Book excerpt: This valuable guide is an entertaining read due to the analogies made to various sports. It provides an easy to follow game plan and strategies for procurement and supply management professionals to improve supplier relationships, secure measurable cost reductions, achieve operational effectiveness and efficiency, and positively impact margins and competitiveness for their organizations. The authors use real-world scenarios and examples to make the procurement and supply management principles and concepts more relevant and easy to understand. They present guidelines, techniques, and tools for converting a transaction-based reactive function into a proactive and powerful strategic contributor, and include practical advice on selecting the right and effective organizational design. This book offers the guidance needed to take the procurement professionals career and department to the next level. It is ideal for self-learning, training, a classroom instruction.