CAPS, or the Center for Advanced Procurement Strategy, is a B2B nonprofit research center affiliated with Arizona State University, serving supply management leaders at Fortune 1000 companies.
Supply management has the power to transform businesses, economies, and lives, and CAPS exists – with one foot in the future – to empower leaders and advance the profession. We're here to create the connections and provide insights that elevate your organization and your team through practitioner-focused primary research, benchmarking and best practices, exclusive executive events, and space for candid conversations. We are a curious, solution-oriented, committed team working hard to deliver value to your supply management organization and help you meet your business goals. We love a challenge, so reach out!
Our mission is to inspire you
CAPS Research inspires leaders with profound discovery and executable strategies to shape the future of supply management. Research reveals the destination, benchmarking charts the course, and networking creates the path to transformation.
Value-driven offerings distinguish our membership
As a non-profit research institute, a commitment to being unbiased, insatiably curious, and member-driven is in our DNA. CAPS stands out from other professional organizations, consultancies, and services in that we are:
- Disciplined and trustworthy: Notable academics collaborate with supply management executives to develop leading-edge, executable research reports
- Sales-free, bias-free: We create consultant-free, bias-free forums for unhindered and candid exploration, with no hidden agendas.
- Practitioner-focused: All membership benefits are designed to be put to use now by everyone in your supply management organization
- Cross-industry: Get inspired by your industry's best practices, as well as strategies from our cross-industry network of supply management leaders
- Member-driven: Members set our agenda, determine our focus, and shape their own experience with CAPS.
CAPS continues true to our original principles
A legacy of thought leadership & one foot in the future
CAPS was established in 1986, affiliated with the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University in partnership with Institute for Supply Management. We leverage a lean operation and the non-bias of a not-for-profit organization while remaining deeply connected to the profession. Hear more from our founder, Dr. Harold E. Fearon on our beginnings.
Video footage of Hal Fearon courtesy of the ASU Retirees Association. © 2007 Arizona Board of Regents, for and on behalf of the Department of Archives and Special Collections, Arizona State University Libraries.
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Browse our timely benchmarking metrics and thought-provoking research with a free CAPS Library account.
Non-members can receive the report of each survey they submit.
Members can access all reports, but are encouraged to submit surveys to
increase the comparative breakouts only they receive.