£6n government spend with SMEs - follow up in Yorkshire Post

There was a follow up article in the Yorkshire Post on Sunday building on what was said at the Public Procurement Briefing held in London on 9th March 2012.  It used a few more comments from my interview with the YP, and can be seen here.http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/business-news/6bn-of-government-business-going-to-smes-says-cabinet-1-4331965

Public Procurement Briefing, 9th March 2012

I was not invited (and no reason why i should have been), but I pretty much support one of the views being presentated at the event by Mark Thompson.

http://www.methods.co.uk/dr-mark-thompsons-speech-at-10-downing-street-cabinet-office-procurement-briefing-9-march-2012-2/

I do hope that this is the beginning of a real focus on smes in public procurement.  The government continues to say good things, but in their progress report while they report real progress they use weasel words about involving smes in the supply chain to government.  It is not really something they should claim as their success, and could at worst be seen as passing the buck to their suppliers.  To be watched with care.

SMEs still miss out on Public Sector Contracts

Today's Yorkshire Post (Thursday 8th March 2012) contains an article about SMEs and public procurement with extensive quotes from me.   My summary is that the government is talking a good game but more needs to be done to make sure it actually delivers the engagement with SMES that will benefit our economy.

The article is here

Keep that thought

Like many people I am often trying to juggle several different projects at the same time.  Currently, there is a sourcing project, a raft of new courses, work on contract management, and a major programme focussing on smes in supply chains that starts in April 2012.  Along with that I have agreed to write two new books (short ones this time) as part of a new range designed by Stuart Emmett (my co-author on Excellence in Public Sector Procurement).

To keep track of these, and any ideas that come along to me, I have a system of paper and electronic folders and a number of project plans and timelines. 

For the books and courses Stuart has an excellent filing system of case studies, news paper clippings and reference documents.  I find that once things hit my filing cabinet they tend to stay there.

So I am experimenting with Evernote, which is an electronic app that syncs across my phone, pcs and laptops and allows me to drop documents, images, web pages  - basically any electronic stuff - into a folder marked with key words.  It seems to be helping with the early stage process of grabbing a lot of things and looking at them until you can see what fits and what does not.  I thought it might be helpful for others too.  It is a freemium programme (free for limited use), and not I am not getting a cut.

Other productivity tools I use are Dropbox, which allows me to sync a folder of documents across my phone, laptops and pcs and is invaluable in allowing me to work on the same document in many different places.  It also reduces the worry for a travelling trainer that I might somehow lose my laptop and presentation - I can always retrieve a copy from my Dropbox.  Again freemium product - you get a limited amount of space free, but have to pay for more.  If you are interested, then we can both get more space for free if I refer you into Dropbox.

As a trainer I frequently subject people to "Death by PowerPoint".  Personally I rather like it, but I know some people hate it.  For a recent (successful) pitch we used Prezi instead, which was a rather more fun and interesting way of showing information.  Again this is free to try, but anyone can see what you produce.  A limited licence is $59/year or $159/year for the full version.  I had an objection to paying for an annual license, but it was pointed out to me that even Microsoft Office has a limited life before it is fundamentally obsolete - isnt that similar to paying an annual license?  Reasonable point.

So now to actually try and use these productivity tools to be productive, rather than blogging about them.  If you want to follow up on Evernote there is an interesting article about it on The Next Web here.

More courses for 2012

I am pleased to announce that we shall be delivering some extra courses in 2012 for our training provider partners.
These are;
Delivering Compliant Evaluation Processes for BIP Solutions - Manchester 20th March 2012, and Leeds 10th April 2012
International Trade and Shipping, for EuroMaTech in Amsterdam, 7-11 May 2012
Supply Chain and Inventory Management for EuroMaTech in Istanbul, 16-20 July 2012, and
Purchasing Negotiations Workshop for EuroMaTech in Dubai, 4th to 8th November 2012.

Booking is through the relevant partner organisation.  I shall be happy to direct you to them if you wish.

Hope to see you on one or more of these events.   The course on compliant evaluation processes is I think very useful for anyone involved in UK Public procurement.  I have been involved in a number of procurement processes that would have benefited from thinking about evaluation in more depth earlier in the tender process.

Amazon link to Excellence in Public Sector Procurement

Advertising the competition

It is a dog eat dog world out there in the global economy at the moment, and so it probably is not a good idea to advertise the competition.

However there are a couple of other Procurement blogs out there that I read, and so I thought in the interests of supporting discussion that I ought to say what they are.

Spend Matters - excellent coverage of music as well as procurement
Dr. Gordy - provocative views on UK public procurement
The PASS Procurement blog - run by my friends at BIP Solutions

Enjoy.  But please come back here too!