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Commodity Procurement with Operational and Financial Instructions
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Increasing global competition and cost pressure force enterprises and supply chains
to discover undetected cost-saving potentials. In particular, interfaces to the procurement
market are a promising field for improvement. Recent developments
in international trade outline the high influence of uncertain deliveries and highly
volatile prices on the companies’ costs. A vital question in research, industry, and
politics addresses the optimal procurement policy of raw materials due to uncertain
future prices and is of highest priority for the firms’ success and even the wealth of
a nation. Nowadays, commodity markets and commodity derivative markets offer
transparent, fast, and efficient trade and risk sharing for raw materials and financial
products on raw material prices, e.g., option contracts. This coexistence of operational
and financial procurement instruments, i.e., buying opportunities on spot
and derivative markets, offers an auspicious chance to optimize the procurement
policy in the crucial problem of raw material procurement which is the focus of
this thesis.