PAWA Consulting blog

Advertising the competition

2012-01-30T16:02:00.000Z

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!

Government becomes an office landlord

2012-01-28T14:22:00.000Z

The government has just announced a scheme where empty office space in public sector properties will be leased to small businesses. The aim is to encourage entrepreneurship, and strengthen the small business sector whilst helping to generate income from public properties that will otherwise sit idle. These are laudable aims, but I have strong reservations about the scheme in practice.

Firstly, the government is setting itself up in competition to private sector commercial landlords. I don’t know about in London, but in much of the country there is no shortage of commercial space available at low rents and flexible about the size and duration of the lease. It may be a big problem in London, but it is not in Leeds where the scheme was launched, or Bradford where I am based. In fact there is a problem of too much space chasing too few tenants. The government offering their surplus space, whilst a reasonable commercial proposition, is likely to end up undercutting the commercial offer (by offering better facilities, infrastructure. decor etc. for the same price) which in the end may lead to a lessening of total space available and in the short term may drive some commercial spaces out of business.

Enough sympathy for the landlords (sorry Ben and Helen, who provide my office space). The bigger worry to me is that the government is sending a message that start-up businesses need formal office space. Some do – but they can probably look after themselves. Obviously manufacturing tends to need dedicated premises, which is one reason it is so hard to start successfully. Service industries, including retail these days, often do not need their own office until they are large enough to pay for them at commercial rates. New businesses are often better setting up from the kitchen table or garage until the cash flow is strong enough. I was based at home for nearly 10 years. People starting off in business are sometimes seduced by the glamour of setting up, when what they need is to strip out anything that does not generate cash. A website is a much better investment than an atrium.

Feel free to disagree.

Happy new year

2012-01-23T13:04:00.002Z

apologies for the lack of blog posts, but a persistent chest infection has knocked me off my feet for a few weeks. More to come soon.

New London Training courses for Oil and Gas industry in 2012

2011-12-21T10:43:00.000Z

I shall be presenting a new range of courses in London in 2012. They are aimed at the oil and gas industry, but most will have much wider applications than that. Contact me for further details.

20th February - 24th February 2012

Best Practices in Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals
Effective Purchasing and Supply for the Oil and Gas Industry

20th February - 2nd March

Advanced Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

27th February - 2nd March

Effective Project Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

26th March - 30th March

Successful Negotiation in Procurement and Sourcing

16th April - 20th April

Maximising Performance via Supply Chain Management in Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

14th May - 18th May

International Sourcing and Purchasing for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

14th May - 25th May

The Complete Programme for Sourcing and Purchasing within the Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Fields

21st May - 25th May

Advanced International Sourcing and Purchasing for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

11th June - 15th June

Effective Purchasing and Supply for the Oil and Gas Industry

2nd July - 6th July

Effective Project Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

17th September - 28th September

The Complete Programme for Sourcing and Purchasing within the Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals Fields

24th September - 28th September

Advanced International Sourcing and Purchasing for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

1st October - 5th October

Best Practices in Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

1st October - 12th October

Advanced Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

8th October - 12th October

Effective Project Procurement Management for Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

26th November - 30th November

Maximising Performance via Supply Chain Management in Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals

3rd December - 7th December

Successful Negotiation in Procurement and Sourcing

Course dates for 2012

2011-12-20T14:58:00.000Z

I shall be presenting the event Developing Compliant Evaluation Processes for BIP Solutions in Manchester on 20th March 2012, and Birmingham on 10th April 2012. Hope to see you there. Details on the BIP solutions website.

New book on Public Sector Procurement

2011-12-15T07:18:00.000Z

Our new book is now published by Cambridge Academic, and is called “Excellence in Public Sector Procurement in Public Sector Procurement-How to control costs and add value”

Co-authored with Stuart Emmett, it has been written because whilst, there are many general books covering Procurement, not many cover solely the public sector.

Yet this sector spends colossal amounts of taxpayer’s money on goods and services; the NHS alone, for example, is one the largest organisations in the world.

The UK public sector also has its own peculiarities and differences from the private sector, for example, the EU Procurement Rules that guide and direct how purchasing must be undertaken. At regional and local level there are additional priorities, which are often subject to political oversight. In addition there are opportunities to use Procurement as a tool for wider objectives.

It may be that such regulation constrains and limits procurement best practice and therefore such tensions will also be briefly explored in the book. However the main thrust of the book, will be the requirement to work working within the existing rules and guidelines.

The style of the book is our usual one of being direct with little jargon. It covers all of the basics as well as providing detailed and wider discussions to encourage thought and practical application. To facilitate practical application, the book is illustrated by case studies and application checklists.

The contents cover the following main sections:

Part one. Procurement Objectives

· Procurement Evolution and The Supply Chain

· Strategic and Organizational Procurement

· Procurement Objectives

· The 5 Rights

· Product and Services Differences

· Procurement by the Strategic Requirements

Part two: The Procurement Cycle

· Needs/Specifying

· Sourcing

· Enquiry and Evaluation

· Tendering in the Public Sector

· Order placing and Contracts

· Handling orders

· Progressing and Delivery

· Loss and Disputes

· Balancing Commercial and social objectives

Part three. Public Sector Procurement Frameworks

· Overview

· The Regulatory framework

· Lower Value Procurements

· Best Value concepts

· SME concordat

Part four. Best Practice and Contexts

· Suppliers pricing

· Relationship based approaches

· Outsourcing with NHS Case Study

· Private Finance Initiative

· ICT and E- Procurement

· ICT Project Procurement

· Buying from the third sector

· Supplier Development

· Contract Management

· Budget management

Part five. Public Sector Procurement: some Conclusions

· Size of the public sector

· Controversy: Is tendering the best way?

Appendices

· Public sector Procurement in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

· International Public Procurement challenges

This book is intended for:

· Professional managers in all public sector procurement and supply roles and positions.

· Suppliers in the private sector who need to understand the public sector

· Academics such as lecturers or students studying business topics like procurement, purchasing and the supply chain

· Students of professional institutes such as the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, Institute of Supply Management and others.

