An article in the Wall Street Journal (Feb 1, 2012) describes price declines through the end of December 2011, with fears of European recessionary trends, but price rises though Jan 2012. Copper and corn saw price increases of 15% and 10 % following price decreases of 12 %.  How should procurement managers adjust their strategies to react to such price shifts ? Should supplier pricing be adjusted to reflect current commodity prices or should OEMs take control of raw material procurement to consolidate purchases across suppliers ? How should suppliers be incented to use the right level of financial instruments to stablize procurement costs ?