there will be posted on the discussion board.  

Third one: Can you have a supply strategy in public procurement? Why or why not?

Public procurement can have a supply strategy. Even though public organizations have to be more transparent than those of private organizations it is still possible to develop a supply strategy. Public organizations also have many requirements that can make it difficult to find suppliers and so on. When there are more requirement it makes public companies choose suppliers off of the lowest price. Private companies on the other hand have the ability to source based on different merits. For strategic reasons private companies may choose a supplier based on quality or on time delivery, rather than lowest price. If public companies have strong specifications and quality standards then developing a supply strategy within public organizations is still achievable. Since I do work in a public organization I have seen how difficult it is to develop a strong supply strategy. It can be difficult when the company is so large that there are different specification and quality standards across various lines of business. I believe that our company could have more leverage with suppliers if all lines of business had uniform standards to negotiate and bring leverage into an agreement.

For the last question: this is a student post with his answer, I need from you to comment or response back in his answer as a discussion.   

All these questions are from this book: Purchasing & Supply Management by Johnson and Flynn, 2015, 15th Edition, McGraw-Hill