The book is available right now from:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Excellence-Public-Sector-Procurement-Stuart/dp/1903499666/ref=sr_1_37?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322819339&sr=1-37

Excellence in Public Sector Procurement - comments and corrections

2011-12-08T17:20:00.000Z

We stated in the book that any corrections, new insights and reader comments would be welcome at this blog. The book took about two years to write and publish, but even so there are bound to be some mistakes - we welcome the chance to correct them here is our readers tell us about them. There will also be a number of differences of opinion - which we would like to be able to debate. Finally in a fast moving environment such as public sector procurment there are bound to be changes - which we shall try to keep track of here. Once such is the new EC procurement thresholds which apply from 1 January 2012 - see here.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Excellence in Public Sector Procurement - Emmett & Wright

2011-12-02T10:51:00.000Z

At long last the book is out - see here for details

The Death of the Euro

2011-11-29T14:41:00.002Z

I am at heart pro-Europe and pro-Euro. Both positions that require some defending in the UK. At least if you read the Daily Mail, Telegraph, or Express. However I believe that European countries have more in common than we realise, and more than our differences. (I am writing this in Kuala Lumpur, a wonderful westernised city that is more different to, say, London that any city in Europe) I also have a historic view that says that the main purpose of the European Union is to prevent a further major European war - in which it has so far been very successful.

The principle of the Euro is easy to see - a single currency for a trading bloc larger than the USA, providing a potential counterweight to the US Dollar, making it easier to trade across borders and promoting a single European identity.
Through the travails of the Eurozone, as first Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, and now Greece, Italy, Spain and even Belgium, struggled to escape the current crisis I was hopeful that the Euro would survive.

As I now talk to my delegates from the Gulf on my course in KL, I find that my beliefs have changed and I no longer think that it is going to survive. The problems appear to be both economic and political. The politics rather over rides the economic, because in some ways they are the cause of the economic problems. In setting up the Euro the EU governments allowed countries into the Eurozone for political reasons that had no purpose in being there (Italy, Greece) and then ignored its own rules to allow the big countries (France and Germany) to flout the rules with no consequence. These were political decisions. Meanwhile across Europe politicians played narrow, local political games without attempting to persuade a sceptical European public of the benefits of the EU. Countries that were beneficiaries of EU largesse (such as Eire) were in favour - the funders were more sceptical (particularly GB). Robert Peston of the BBC, the usual harbinger of doom, has a lot of information about how the cost of borrowing in the Eurozone is going to pull it apart (in fairly short order). Michael Lewis's new book "Boomerang" is also very informative about how the economic markets are now likely to bet against Eurozone countries and the Euro. Link here

Gordon Brown's 5 economic tests now seem wise in ensuring we did not join. They were;

Are business cycles and economic structures compatible so that we and others could live comfortably with euro interest rates on a permanent basis?
If problems emerge is there sufficient flexibility to deal with them?
Would joining EMU create better conditions for firms making long-term decisions to invest in Britain?
What impact would entry into EMU have on the competitive position of the UK's financial services industry , particularly the City 's wholesale markets?
In summary, will joining EMU promote higher growth, stability and a lasting increase in jobs?

The Eurozone countries did not have equivalents, and now are living with the consequences. However for all the potential benefits of saving the Euro, the European public has not been convinced to do so. Politicians have failed to prepare the ground for such an eventuality, and so there is no support for any action. And the inaction is pulling down the Euro in an irresistible slow train wreck. In order to protect the Euro, it seems necessary to move strongly towards a United States of Europe - which is unpalatable to voters. Acting in ways that might allow the Euro to survive is pretty much electoral suicide in any Eurozone country (and indeed in GB). So the inevitable outcome now seems to be the death of the Euro.

The resulting chaos will not be pretty (and not for the UK either - we don't seem to realise how dependent we are on the EU for our own economic well being). At the end of it the Euro as a single currency will be unthinkable for a couple of generations (at least). It is possible that it may even lead to a break up of the EU itself (the only way for Greece to leave the Euro at the moment is to leave the EU as well), at least of peripheral countries which will fundamentally change the nature and role of the EU.

The fantasy of some is that this breakup will be easy and simple and lead to the reinstatement of a simple European free trading zone, with very little in the way of legislation slowing down public sector procurement. My feeling is that this is far off the mark - we are likely to retain much of the restrictive legislation for years as a hangover (at least), whilst restrictions on free trade will be quickly imposed by any country leaving the EU. But I could be wrong - after all, I was on the Euro. (I think).

Mixing procurement and politics

2011-11-29T14:09:00.000Z

My colleague at BIP Solutions, Eddie Reagan, makes a lot of sense about politics and procurement in this blog here.http://www.passprocurement.com/blog/2011/10/11/politicians-and-procurement-dont-mix/

Business Basics: Looking after your health

2011-11-06T13:14:00.000Z

The Head of Lloyds TSB, Antonio Horta-Osorio, is taking medical leave after suffering from physical and mental exhaustion. There has been speculation about whether he will ever return, but thankfully relatively little suggestion that his illness showed that he was not up to the job.

There is a common machismo in business that can easily lead people to overwork without taking care of themselves. It is an easy trap. Office life is pretty sedantary, commuting is both stressful and sedentary, and much business life revolves around either lunches or fast food grabbed on the run. It is easy to put on weight and take no exercise. And to cap it all wine or beer often accompanies the lunch or dinner, or is an easy way to relax after a stressful day with the boss, co-workers or customers. Holidays are distractions from the office, and thanks to blackberries and the internet often not even that much of a break.

I'm not being moralistic, and my wife will point out that I am guilty of much of the above. Especially not taking at holidays and working at weekends. My self justification is that my income depends on the level of work I do, and so a holiday costs double in both the cost of the holiday itself and lost income.

This cuts little ice.

