Buyers don't toil away in isolation. In addition to their friends in Accounting, Legal, and Receiving, Buyers may also work closely with the IT Department.
This occurs in several ways.
Buyers and IT employees work together on creating, selecting, implementing, or maintaing Purchasing systems such as those used to create Purchase Orders or to track inventory.
Buyers will also work with IT to source hardware and software products for IT's use. This can be fascinating if a Buyer is interested in learning how the company's IT infratructre works in areas including telecommunications, data storage, and data processing.
Finally, Buyers rely on IT for a great deal of purchasing information. Spend reports, inventory reports, machine maintenance tracking, promotional tracking, and many other ad hoc reporting needs are all fair game for the Purchasing-IT relationship.
There are a few hints that will improve Buyers' relationships with IT. See part 2.
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