Procurement Policy

Scalability of Interactive Procurement Processes

Post author:PME4U
Post published:January 31, 2017
Post category:Market Engagement Market Research Probity And Ethics Procurement Policy Procurement Processes Uncategorized
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Interactive procurement processes open up the channels of communication between supplier and buyer. They enable both sides to get a better understanding of the requirements and the solution that allows better deals to be brokered, bigger pies to be baked if you like. They also allow the gap between what the customer thinks they are getting and what the supplier is able to give to be narrowed. But often these processes are seen as complex and expensive exercises that require extended periods to execute. What if they could be adapted to allow any size procurement benefit from improved communication between the buyer and the seller.

Does your market engagement model surprise your vendors?

Post author:PME4U
Post published:August 16, 2015
Post category:Market Engagement Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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When going to market for the provision of new goods or services, we are aiming to get the best deal we can and often in the shortest possible time, but are these two objectives mutually exclusive? Can you expect the best outcomes when you minimise the vendors response time? Does the market engagement model you currently use to engage the market often result in catching the suppliers unprepared and unable to provide a good response?

The real cost of low integrity procurement

Post author:PME4U
Post published:July 25, 2015
Post category:Capability Development Probity And Ethics Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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Last year I noted two significant cases, amongst many others, of poor procurement practices resulting court cases and the payment of damages. Envoy Relocation Services successfully sued the Canadian Government for unfair treatment during successive procurement processes. The court awarded Envoy $30 million in lost profits and also directed the Government to pay Envoys $10 million legal costs; in another case, a major retailer sued a Central NSW coast council in Australia over a faulty process, resulting in damages of around $2 million being awarded to the retailer. The council later appealed and won, but the court, delays and internal staff costs must have been significant. While these commercial horror stories will capture the headlines and provide great examples for frightening clients during probity briefings, are the fines the only damage suffered by organisations through poor procurement practices resulting in low integrity procurement.

Qld State Government – New Tender and Contract Templates

Post author:PME4U
Post published:March 21, 2015
Post category:Contract Management Contracting Frameworks Probity And Ethics Procurement Policy Procurement Processes Templates Tools
Post comments:2 Comments

As a key component of their goal of making it easier and more efficient for suppliers and agencies to do business with each other, in February this year the Procurement Transformation Division launched a new set of goods and services procurement invitation and contractual frameworks for use by all Government Agencies. If you are a supplier to or a buyer for the Queensland State Government and you haven't familiarised yourself with them yet, then it is high time you did. So what is new and what do we need to know about this new framework?

Contracting services with certainty when requirements are uncertain

Post author:PME4U
Post published:March 9, 2014
Post category:Capability Development Contracting Frameworks Market Engagement Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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The whole concept of a contract is to provide certainty of the agreement between two or more parties, but what do you do if that certainty does not exist and you need to provide a level of certainty in the relationship?

The importance of compliance with policy

Post author:PME4U
Post published:January 30, 2014
Post category:Capability Development Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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A few years ago I was told by a middle manager to stop referring to the policy "...as the policy is not always right". More recently I was in a procurement reform workshop and the statement was made that we should "...stop focusing on compliance and instead focus on outcome". Back a few years I was chatting to a bio chemist who was traveling the world reviewing quality systems, he said "Australia has some of the best quality systems I've seen anywhere in the world...none of them work, but on paper they look great". These are all symptoms of the same issue and often "reducing compliance" is seen as the answer, but what is really going on?

What is so bad about single sourcing?

Post author:PME4U
Post published:January 12, 2014
Post category:Market Engagement Probity And Ethics Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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Proponents of single sourcing will identify value for money in the close working relationship, saved time through removal of ramp up requirements and extensive knowledge of the organisation. So why do procurement professionals frown upon single sourcing to the point of implementing policies and extended approvals in an attempt to deter it?

Weightings or no weightings, that is the question

Post author:PME4U
Post published:December 21, 2013
Post category:Capability Development Evaluation Market Engagement Probity And Ethics Procurement Policy Procurement Processes
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Establishing a detailed and concise set of response criteria not only facilitates the extraction of key information in vendors responses, helping to align their solution with the actual requirements, it also allows easier evaluation and scoring of those responses, but not all criteria has equal importance. This is where applying a method of weighting the criteria provides the ability to define which criterion will have the greatest benefit to delivering the requirement and is therefore more important. But the question is, should the weighting be published as part of the invitation for offer, or should it be for internal information only?

Taking the long way round, but don’t walk it

Post author:PME4U
Post published:December 7, 2013
Post category:Capability Development Procurement Policy
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Let me state emphatically off the bat that this "Procurement Made Easy for You" website is not targeted at shortcuts or workarounds, few things will kill process efficiency and effectiveness quicker than taking the easy way out. There is nothing clever or admirable in delivering an outcome by skipping over all the foundations, keystones and frameworks that ensure the outcome is built to last.

Living by the Principles

Post author:PME4U
Post published:December 1, 2013
Post category:Procurement Policy
Post comments:1 Comment

Ok, so we've decided to implement the principles based procurement policy approach outlined in It's the Principle that Counts, but how do we do that in the real world. Reviewing these principles, the first thing that will strike you is that they are very broad principles. This is because they are defined at the 30,000 ft level, they are a strategic direction and therefore not designed to be implemented in an operational context. Like most policies, they provide insufficient information as to how to actually achieve the principles, so to operationalise it, you need to bring it down a few levels.