L4M6 CIPS Supplier Relationships Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

Explanation

Tim should do an audit. P.71 of the textbook says “to ensure that a procurement department is achieving value for money, an audit should be undertaken”

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

In strategic partnerships, including a continuous improvement clause is vital. This clause commits both parties to ongoing efforts to enhance processes, reduce costs, and improve quality over time. Such a commitment ensures that the partnership remains dynamic and responsive to changes, fostering long-term collaboration and mutual benefit.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

For one-off, low-value purchases that are readily available from multiple suppliers, anadversarialrelationship is often appropriate. This type of relationship is transactional, with minimal collaboration or long-term commitment. The focus is on obtaining the best price and terms for a specific purchase without investing in developing a deeper relationship.

Explanation

Using technical jargon can lead to misunderstandings if not all parties understand the jargon. See p. 158 on communication issues

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Succession issues pertain to the challenges associated with ensuring the uninterrupted supply of goods or services when transitioning from one supplier to another. Continuity of supplies is a primary concern, as any disruption can impact operations, customer satisfaction, and revenue. Effective succession planning involves:

Identifying Alternative Suppliers:Ensuring that backup suppliers are in place and capable of meeting requirements.

Knowledge Transfer:Facilitating the transfer of critical information and processes to new suppliers.

Inventory Management:Maintaining adequate stock levels during the transition period.

Other options listed, such as processing penalties, deletion of old specifications, and payment of old invoices, are administrative tasks that, while important, do not directly relate to succession planning.

Supplier pre-qualification is used to assess the suitability, capacity, and stability of suppliers before awarding contracts. While financial stability is important, CIPS emphasizes that it is not the only factor. Other considerations include technical capability, quality assurance, compliance with legislation, and sustainability of supply. Profitability ratios alone cannot determine suitability.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Leverage products are characterized by:

High profit impact:They significantly affect the company's bottom line.

Low supply risk:They are available from multiple suppliers, making it easy to switch if necessary.

These products often have standardized quality, and the competitive supply market allows buyers to negotiate favorable terms.

Value for money is achieved through a balance of quality and cost, ensuring that the goods meet performance requirements while being cost-effective, as per procurement best practices.

Explanation

This question refers to Porter's Value Chain (p.35). There's a couple of questions on this in the exam so try to learn it. Procurement is a 'support activity' on this matrix along with firm infrastructure, HR and technology development

When contracts for services transfer between providers, TUPE regulations (Transfer of Undertakings – Protection of Employment) apply in many jurisdictions. Employees retain their rights and continue employment under the new employer. Thus, employment rights are the key legal concern.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

Joint venturesandstrategic alliancesare common forms of partnerships between companies:

Joint Venture:A business arrangement where two or more parties agree to pool their resources for a specific task, creating a new entity.

Strategic Alliance:An agreement between companies to pursue objectives while remaining independent organizations.

"Sole trader," "limited company," and "public limited company" refer to business structures, not partnership arrangements.

Explanation

Jenny should consider whole life costing. Ensuring value for money means considering a combination of price and quality throughout the lifetime of the product. See p.65 for more on ‘Achieving Value for Money’

Routine suppliers typically supply low-value, low-risk items. Maintaining partnerships in such cases is inefficient since alternative suppliers are readily available. Adopting a transactional or adversarial relationship would be more appropriate.

Partnering supports supply chain consolidation and continual improvement by fostering collaboration and shared objectives. These benefits align with the strategic goals of building resilient and efficient supply chains.

Bread is a strategic item due to its high spend and critical role in daily operations. A partnership approach ensures consistent quality and reliability, aligning with strategic supplier management principles.

Explanation

The correct answer is ‘The Matrix doesn’t consider whether the stakeholder is for or against the activity’. For a list of other limitations of using Mendelow’s Stakeholder Matrix see p.82

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation:

In the Kraljic Matrix, a 'Bottleneck' item is characterized by low financial impact but high supply risk. These items may be sourced from a limited number of suppliers or involve complex logistics, making them susceptible to supply disruptions. Managing bottleneck items requires strategies focused on risk mitigation, such as developing alternative suppliers or holding strategic stock reserves.

Explanation

Fred should hold a competition as this is a ‘key way of achieving value for money’ p.67. Fred shouldn’t put a business case together to make the product in-house without doing a make vs buy analysis, and that analysis showing make is the way to go. As the firm buy in 100s of components, it’s very unlikely that making the component in-house would bring ‘value for money’. He should also be careful of only looking at current suppliers or known suppliers- the best supplier of this new component might be unknown to the engineering firm at present.

Explanation

Request for Information and Pre-Qualification Questionnaire can be used for short-listing suppliers. Request for Quotation is used when the only variable is price and you would like suppliers to submit a price for you. Invitation to Tender would be the next stage after RFI / PPQ- this is sent out to those suppliers who have passed selection, and details the second stage of the competition. See p.75 for more details.