I’ve seen a lot of guides and presentations outlining, sometimes in great detail, what it takes to write a good criteria for an invitation document, but who can remember all of that. In reality, you can break it down into three areas of consideration. What do I want supplied; How will I know a supplier has it; How will I assess their responses.
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?
Competitive dialogue is an approach to market that is somewhat akin to parallel negotiation, but instead of hashing out the finer points of the final contract, the aim is to have the market refine the specification before it is published to invite final offers. It utilises the additional parameters of shared intellectual property and a collaborative process in a controlled environment that retains competitive tension through to the signing of the final contract. First written into European procurement regulations in 2006, the methodology has become a preferred method of market engagement for complex projects in the UK and it is now written into the procurement policies in New Zealand, but it is largely unheard of in Australia. The process is designed for the strictly regulated public sector procurement environment of Europe, but is there something to be learned for other environments?
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?
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?
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?
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.
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?