And rightly so. What we often dont think about it that if we do not take breaks, eat and drink moderately, and excercise well it actually interferes with our ability to do the job. Maybe not in the short term, but for most people the working career is long. And getting longer. We can now expect to be at the coalface for 45 years or more. That is a marathan not a sprint.

When we are stressed and have poor health we tend to make poor decisions. We tend to be depressed and morose, or occassionally manic, and our judgement goes. Of course we don't notice it. But it happens.
And we are no use to the business if we have a heart attack (or worse).

Exhaustion is easy to fall into. Your body and brain just pack up with the stress and exertion. Some people come back more aware and able to prevent it in future. Others never come back.
So no matter the workload and the crisis, try to put some effort into looking after yourself. Athletes train and watch their food to ensure they perform at the top level. Business people need to do a bit of the same. Only a bit - today I have just had a delicious bacon butty, but I did go to the gym. I found that setting gym visits as a KPI helps me to go regularly - otherwise it is just something I intend to do but don't get round to. I might not make my 100 gym trips per year, but recording how many I have done (and how many still to go) helps me focus. For you it might just be scheduling a daily 10 minute lunchtime walk to the coffee shop. My today list has a little section for personal development which includes going to the gym.

Your doctor probably gives you all the advice you need on this (mine has wanted me to lose 10kg for 20 years), and I don't to be another nag. Just that you need to think about and prioritise your health to ensure you can work at peak performance for nearly half a century. The usual suspects - watch what you eat, stop smoking, try not to drink too much, take regular holidays (ideally somewhere with no Blackberry reception - I recommend the Scottish Borders!), walk or take regular exercise. You are no use to anyone if you are dead.

And incidentally the same applies to your staff and direct reports.

Training course changes

2011-10-31T16:31:00.000Z

The current economic climate is obviously having an impact on businesses, and as a result we have been forced to cancel the three courses in project management scheduled for November and December. We shall look at arranging new dates in the new year. In the meantime if you are interested in the Project Management courses, please let me know and we can see what can be arranged.

Numbers have been low for a number of seminars, and I am sure that businesses are cutting back on their training activities. Hopefully this is only for a short while. When business is slow it is a good time to get staff to refresh their skills, confident that they will not be taking them elsewhere in the near future. However it is hard to be that positive about the future, and many businesses take the attitude that training is a discretionary spend that they will cut. Obviously I am biased in this discussion, but I have put my money where my mouth is and paid to improve and broaden my skillbase and I feel it paid off.

In more positive news about training, we hope next year to have a very exciting series of training events in London. Most will be about procurement and supply chain, but there will be a broad range. More details to follow.

Good news/bad news - Procure4London

2011-10-07T15:51:00.000+01:00

The local authorities in London are banding together to procure collectively. This should achieve the twin aims of reducing costs, and making it easier for smes to bid for business (though not necessarily to win business). The site went live on 9th September 2011 - see here.

Why do I say good news/bad news? Well partly the point I made about about whether this will help smes.
But secondly, it will be another portal. Opportunities are already supposed to being shared through ContractFinder, and many London opportunities (not just Olympic opportunities) are going through Competefor. The original intention was to have Competefor as a legacy of the Olympic Games. That probably died with Glasgow 2014 decided not to use it, but it seems a shame not to use it for this opportunity. There may be issues I do not understand but it seems from here like a duplication of effort - and cost.

One step forward, one step back...

Quote of the day

2011-10-07T15:37:00.000+01:00

The relentless pressure on the Financial system is getting to some people. And some people are cracking - have a look at the quote of the day from Management Today here. Made me laugh anyhow.

OGC

2011-10-06T18:46:00.000+01:00

The old Office of Government Commerce website has been taken down, and replaced by the Cabinet Office website here. I can't help but think that this is a misstep. The government is probably focusing more attention on Public Sector Procurement than any previous administration, and the OGC website was great source of best practice and clarification of rulings. It can't have cost that much to run, and the replacement site has a much wider remit and consequently very little actual coverage of procurement (it covers constitutional reform, national security, Transparency, and the Big Society as well as Efficiency which is where we will get most procurement coverage).

I hope that in time the government will see the value in having a central point to share information about how to comply with regulations, be more effective, more efficient and save money.

In the meantime the old OGC website is here, in the National Archives. Over time it will become increasingly out of date, but for the next year or so it should still be a good source of information.

Incidentally, if you are waiting for the book Excellence on Public Sector Procurement by Emmett and Wright, we are told by the publisher to expect the proofs this month. It appears publishing is still a time consuming business. How long from proofs to print I don't know, but I suspect we shall be lucky if it is this side of Christmas 2011.

Last Quarter Training programme

2011-09-30T17:35:00.000+01:00

Incredible as it seems with the weather at the moment the warmest since May, but tomorrow is the beginning of the last quarter of 2011. So I thought I should quickly outline the training programmes we are delivering before the end of the year. As always these are run through a variety of providing organisations, which I can either direct you to or you can look up on the net.

I shall be doing six events for BIP Solutions;

Project Management

9^th November - London

16^th November – Birmingham

6^th December – Manchester

Also;

11 October 2011 – Birmingham – Rights to Challenge

18 October – Leeds – Supply the public sector workshop 1 & 2

1 November – Leeds – supply the public sector workshop 3 & 4

I shall also be running four 5 day programmes, two in London -

The Purchasing Management Masterclass, and 5 day Purchasing MBA, and 2 for another company in KL International Trade under the WTO and the Complete course in Purchasing Management.

Are there really opportunities for SMES in the public sector?

2011-09-20T15:51:00.000+01:00

I've written before about the unresolved conflict at the heart of goverment procurement policy - the need to save money and the desire to inolve more SMEs. It was always likely that for all the rhetoric, money would speak loudest, and government departments would look for savings by aggregating requirements rather than look to the longer term game of stimulating competition.

A couple of other blogs today have provided examples - my friends at Government Opportunities are pointing out that one of the Government's own working groups (on ICT) is saying that things are going backwards - see here.

