From Product Category to Readiness Profile: A Multiple-Case Analysis of Constraint Configurations in Industrial Procurement

Industrial procurement is commonly organized through product categories, supplier markets, and purchasing classifications. These structures support sourcing and commercial management, but they do not necessarily reveal which combination of technical, source, compliance, logistics, and timing constraints shapes a specific procurement requirement. This study examines that distinction through a retrospective exploratory multiple-case analysis of twelve documented industrial procurement assignments undertaken between October 2022 and October 2024.Using structured documentary coding, the study compares five evidence-rich cases representing technically and commercially different procurement requirements. The findings indicate that readiness-related constraints occur in different configurations and that materially different procurement requirements may share individual readiness dimensions while exhibiting distinct overall constraint configurations. On this basis, the article develops a preliminary typology of Readiness Profiles defined by requirement-specific constraint configurations rather than by product identity. The contribution is exploratory: it demonstrates how heterogeneous procurement assignments can be compared through a common analytical structure without treating product category as a direct proxy for readiness exposure. Статья 2. From Product Category…