CIPS Level 2 Procurement common mistakes
CIPS Level 2 Procurement · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writes that procurement and purchasing mean the same thing, or picks a definition of purchasing when the question asks about the wider procurement process.
In their own organisation the department is often called 'purchasing' and the two words are used loosely every day, so the exam's narrower technical distinction feels artificial.
What to do instead
Learn one line and apply it: purchasing is the transactional act of buying (raising a PO, placing an order); procurement is the whole cycle from identifying a need through sourcing, contracting, managing the contract and eventual disposal. Test it against five definition-style questions before the exam.
Selects the lowest-priced option as 'best value' or 'most economical' in a scenario question.
Price is usually the only hard number in the scenario, so it feels like the objective answer, and candidates overlook quality, lead time, risk, running costs and disposal costs that the scenario has mentioned or implied.
What to do instead
Before choosing, run a checklist of quality, quantity, time, place and whole-life cost over each option, and only select on price if the scenario explicitly says the requirement is standardised and price is the sole differentiator.
When asked which of the 'five rights' has been compromised, names the wrong one, for example answering 'right price' when the scenario describes a delivery that arrived late or short.
Candidates match on the most emotionally noticeable detail in the scenario rather than checking each right against a definition, and many have never written the five rights out as separate definitions.
What to do instead
Write out right quality, right quantity, right time, right place and right price with a one-phrase definition of each, then drill ten short scenarios where you must name the single right that failed and quote the words in the scenario that prove it.
Memorises only one side of centralisation versus decentralisation, so cannot state a disadvantage of a centralised function, or claims centralisation delivers 'local responsiveness'.
Revision notes are often copied as a single list of advantages without the matching drawbacks, so under exam pressure the candidate recalls a benefit that actually belongs to the other structure.
What to do instead
Build a two-column table scored against fixed criteria: economies of scale, consistency and control, specialist expertise, duplication, speed of decision, local responsiveness and proximity to internal customers. Learn one advantage and one drawback per structure for each criterion.
Classifies items or services as direct or indirect procurement by value or size rather than by purpose, for example labelling expensive IT equipment used to run the business as direct procurement.
Value and visibility feel like a reliable clue, and candidates have not internalised that the distinction is about whether the spend enters the product or service sold to the customer.
What to do instead
Apply a single test: direct spend becomes part of the goods or services sold to the customer; indirect spend supports the organisation (MRO items, utilities, professional services, office and IT). Run ten purchased items through that test and label each one direct or indirect.
Sequences the procurement cycle incorrectly, such as placing supplier selection or negotiation before the need has been defined and specified, or stopping at contract award and omitting contract management and review.
The stages were learned as a linear list to be recited rather than as a cycle, so the logical dependencies between defining a need and going to market are not understood.
What to do instead
Redraw the cycle from memory each revision session: identify need, define and specify the requirement, develop the sourcing strategy, identify and pre-qualify suppliers, obtain quotations or tenders, evaluate, negotiate, award, manage the contract, review and dispose or re-tender. Then describe the consequence of skipping the stage before it.
Confuses specification types, for example choosing a conformance specification when the scenario describes a buyer stating the required outcome and letting suppliers propose the solution.
Candidates learn the labels but not the distinguishing question, so they choose by keyword rather than by asking whether the buyer is prescribing how the item is made or what it must achieve.
What to do instead
Attach one trigger phrase to each type: conformance specification prescribes materials or method; performance or functional specification states the required output and leaves the solution to the supplier; proprietary or brand specification names a specific product. Sort five short examples into the three types until the trigger is automatic.
Describes the three-way match incorrectly, for example stating it matches the purchase order, invoice and payment, or leaving out the goods receipt note.
The payment step feels intuitively like the third document because the purpose of the control is to release payment, so the goods receipt note gets displaced.
What to do instead
Memorise the trio as purchase order, goods receipt note and invoice, agreeing on quantity, price and terms before payment is released. Also learn the exception: a two-way match of order and invoice is used where no goods receipt is raised, such as many service contracts.
Treats the purchase requisition and the purchase order as the same document, or states that the buyer raises the requisition and the user department raises the order.
In small organisations one person performs both tasks, and the candidate maps that personal experience onto the exam rather than the standard authorisation flow.
What to do instead
Learn the flow and who owns each step: the user department raises and gets approval for the requisition (an internal request authorising a need); procurement raises the purchase order and sends it to the supplier as the contractual instruction. Practise by sketching the full path from requisition to payment and labelling who acts at each point.
Plots a stakeholder on the power/interest grid correctly but then gives the wrong engagement approach, for example saying a high-power, low-interest stakeholder such as a finance director should be 'kept informed'.
Candidates rehearse more communication as a universal answer instead of learning the quadrant-specific action, and they do not have a concrete example attached to each quadrant.
What to do instead
Learn the four quadrants with their actions and one procurement example each: high power and high interest means manage closely (e.g., the budget-holding internal customer); high power and low interest means keep satisfied (e.g., finance director); low power and high interest means keep informed (e.g., end users); low power and low interest means monitor (e.g., peripheral community groups).