Meanwhile over at Bdaily, they report on the North East Chambers of Commerce calling for the National Procurement Framework for construction to be scrapped because it would disadvantage North East firms without national reach - see here.

These issues get to the heart of the public sector dilemma - if Britain were a private company it would be able to focus on getting the best quality at the lowest price. Public Sector procurement always has a broader dimension. Realistically it always it will. You can call for all decisions to be made purely on a commercial basis, but the Bombardier issue shows that people (and the media) are not happy with that approach. And what Politician is going to willingly give up the lever of using public funds to create jobs (and votes) for their constitency?

It is always going to be a difficult balance, and we should expect Politicians of all flavours to tailor their proposals to their audience - even if it leads to inconsistency. I expect cash savings to dominate for at least another year or two, and then as the clamour for action rises, the policy to be revamped to favour the broader agenda - just in time for the next election.

Article at Bdaily Business Network - Winning business from the Public Sector

2011-09-20T11:50:00.001+01:00

I have a brief article on the Sector Focus of BDaily - click here to read it. Anyone coming to this blog from that article - welcome. I hope you find some things to help your business in the previous blogs.

Backup

2011-09-16T15:11:00.000+01:00

Just over a week ago my laptop started giving me warning messages saying that a fatal drive crash was imminent. I talked to Dell who started walking me through diagnostics, and then quickly stopped listening to the diagnostics and started arranging for a new hard disk drive. It arrived on Monday, and now (late on Friday afternoon) I think I am about done with installing software and restoring it to where it was. Oh, and extending my warranty just in case.

I was able to carry on working on other computers, and because as soon as I got the error messages I backed everything up to an external drive. Which I copy to another external drive, and store each in different buildings - though if the whole town blows up I am in trouble.

I know it is a cliche, but really - if you haven't backed up recently, do it now. That is now! The interuption to your business could be fatal.
One thing I use that helps is Dropbox - see here. This is a free web based utility that makes it easy to sync files between computers, and your phone. It also acts as a backup for your documents, so you don't lose them if your HDD crashes. There is a paid for service, and it used to be that I could get more free space if I invited you to join, but really this is a public service announcement not an advert.

Back up now. Just in case.

CrossRail - fall out from the Bombardier/Siemens decision

2011-08-31T11:16:00.000+01:00

The Prime Minister has announced (rather quietly I thought) that there will be no review of the decision to award the Thameslink to Siemens rather than Bombardier. This is not surprising as the alternatives were going to be extremely unpleasant - at best we could find a valid reason to annul the competition, and restart the process with the award (hopefully) coming to a different company. At worst the UK gets a hefty fine from the European Union and sued by Siemens. In the middle the government looks powerless to act.

The fallout continues though, and in the link here it is reported that Alstrom have withdrawn from the process to supply trains to the CrossRail project. Now if you have not been following these projects, it should be pointed out that CrossRail and ThamesLink are major projects - far larger and more expensive than the Olympics, but with a much lower public profile. Both should make a major contribution to travel in London and the South East.

The government has announced that it delay the tend for the trains by a few months (from late 2011 to early 2012) and will review the procurement process. The shortlisted companies are Siemens, Bombardier, Hitachi and Ferrocarrilles. Alstrom have withdrawn from the bidding process.

The question is what can the government achieve? Although they blame the previous administration for the rules, in reality all that is happening is that the process is following EU procurement rules. Transport Secretary Philip Hammond says he wants to change the rules so that "UK companies compete on an equal footing with Continental competitors". Of course that is already happening, or we would be able to lodge a case with the EU for illegal support, non-competitive behaviour, cross subsidies or something similar. If we have evidence that it is not happening, then what are we doing using the EU legal system to correct the problem.

What the minister means, and most of us would be behind him on this, is that he wants the work to go to a British company. In practice this means Canadian company Bombardier, rather than German company Siemens. The withdrawal of Alstrom may be a sign that they perceive the UK government to be "rigging" the process so that Bombardier wins.

Which then leads us to ackward consequences. If Bombardier do win, will people think it is a political fix? Will Bombardier actually have the best bid? Or will we be paying a higher price for lower quality to keep jobs in Britain? And will the EU approve it? Will it actually help Bombardier in the long term if they can only win business that is "sorted" for them?
If Siemens, or one of the other bidders win, what will that mean for the government's rhetoric?

It is politically unpopular, but the government could take the tack of pointing out that we want fair competition across Europe, and the way to do that is not to impose barriers but to ensure other countries follow the due process. If we give preference to national companies, how can we complain about other countries doing the same? And where does the balance lie between encouraging business competition and nurturing developing or weak business sectors? And having given a lead that national governments can ensure business goes to national companies, what will the impact be on UK exports?

The government is encouraging British business to have an input on their submissions on proposed changes to EU procurement legislation, and I encourage companies to have their say. However realistically the choice for the UK government is to agree to EU procurement policy, and the consequences of that single market, or to withdraw from the EU. There is a lot of support for withdrawal in both the country and the government (though personally I do not agree) and it is possibly the time to have that debate about the benefits (advantages) and obligations (disadvantages) of being in the European Union.

Basics of Business - Networking

2011-08-22T18:40:00.000+01:00

Networking is one of the elements of business that is sometimes taken for granted, but is actually still a source of discussion. While salespeople, consultants and other snake oil sellers see networking as essential, there are still plenty of people in business who don’t see it as essential.

The arguments against networking are several – that it is time away from the office that should be spent on productive work, that it is expensive, that staff use is as an opportunity to promote themselves rather than the company, that it is entertainment rather than work, that there is no guaranteed benefit, and that it is full of salesmen rather than customers.

All of these can have some validity - but if you think that by stopping your staff from networking they will not meet other potential employers, then you are underestimating the work of recruitment consultants. You are also missing out on a lot of potentially valuable information.
A couple of anecdotal incidents from the past week or so. A colleague I met at a networking lunch has just rung me up from the Middle East to tell me about a London based company looking for some training providers.

