Hospitality Purchase Managers’ Forum (HPMF) plans to introduce sustainable policy for members soon

To bring together and channelise the wealth of expertise in the subject of logistics, purchase and supply chain/ materials management as to foster a basis for best practices and encourage procurement of high quality and high standard products to upgrade the overall standard of an organisation, Hospitality Purchasing Managers’ Forum (HPMF) was formed in 2010. It is a consortium of like-minded purchasing managers from the hospitality industry representing star hotels, catering companies, standalone restaurant chains and airlines. 

The idea to form HPMF first came into the mind of Dr Nitin Shankar Nagrale who realised the importance of collective approach, power of networking and importance of work experience. Along with Dr Sanjay Goyal, he convinced likeminded purchasing professionals to be part of this innovative move. It took more than a year to bring few professionals together to form the core team comprising experienced and qualified purchasing professionals.

HPMF, now a 6,000 member strong organisation operating in 48 Indian cities with 20 chapters and and with presence in Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and the Middle East, is taking the next step to ensure the organisation is recognised as the finest professional platform for hospitality procurement fraternity in the world. Recently, the formation of the HPMF strategic team to meet the organisation’s 1,000-day agenda was announced. “The army of 150-plus highly experienced and motivated team of hospitality purchasing professionals from across 20 cities of India and neighbouring countries are raring to go to lift the benchmark HPMF creates. The plan is to form dedicated teams of these professionals to execute 100-point agenda in structured and time-bound manner. The agenda covers a gamut of activities including strategic tie-ups with various governing bodies, formation of educational programmes specially for hospitality procurement, opening of several HPMF chapters covering India and other countries, socially responsible activities to bring relief and direction to the underprivileged and to members of the fraternity,” informs Dr Nagrale.

HPMF has plans to come up with a policy where all purchase managers will take an oath that they will not be involved in any unethical practice. “The document will have to be signed by each and every HPMF member and if found guilty, he or she will be banned for life from working within the industry,” he shares. “We will soon implement our sustainable policy which was launched three years ago. Being developed at present, it will ensure that all purchase managers buy sustainable products only. It will have certain norms which the purchase or procurement manager will need to check before buying a product,” he says.

Dr Nagrale feels HPMF has exceeded the expectations with which the organisation was envisioned. “Over the last 12 years, we have gone beyond it all. And it only happens when people at the helm of affairs are passionate. All HPMF members are working professionally who work together without any financial interest for the benefit of the industry,” he avers. 

When the organisation was formed, the first step was to create a book called Basics of Hospitality Management which was penned by 20 purchase managers who were masters in their own fields like imports, negotiations, suppliers and the like. “It took about five years to collate all possible information in detail from these specialists which were then given final shape by advisory board member Jaideep Gupta. The book has graphical presentations with templates, forms and visuals. A benchmark in the industry, it is shared free of cost with all HPMF members and educational institutions having supply chain as a subject,” shares Dr Nagrale.  

During the pandemic, HPMF, informs its founder, organised weekly or fortnightly webinars based on the book which has a Q&A session after each chapter. “It helped members to learn a lot. Then we started the Guru Mantra series aimed at identifying gurus of supply chain plus hospitality management within the industry and world at large. We had 30 odd sessions where senior advisory board member Padma Shri Dr Rajnikant, Major General Dilawar Singh, late Thakur Giriraj Singh Lotwada, Dr Kaushik Jhingan, Madhu Chandhok and Mala Singh guided and advised industry professionals through a Q&A session. Several subject related webinars on hospitality management were organised too,” he shares, adding the idea has been to develop purchasing professionals and instill confidence in them to be world leaders in their respective fields. “If the purchase manager is learned and well-informed, the organisation he works with gets to benefit the most,” Dr Nagrale says.

This article was published in BW hotelier issue dated '' with cover story titled 'BW HOTELIER - THE TALENT POOL SPECIAL'