TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd, was incorporated by an act of Parliament in 1951 to construct a natural gas pipeline across Canada. The pipeline system was originally constructed to provide for the needs of the Canadian citizens. However, US businessmen saw opportunity in investing in natural gas from Canada and in 1954 the company TransCanada Pipelines was formed by the US. After a few years of business haggling and finally support from the Canadian government, the construction began in 1957. It was not, however, until 1967 that TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd was allowed to extend the pipelines across the Great Lakes into the US (Lehman Brothers Collection). With over 60 years’ experience, TransCanada Pipelines, Ltd, or TransCanada, asserts that …show more content…
In the 2014 annual report, TransCanada listed safe, efficient and value generating operations of the asset base as the first strategic priority. Along with this, the company prioritizes maintaining financial strength and flexibility to grow. Growth is assured through priorities to completed $12 billion in small to medium sized capital projects by the end of 2017. More impressive, TransCanada prioritizes a strategy to complete $34 billon in commercially secured large scale projects by the end of a decade. Finally, TransCanada prioritizes capture of low risk opportunities to add to the growth it seeks (TransCanada Pipelines Ltd. , …show more content…
This is similar to a grocer managing categories of goods such as juices rather than one juice account. TransCanada, using Category Management, determines first whether a category is strategic by considering if the category is a large volume category, if the category provides competitive advantage, if the category is a scarce commodity, etc. (Borgardt, 2015). For example, transmission line pipe is a major purchase item for TransCanada. This is a strategic item. In being strategic, the company will follow the market closely; more so due to the category also being a global commodity. Before making purchases, the supply chain team will consider opportunities or bundling to leverage savings on volume, optimal commodity pricing and delivery windows and other logistics (Borgardt, 2015). In the process of overhauling the supply chain at TransCanada, management has taken note of several important facts. Open communication with key suppliers is beneficial and having long term agreements for most strategic categories is also helpful. Finally, having a single supply chain focused on all activities throughout the company eliminates internal competition (Borgardt,