Secondly, last week I was at an event where a colleague found out the top management of a major competitor had resigned en masse to set up their own company. This is not the sort of information that comes out quickly through formal channels, and it means that there are opportunities to take advantage of the distraction of the competition – at a least for a while. And yes, a potential job vacancy to be considered too. Without networking it is likely that much of the window of opportunity would have passed by unknown.

If you are going to use networking in your organisation, and I suggest that you should, you should consider a few key points;

- Set a target number of days for networking – say 2 per month.

- Consider what you want out of it - sales leads, market info, ideas, contacts, a new job

- Ensure information is shared back home - a quick note is enough

- Practice your Elevator speech - if you have a chance to make a good impression be ready

- Think about what organisations you want to link into - customers, competitors, suppliers, academia, media

- Follow up on contacts made – and categorise them with bring forward actions

- Share – be reciprocal. People want you to give as well as take

- Be prepared to cut events that are too full of the wrong sort of people

- Recognise that events with the right sort of people are limited

- Recognise that it is a numbers game – there is no guaranteed win on any one event

- Recognise that it is a long term game - sometimes things take years to lead to business

- Don’t limit it to your sales people – technical people need networks too

- Practice networking skills if you are not a natural

- Don’t be afraid to ask questions such as “who do you use for…?”

- Be aware of any IP that you want to protect (e.g. who you use for…”

- Make sure networkers are aware of the need to avoid any activities that could be considered collusion or market fixing (e.g. discussing prices).

- If you are not getting what you want, then consider other networks rather than stopping networking altogether

- LinkedIn is great – but it is not an alternative to physical networking.

Changing EU Procurement rules

2011-08-19T14:25:00.000+01:00

The government has signalled its displeasure at its inability to award the ThamesLink train contract to Canadian company Bombardier Transportation in order to support the train manufacturing facilities in Derby. Instead the contract has gone to German company Siemens, who will in return create 300 jobs in Hebben, South Tyneside. In total some 3000 or so jobs are at risk in Derby, and a campaign to overturn the decision has seen well supported marches, and angry questionning of government minister - see here.

I have pontificated about the decision in other places on the blog, but in principle the decision is right (if unfortunate). The government really has no choice because of EU procurement legislation, which it has hinted it would like to change - no easy task. Luckily there is a review of the rules in process (kicking off in earnest next year) and the UK government would like to know our views and gain our support in changing the current legislative framework.

There is a paper about it here. Some of the proposals seem a little anodyne, but that is understandable - you don't want to go into a difficult negotiation with all guns blazing. The specific changes suggested include;
- higher limits, quicker processes, measures to exempt 3rd sector organisations from some of the legislation, and to increase (in reality create) opportunities to negotiate with suppliers.

If you have an interest in public procurement in the UK, and Europe, and strongly suggest you have a look and let the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, know what you think, and what you would like to see changed. This is an opportunity, and we should all take it. Rather than complain about what the rules are without doing anything about it, let's engage and see if we can get any improvements.

But don't hold your breath - the chances are the process will be slow, and the changes incremental.

UK Government Spending

2011-08-15T15:44:00.000+01:00

My friends at BIP Solutions have just sent round an e-mail highlighting their Tracker Spend Analysis service.
The most interesting part of the e-mail is too look at how much money the government has spent so far this year - see quotoation below

With a total spend so far from January 2011 of £146,003,754,510.17 – it is anyone’s game!

So who has spent what?

Central Government	£99,389,430,852.30
Local Government	£15,682,819,570.67
Emergency Services	£78,629,500.56
Non-Departmental Public Bodies	£3,114,832,048.07
NHS	£27,738,042,538.57

So year to date we are at £146billion, (or £146 000 billion if you are in the US), and on track for round about £200bn by the end of 2011. That is a lot of money. But is only about £2.5k (at the moment) for each person in the UK. Note that the NHS spends almost twice as much as all the councils put together, and that Quangos (while spending a hefty £3bn) are really only a couple of percent of the total - getting rid of them will not make a big difference.

So, if you are a small business interested in supplying the UK public sector, remember there is a lot of opportunities to target - even if the total spend is due to come down in future.

And if you are not then it is worth trying to understand where the money is going.

Priceless

2011-08-03T17:57:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post I mentioned I was reading the book Priceless. For a procurement expert, and as a business owner who has to set pricing it is fascinating insight into the psychology of price. I think the short version is that although a pricing decision often feels logical, in reality it never is. (Really. Never is.)

As an experiment I am now going to try hotlinking to Amazon.co.uk so that for this and other books in future you will be able to purchase them immediately if they take your fancy.

Government support for SMEs

2011-07-28T13:04:00.004+01:00

The latest Business Link Newsletter has come round, outlining what the government is doing to support SMEs - in particular in winning business from the government. The news is mixed, and as always with governments of all persuasions contains a mixture of real initiatives, hope, aspiration, spin and the rehashing of existing initiatives as something new.

Large businesses are encouraged to pay smes quickly. This is laudable, but without any real government push behind it is essentially just a wishful idea. Anecdotal evidence is that larger companies are pushing out their payment terms, essentially banking with their sme suppliers, confident that their suppliers are desperate for business. SMEs generally would be happy if their large clients paid on time. Quicker payments would be a real bonus. Quicker than 30 days is probably unrealistic. 30 days exactly would probably be fine for all.

The pressure on major contractors to government to make quicker payments down the supply chain is welcome, but needs some real teeth. When suppliers are dropped for failing to pay sub-contractors they will take real notice. Until then they will pay lipservice until they feel it is safe not to do so. Publishing the data on a website is also to be supported as a general principle, though I am not sure what will be achieved. The public are not interested, and the SMEs already know, and I am not sure that shame will be sufficient. In fact you could argue that the shareholders will be pleased to know that contractors are pushing out payment terms, and therefore increasing their returns.

