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.
What risks are involved and how can you manage contractors and commercial in confidence issues when you need to bring extra capacity into your organisation. Contractors, contracted resources, consultants, there are many names for the warm body we bring in to the business under contract to provide extra or specialist capacity. For this blog I’ll just refer to them as “contractors”.
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.
Historically in large organisations and the public sector, procurement has been strongly structured with frameworks of policies, procedures, work instructions and templates. While this has without a doubt increased the compliance and consistency of procurement functions, has it hit the limits of its usefulness? Is it time to review this paradigm and consider alternatives that may free up the creative thinking and tailored approaches to the unique challenges each procurement requirement presents?