Two observations about the past five years:

• Top corporate executives have become extremely interested in the purchasing and supply management function; what used to be a simple overhead burden is now a hotbed of strategic/competitive activity.
• Top corporate talent has become extremely interested in the function as well; what used to be a backwater with little opportunity for professional advancement has become a magnet for engineers, scientists, finance professionals, pedigreed MBAs and other ambitious hot shots looking for a fast track up the corporate ladder.

While the reasons for this transformation are many, we would like to think that our annual Top 250 report, on page 31 of this issue, has had a little something to do with it. Here is documentation, albeit rudimentary, that says to the corporate leader, "Here is why you need to be investing scarce corporate resources to make your purchasing and supply management function the very best in the industry!" If, as in the case of many industries, the company's purchasing and supply management organization spends an average of more than 50¢ on every dollar of revenue, then doesn't it make sense to pay attention to what's going on there, and to hire the very best, most capable people for the job? And doesn't it make sense to invest in the very best information systems to track and control how the money is being spent?

PURCHASING's data are not perfect. We're the first to admit that. Some of the data is supplied by companies; the rest is estimated based on industry ¢/dollar data collected by PURCHASING over the course of more than a decade. We have dropped some industries out of the report this year (not enough recent supplied data to allow us to estimate with confidence). We have also added to the mix some companies—for example, Unilever, Chrysler, and Bayer—that stand outside our usual criteria of being U.S.-owned. We include them for the simple reason that they willingly provide their spend data to us, they do a great deal of buying for and/or from U.S.-based manufacturing operations, and they are enough like their competitors to improve, rather than undermine, our industry spend averages and estimating guidelines.

Our story reports some outcomes of the new management attention to supply management. These include a distinct move toward centralized buying authority, greater investment in global sourcing operations, and more attention to the way the function affects a company's cash flow.