14 departments have eliminated the PQQ process for low value tenders. This is valuable for SMEs, though as I have argued long and weary a similar benefit could be achieved by all departments using the standard OGC PQQ template for all tenders. Then SMEs would only have to fill it in once. It could even be stored on government servers - as was tried in the One Form initiative in St. Helens. Back in February Robert Peston of the BBC pointed out that eliminating the PQQ process was not a sure fire way to get more competition - see here.

Contracts Finder continues to limp along, and is not really finding traction. The private sector alternative services seem to be able to provide a more extensive service, and so are (if not thriving at least) continuing. The number of contracts published seems low compared to the long standing equivalents in Scotland and Wales. Scotland are trumpeting the fact that their service is now publishing more opportunities below the OJEU threshold than above - which is of real relevance to SMES. It seems like there are lessons to be learned from the existing services.

Contracts Finder has lead to 600 contracts being let to SMEs since February - about 150 per month. Hopefully this will accelerate. The value is over £80m, which means the average contract was for £133 000, or about the OJEU limit. This is fine for some SMEs, but is very large for the smaller SMEs and micro businesses. Real success would be to get that down to, say, £50 000. Then opportunities would be be accessible by even the smallest businesses.

The 9 winners of the government's Innovation Launch Pad Product Surgery competition, out of 350 SMES were able to pitch their ideas to government. Laudable in itself, but why a competition over 3 months to pitch these ideas? Why not a series of Meet the Buyer events which would have allowed all 350 to pitch? The winners look like interesting businesses, of real benefit to the country. However many of them are existing suppliers to the government, and were pitching products that they already sell to the government. Hardly the sort of innovation that we need in these times - they should be being promoted by standard practices. One winner (Learning Pool) has saved the government £30m over the past two years - why do they have to pitch again? Why are they not being rolled out as best practice? More information here. A good idea, but again more needs to be done.

ERDF FUNDED consultancy support for Lincolnshire SMEs

2011-07-26T15:46:00.005+01:00

MANAGE MY SPEND – SUSTAINABLE SME PURCHASING, AND BUSINESS TO BUSINESS COLLABORATION.

ERDF FUNDED CONSULTANCY SUPPORT IN LINCOLNSHIRE

SUSTAIN Lincolnshire is offering Small and Medium Enterprises in Lincolnshire help to be more economically sustainable. With the help of PAWA Consulting, Oakwell Management Services Ltd. is utilising a ‘Workbook’ approach to improving control over purchasing expenditure. The Workbook, co-authored by Ray Newell and John Kelly of Oakwell Management Services Limited, Professor Marc Day of Henley Management Centre, (Reading University), and supported by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, is a unique and innovative tool, designed specifically to help small business.

The Workbook is an ‘action’ document and is used in conjunction with consultancy support, delivered by expert associates who work directly with the client SME’s. The objective is to improve their purchasing techniques, emphasising economic sustainability to generate real savings for the business, and sharing experiences in a collaborative way.

Initially, the associate consultants visit the customer company and spend a short time with the Managing Director/Purchasing Manager to ascertain where help is required. This diagnosis is used to demonstrate how to improve procurement/purchasing process/s that are identified as ‘in need of enhancement’, and deploying experts for a maximum of two days fully funded consultancy support.

Oakwell are looking for an initial take up in Lincolnshire of somewhere in the region of 40+ companies.

This project is part of the SUSTAIN Lincolnshire programme, which is part funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), East Midlands Development Agency(emda)Single Programme and Lincolnshire County Council.

This is a great opportunity for Lincolnshire Businesses to obtain sustainable procurement support through Lincolnshire County Councils SUSTAIN project.

The project will help enhance small businesses that have purchasing as part of their daily routine, to make significant savings for their organisation, and allow them to collaborate with like minded organisations.

Eligibility criteria: Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) - Businesses of < 250 employees and < 50 million Euros turnover-Annual balance sheet under 43 million Euros, not more than quarter owned by a larger company

The project has a tight delivery horizon and therefore a quick response is critical. The project will finish at the end of September 2011.

Feel free to approach Oakwell, or you can approach me directly if you would like PAWA to deliver your consultancy support.

It is likely that in future there will be few of these fully funded projects, so I would encourage businesses to take the support now.

We are able to offer similar support to smes in the East Midlands, utilising the same workbook for the MATREC project.

PAWA Consulting Facebook Page

2011-07-26T13:14:00.003+01:00

PAWA Consulting Ltd. now has a Facebook page - see here.

Currently there are no plans to use this extensively, but rapidly changing information about courses may be posted there as well as at this site.

British Science Festival in Bradford 10-15 September 2011

2011-07-19T20:08:00.003+01:00

The British Science Festival is coming to Bradford in September - see here for details.

As PAWA consulting I have no involvement with the Festival, but I think it is important to help promote British Science and Technology. And it is relatively unusual for such events to come to Bradford.

Hopefully this event will gain some good media interest, and attract some kids to science as well as explaining science to interested members of the public.

London - Olympics and Ethics

2011-07-18T22:47:00.002+01:00

I was lucky enough to come into London Liverpool Street Station from Suffolk, which passes right past the Olympic Park. With a year to say I think it looks great. Very exciting. Hopefully going to be a success.

The local paper is full of the resignation of the Chief of the Metropolitan Police. Regardless of the links to the News of the World, I find it hard to believe that anyone could accept five weeks at a health club without realising that this would compromise their position. A junior officer would surely have been sacked. A very unfortunate error of judgement, even if nothing untoward arose.

There is a role for informal meetings, dinners and hospitality. It builds trust and allows a deeper relationship. Which is both the point and the risk. It can be difficult to know where the line is. 5 weeks at a health club (which is what is reported) is surely a long, long way past that line for anyone in public life or public office. In business, it may be different (though I suspect not).

Project Management Training courses

2011-07-08T12:31:00.003+01:00

We now have 3 more dates for the Introduction to Project Management course that I am running for BIP Solutions. They are;
9th November 2011 in London
16th November in Birmingham, and
6th December in Manchester

Venues and further details to follow. The courses will be available for booking on the BIPSolutions website under PASS Masterclasses. The placeholder is here.

