An Empiricial Study of the Relationships among Purchasing Skills and Supplier Integration, Internal Integration, and Customer Focus

The aim of this research is to contribute to literature by providing skill sets of purchasing manager for supplier integration, internal integration and to enable customer focus. The research scope are on individual skills of purchasing managers, not on capabilities of purchasing function or organization even if these also have impact on integration. Our qualitative analysis has shown that to enable integral integration, manager needs especially social skills (e.g. ability to pass information and networking). For supplier integration, skills such as project management and listening are important. For customer focus, skills such as strategic planning and entrepreneurial mindset are necessary.