Luca Mattia Gelsomino and co-authors win IFPSM Paper Award

Luca Mattia Gelsomino and co-authors recently received the International Federation on Purchasing and Supply Management (IFPSM) Award for Best Practical Relevance for their paper. Gelsomino, Christiaan de Goeij (Windesheim University of Applied Sciences) and Roan de Vries (VHZ Group) received the award from IPSERA for their paper titled ‘Understanding the Connection Between Purchase-to-Pay and Value Capture: A Matter of Mundane Transaction Costs’.

Luca Mattia Gelsomino is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business’ (FEB) Department of Operations. Roan de Vries obtained his master’s degree in Supply Chain Management at FEB last year, where his master’s thesis was supervised by Gelsomino. Christiaan de Goeij is a researcher and lecturer in Supply Chain Finance at the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in Zwolle.

Their work focuses on Purchase-to-Pay (P2P):  the end-to-end business process covering the entire lifecycle of acquiring goods or services, from the initial requisition (need) to the final payment to the supplier. P2P is an interface process that connects together suppliers, the purchasing department and finance and control. The paper finds that companies struggle to organise their P2P process due to its intrinsic cross-functional nature and difficulties in aligning competing objectives. Moreover, theory typically considers P2P to be an operational process, but the paper shows that for the companies that were part of the research, it is a relevant driver to distribute value created from supplier relationships. Gelsomino, De Goeij and De Vries’ applied research helped companies and their suppliers reduce hidden costs, manage supply risk and improve cash flow management.

IPSERA and IFPSM

The International Purchasing and Supply Education and Research Association (IPSERA) is a worldwide diverse community of academics, consultants and practitioners from a wide range of sectors, industries and organisations, such as government, companies of all sizes, semi-state bodies, hospitals, retail outlets, service sector, NGOs, charities, the media, etcetera.  IPSERA organizes an annual conference, during which it presents its Best Paper Awards. The association also facilitates the formation of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) centered around topics in the purchasing and supply management domain. The International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management (IFPSM) is the union of 48 National and Regional Purchasing Associations worldwide.