The course is not focussed on the public sector, but is widely applicable to anyone who needs to run projects as part of their role.

British Manufacturing

2011-07-07T10:31:00.002+01:00

Evan Davis is making a very interesting series for the BBC, called Made in Britain.
It is often said that British manufacturing can no longer compete with the rest of the world, and that in Britain we do not make anything anymore. This series is showing how completely wrong (and self defeating) that view is.
The first and Second programmes can be accessed here - the third is about services.

A very brief and selective extract is to make the point that Britain is the seventh largest manufacturer in the world. That is hardly "does not make anything". If we accept that the USA and China are numbers one and two, and that Germany and Japan are three and four (at least for the moment) then the best we could hope to be if fifth. Being seventh shows that we are a bit behind where we would like to be - not hopeless. It is like complaining that because as Aston Villa we are not in the Champions League we cannot play football - not true (if we leave the views of Birmingham City fans out of this).

The thing is that once you start to believe this self defeating mantra it becomes self-fulfilling. I have made this point about the UK chemicals industry until people are sick of hearing it. The Chemicals industry is the UK's second largest export - but industry people keep saying it is dead, in terminal decline, not like the old days etc. etc. Of course their business is doing fine, in fact it is growing and they are expanding - but the industry is over, we can't compete..... They practically all say it and end up talking themselves into a pessimistic funk. Heaven help us if the government takes this gloomy myth as reality and acts on it.

One thing British industry needs is to stop running itself down. It is big, successful and there is room for improvement. But it is not over. The people who repeat this ad nauseum have an agenda that Britain is a busted flush. It is not. 7th out of 200 nations is grounds for neither giving up nor complacency.

I look forward to working with more successful British manufacturers in the decades to come.

Business Ethics - Bombardier

2011-07-05T13:58:00.003+01:00

The railway firm Bombardier is blaming the government for 1400 job loses after losing a procurement process for £3bn for trains for Thameslink to Siemens. The government is saying that their hands are tied by EU procurement rules (with an insinuation it was the previous government's fault for signing up to such rules).

I have some knowledge of the sector, having done some work for ADtranz before they were taken over by Bombardier. I hope and trust that Bombardier have improved things in the intervening 12 years or so, but there were plenty of cost improvements that could have been made at ADtranz.
Curiously ADtranz had a strong presence in Germany, the D representing Daimler, so although the Thameslink trains might have been designed and built in Derby we should not think of Bombardier as a UK company - they are international.

It is unfortunate to that the contract did not go to Bombardier, and the accompanying comments that Germany and Japan would never give a contract to any firm who was not German or Japanese may have some truth - or may not. I don't have any facts to confirm or deny that. However, let us be clear - if the Germans awarded such a contract on the grounds of nationality it would be just as illegal as doing the same here (and Deutsche Bahn is partly government owned so the rules would apply).

Bombardier accused the government (in practice I assume TfL) of "just opening the envelopes" - and then giving the contract to the best bidder rather than a UK firm.

Let us think about that. TfL went out to tender, and took the best bid. We may not like the result, but what can be wrong about that? You may argue about how the specification was written, the process, and may not like the result - but basically Bombardier lost a fair process and would now like us to rig the result in their favour. You can dress it up any way you want, but that is basically what is being asked.

Assuming that we did, what would be the consequences? If Siemens have a better technical element, is it sensible to award a contract to a lower quality bid? Well Bombardier might offer to match Siemen's price - if they can do that, why did they not do it initially? Probably because they wanted to have a higher price. So, we would be rewarding a high bidder. And tax payers money to people who did not put in the best price.

Overseas companies would be put off bidding for UK contracts because after all the time and effort there would be a risk that even if they had the best bid, it would be given to a UK company for political reasons. So competition would drop, and prices would rise - and maybe quality would drop too. UK companies would learn that they do not have to be competitive to win. And everyone would realise that our UK procurement system is corrupt. That is an ugly word, but it is what people are wanting.

If you give public money to businesses who are not the winning bid because you like them more, it is corruption. All done with the best of intentions, but it is what it is. Commercial offers are no longer the determining factors, but how some one thinks and feels about you. We can dress it up with the national interest, but it is really about giving contracts to the firm that you want to. The reasons for which may be because of the UK economy, voters in a key constituency, personal relationships, or little brown envelopes. But make no mistake - you are opening the door, and many people will stroll through and you cannot control what will happen next.

I am very sorry for the people of Derby and Bombardier Transport. But that is not a reason to put aside business ethics - particularly when public money is involved. If they can prove the process was unfair, illegal or corrupt they can appeal against the decision and hope to win a rebid, or to be awarded the contract if Siemens are disqualified. Otherwise, they have to face the fact that they lost and to deal with the consequences. Complaining about it does not help the UK.

Free Purchasing suport for SMEs

2011-07-04T15:27:00.003+01:00

Through our partners at Oakwell Management Services, we are able to provide free purchasing consultancy to eligible smes in Lincolnshire through the SUSTAIN programme - click here for details. Businesses will be able to attend a number of seminars but more importantly to have one on one support to help them improve their procurement process.

Our element has to be completed by the end of September, and the number of places is strictly limited, so I strongly recommend signing up as quickly as possible. If for no better reason than that this sort of fully funded project is probably going to become very rare in the future. There is no contribution required apart from your time and committment.

What are the benefits? Well it is always possible that you are doing everything perfectly already, and there is nothing to improve. Generally though we find that there are easy to achieve improvements possible on the bottom line - they may be small in percentage terms, but who does not want to improve their profitability for lalmost no effort? In these difficult times a couple of percent on the profits is always welcome.

Often there are much bigger saving possible with a little effort, and large improvements in risk management.

Fuller details and a launch website will be available in a few days, but if you are interested please call me asap. This project is for companies in the Lincolnshire County Council catchment area - I hope you know whether that includes your business or not.

A similar scheme is being run on a limited basis in the East Midlands, called MATREC and focussing on materials businesses. If you want to know more, get in touch.

