The Hutchinson Purchasing University was set up to serve three purposes: provide the skills necessary to meet the function’s new needs and address changing markets; raise the international purchasing community’s skills to professional level; and develop collaboration between the purchasing function and cross-company support functions.
The aim is to unite the network of 300 Hutchinson buyers around a common set of standards and maintain a consistent level of skills on a lasting basis.
Cegos was charged with designing the international university’s entire curriculum: the programme, the educational engineering, and the design of bespoke content for 21 modules delivered in four languages (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish).
A novel feature of this Purchasing University is that some modules are open to other functions, such as R&D, quality specialists, legal experts, the finance community, sales people: an essential move for fostering dialogue and developing collaboration.
Over the past six years, more than 100 training sessions have been organised around the world, all led by Cegos trainers (in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Portugal, the USA, Brazil, Eastern Europe, China and Central America).
Because the training courses foster dialogue and feedback on markets, suppliers and issues specific to the purchasing community, the university has resulted in the creation of a fully-fledged group purchasing network.
