ISM Completes Acquisition of ADR North America

Institute for Supply Management™ (ISM) has taken a significant step to affirm its role as a trusted source for professional development and procurement sourcing and consulting. ISM, through a newly-established for-profit company called ISM Services, has purchased ADR North America (ADR NA). ADR NA provides a full range of supply management consulting, including baseline assessments, transformations of supply management operations, coordination of procurement across enterprises, risk management, category strategies and other related services. This acquisition amplifies ISM’s capacity for delivering customized professional development, consulting and skills assessments to the world’s leading companies and supply management organizations.

ISM and ADR NA have been partners for three years in a successful joint venture, the ISM-ADR School for Supply Management, which provides a broad range of professional development courses delivered in a variety of formats and native languages around the world. Last year, ISM and ADR NA established a permanent training location in China.

“As ISM expands its global influence and leads corporations to supply management excellence, it was a natural progression for us to take greater advantage of ADR’s assessment tools, educational materials and instructors,” said ISM CEO Paul Novak, CPSM, C.P.M., A.P.P., MCIPS. “This acquisition is a decisive way to do that. We’ve been delivering ADR’s state-of-practice expertise through our ISM-ADR School, and now we will offer it to companies and organizations another way — as consulting from ADR North America.”

As ISM and ADR North America unite to create a new business entity, ADR North America CEO Bill Michels, CPSM, will continue in his role as president of ADR NA and president of ADR-ISM Supply Chain Management Consulting (Shanghai) Co., Inc., and he has also been named a senior vice president of ISM.