Dear chief purchasing officer,
We, the collective purchasing staff, have collated our thoughts on how you could help us to help you. Here are a few things we hope you will keep in mind: Continue reading
Within the Tour de France there are a number of competitions, such as the King of the Mountains (polka dot jersey), as well as the overall competition (the Yellow Jersey).
At the CIPS Supply Management Awards 2011, I was delighted to go up on stage with the rest of the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) team to receive procurement’s equivalent of both the King of the Mountains and Overall Leader jerseys, winning ‘Best Public Procurement’ and ‘Overall Winner’.
This was the first time that a public body has won the overall award and we all feel honoured to have been recognised in this way. Continue reading
As businesses actively consider ‘public cloud’ services – particularly as a vehicle for significant cost reduction – CPOs need to be aware of some of the key challenges associated with this innovation. Continue reading
A few weeks ago I rode the London to Brighton Bike Ride in the company of 27,000 other brave souls.
After the expected congestion of London, the route became even more crowded in the Surrey hills as a result of narrow roads and the combination of increased gravity and rusty machinery (both human and metal).
As I swerved around a cyclist dressed as huntsman, who in turn was chasing another dressed as a fox, I narrowly avoided another dressed as a French onion seller (complete with garlic and odour), who then disappeared into the verge.
I pondered the similarities between my predicament and that of a buyer in a crowded market where demand is high and supply limited. Continue reading
My little bicycle computer tells me that so far this week I have cycled for three hours, covering 42.6 miles at an average of 14.2 miles an hour. It tells me that I need to work on my average speed and the Tour de France is not beckoning.
Data is also crucial to managing companies and organisations; in procurement terms this is normally to track and control spend, for instance, how many suppliers are used and how spend is distributed among them. This allows areas of leverage to be identified and maximised and un-procured vendors to be identified and brought under procurement control and commercial management.
As I fixed my second puncture of the day on my cycle to work the other day, I found myself pondering the limitations of technology.
At the Olympic Delivery Authority, we have used e-tendering and e-evaluation for all procurements over £25,000 and this technology has been crucial to us. Continue reading
One of the sure signs of a tough economy is the number of cold calls I get, whether from recruitment agencies or fleet management companies promising to slash my fleet cost by 30 per cent, or e-procurement providers that will boldly take my data where no data has ever gone before.
How do you buy something when you don’t know what you want? We’ve often faced this problem at the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA).
Given our fixed deadline for delivery, contractor mobilisation and delivery timescales, and the time required for the procurement process, our programme sometimes forces us to go to market before all of our requirements are fully defined.
The problem is then how to elicit strong commercial offers from bidders and stay within the law without a firm scope or specification?
I’ve had cause to rethink my position on Apple a little, following a weekend walking in the Lakes.
Climbing those hills always gives you time to think. When I turned up on Friday night at the house, one of our party – who frankly isn’t the most technically savvy of individuals – was using his iPad to check the weather for the next day’s walk.
Now I have been able to access the net in the Lakes for a number of years – routinely getting out my 3G card, starting my VPN client, entering my password etc, etc . Continue reading
The cuts planned by governments around the world have dominated the news over the past few months, accompanied by an ongoing debate as to whether such cuts are realistic. Since the arrival of a new government in May, this argument has been particularly loud in the UK.
I don’t know whether the target should be 20 per cent or 30 per cent, but it is clear to me there are cuts to be made. Saving money is a four-legged pony: you can pay less, you can change the specification of what you buy, you can change when you buy it, or, most effectively, you can choose not to buy it at all. I can’t comment on the first two, but it seems to me that there is plenty of scope for reducing what we spend money on, and when we spend it. Continue reading
