According to our text, there are three ways a firm can organize itself for supply research - making it the responsibility of a full-time staff, making it a part-time responsibility, or creating a cross-functional team. (Johnson, 2020) A full-time researcher is beneficial as they are able to focus solely on the research and are skilled in researching, whereas a buyer may not have the needed skill or the time to give research the deserved amount of focus while balancing it with buying; however this strategy can result in internal issues if the buyer (or other decision-maker) does not agree with the researcher's findings and disregards them. Making research a part-time responsibility for a buyer instead is useful since the buyer is most familiar with what is being researched and can add their own experience as reference; however, the buyer would have to balance research with the rest of their responsibilities and may not be able to give enough focus to each area. A cross-functional team is beneficial because it allows for input from multiple areas of the company, which can help give well-rounded input, as one area may consider something another area did not. The issue with cross-functional teams, however, is that it is hard to figure out who is responsible for the results and that the team can only be successful if all members of the team are giving the right amount of attention and effort (Johnson, 2020).

For a small organization, making research a part-time responsibility would be beneficial, as the buyer's volume of work may be small enough for them to have enough time to add research to their responsibilities without sacrificing their buying responsibilities. For a medium-sized organization, I believe a cross-functional team would work best. Cross-functional teams can allow different areas of the organization to collaborate and a medium-sized organization should be big enough that the participants in the team can shift some of their responsibilities to other members of their department if needed. For a large organization, making research a full-time job would be best. The larger the company, the more emphasis and attention is needed for research, so it'd be beneficial to have an employee or team who is solely dedicated to it. A cross-functional team could be a good alternative, but there is a potential issue if the organization is so big that it has different branches in different time zones, as that can make it more difficult for the team to organize to have the necessary meetings (Matthias, n.d.)

Agree or Disagree? Why?