Chapter Overview

ISM—Fort Worth is a local association of Supply Management professionals who are affiliated with the global organization the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®). Celebrating a 90 year anniversary, the local association’s roots go back to 1920 when purchasing professionals at the time (Purchasing Agents) got together to exchange ideas and network.

Since that time “purchasing” as a profession has grown dramatically in the world of business and academia. Just since the late 1970’s most major corporations have moved away from vertical integration to focus their resources on their primary strengths.  This change in business philosophy evolved into dramatic outsourcing programs during the 1980’s and 1990’s which subsequently created the need for more purchasing professionals who would need to procure and maintain more materials and/or services, especially those that were being outsourced. Basically, purchasing moved from being a subset of the accounting office to become a major critical function of the total organization. The increasing importance of supply management as a cost reduction strategy is seen by the change in percentage of purchased materials and/or services within most organization’s cost of goods sold (COGS) over the past 30 to 40 years. This percentage has typically increased from 20 to 30 percent in the old days to as much as 60 to 70 percent in many companies today. Along with this evolution has come an expectation for practitioners to be college graduates, experienced in a variety of business areas, technically knowledgeable, legally knowledgeable, good negotiators, builders of supplier relationships, and certified by a professional organization.

ISM—Fort Worth seeks to promote the supply management profession and assist purchasing professionals as they move toward the highest levels of professional performance by providing opportunities for networking, education, and individual achievement of professional certification, Certified Professional in Supply Management® (CPSM®).  Membership with ISM and ISM—Fort Worth is beneficial for all types of supply management individuals, from the person in a small business who may wear many hats (including buying responsibilities) to the highly specialized category manager in a large corporation.