Preparing for new competitive challenges: special issue on the 24th annual IPSERA conference

The 24st IPSERA conference in Amsterdam addressed the various new competitive challenges organizations face now that business environments are changing. While we can observe an increased role of - but also an increased concentration in - logistic services and IT services acting as a bonding agent of the various business processes, we also see an increased specialisation among suppliers, resulting in roles like capacity supplier, co-maker and broker. In terms of Systems Thinking: the subsystem of ‘Suppliers’ is breaking up into three sub-systems with distinctive different characteristics, and the traditional sub-system ‘Purchasing’ has transformed into an aspect-system connecting or involving all other sub-systems, while similarly, ‘Logistics’ and ‘IT’ have developed into intertwined aspect-systems, being part of each and every sub-system. These transformations have increased managerial complexity, greatly influencing the purchasing and supply chain functions within firms. The seven papers selected from the conference examine seven aspects of those changes in detail and elaborate on the role of the PSM field in this process: PSM answers to challenges by providing answers on how to move forward in practice