Business Ethics revisited

2011-06-28T11:14:00.003+01:00

The Chief Executive of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, John Scott has resigned after accepting gifts and hospitality from potential suppliers - see here.

I have no idea of the extent of these gifts, or hospitality - only one instance is referred to by the BBC article. However after the problems in Dehli in 2010 it is essential that 2014 is squeeky clean. Glasgow has had a bad image in the past for perceived public sector corruption, and 2014 will need to ensure that the highest possible standards are met in order to overcome that image. Whether it is deserved or not, is not the point. The point is that the Games are to showcase Glasgow, and to a lesser extent Scotland and the rest of the UK, and therefore need to able to come through repeated and intense scrutiny with no blemishes.

This is difficult because the process of identifying sponsors requires a great deal of "shmoozing" and relationship building to encourage the sponsors to contribute hard cash. However the line between sponsors, supporters and suppliers can be quite blurred in major sporting events - and companies move from being one to being another quite often.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this particular case it was right for John Scott to go - regardless of his past contribution to the Games, in the future he media would not let go of this incident, and would concentrate on identifying other potential wrong doing. The contagion has to stop at the first point.

The fact that with a year to go before the London 2012 Olympics we are not seeing this sort of story about them is testiment to their hard work in establishing and maintaining standards of business ethics. But many a slip between cup and lip.

Attitude of big business to SMEs

2011-06-27T11:07:00.003+01:00

Link here is an article by Robert Craven outlining his personal frustration at being treated by other businesses as an amorphous type of client called an "SME". He makes a number of very reasonable points about wanted to be treated as an individual or individual business rather than an income stream to be exploited.

During my seminars this is a consistent theme - that government (not too surprisingly) and large business (more surprisingly) do not really understand owner managed, and small businesses. It may be a lot of effort to do so, but there are real upsides if you can. Many, though not all, small businesses seek success through Customer Intimacy rather than innovation or operational excellence (see Weirsma and Tracey for details). They expect that their suppliers should treat them in the same way.

Interestingly our partners at TBR recently published a paper on employment and small businesses. Contrary to popular belief, it is not the high growth companies that are the drivers of employment in the UK, but the myriad small start ups - particularly those employing 5 to 20 people. Now that is an attractive market - but it needs to be approached in the right way. These companies are not miniture multi-nationals, and in most cases do not seek to become them.

Basics of Business - Ethics Part 2

2011-06-21T16:55:00.006+01:00

I had the interesting experience of running a course in Qatar duing the FIFA election debacle, in which one candidate Sheikh Bin Hamman of Qatar was suspended ensuring another unopposed election for Sepp Blatter.

The whole election, and previously the award of the World Cup to Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, was mired in allegations of corruption, brown envelopes and people putting their own interests ahead of the organisation. Qatar was accused of "buying" the World Cup, though the precise meaning of that phrase was disputed.

In the UK we watched with rightous indignation, and a certain fury, as we saw evidence that our bid for the World Cup in 2018 had been ignored by FIFA because the FA had refused to offer "sweetners". This may have been the case - certainly there had been accusations of corruption at FIFA for many years, and surely the FA were aware of that before the fact.

It may be salutary though, as we pride ourselves on our incorruptable British nature, that Qatar actually ranks above the UK (i.e. better) in the Transparency International Perceptions of Corruption index - see here. Only one rank, but still - Qatar has been improving its score, whilst the UK has been showing considerable decline with the score (out of 10) declining from 8.3 in 2003 to 7.6 in 2010.

This index looks at perceptions of the public sector, and as always you can argue with the methodology and scoring - and the UK is still 20 out of 186 nations, and above the USA (22nd). However it is a worrying trend, and if continued could lead to an erosion of trust in the public sector and public sector procurement in particular. Which is not in our national interest.

Further courses

2011-06-21T16:43:00.004+01:00

A couple of additional events to add to your diary or not.

On Tuesday 29th June I shall be presenting two half day events for BIPS Solutions at the Manchester Victoria and Albert Marriot hotel. These are workshop 3 on Writing effective Tenders, and Workshop 4 on Partnering with others. Details here and here.

Upcoming courses

2011-06-16T17:33:00.003+01:00

Making it Happen - an Introduction to Project Management seemed to be well received, and after we have evaluated the feedback I am optimistic that we shall be running further courses later in the year. Hopefully around the country rather than just in London. Further details as and when.

In the meantime, I have been remiss in noting a number of courses that I have been running recently. Obviously I am too late for recent courses in Istanbul, Abu Dhabi and Qatar (my air miles are going up, but so is my carbon footprint) but here are a few forthcoming events.

Strategic Purchasing and Supply Management, a 5 day event in Amsterdam for Aztech, Monday 20th June to 24th June - click here. A bit short notice, but we probably have room if you can book in time.

Free Procurement Training Event - London 2012 and the Olympic Games, run by Business Link West Midlands, 30th June in North Staffordshire = click here. This is probably the last of these free half day sessions organised by BIP Solutions, so it could be your last chance. And it is free. What more could you ask?

The 5 day Purchasing MBA in Vienna 11th to 15th July, - click here.

The Complete course on Purchasing Management, in London 18th to 22nd July click here.

Hope to see you at one of these events

Making it Happen - an Introduction to Project Management

2011-06-07T07:56:00.003+01:00

On behalf of BIPSolutions, I shall be running an event on Tuesday 14th June at the London Hyde Park Hilton called "Making it Happen - an introduction to Project Management". Details are here.

Obviously in one day I cannot cover all of the issues that can arise in Project Management, but in these times of change and uncertainty the requirement for planning increases. And the pressure to "just get on with it" also increases. As do the consequences of projects going wrong. So I hope this is a one day investment that will pay back manyfold.

Currently the delegates are mostly from the private sector, but we are keen to attract people from the public sector as well (if they have the budget of course).

OECD: Innovation and Trade in Pharmaceuticals

2011-04-19T15:02:00.003+01:00

The OECD has just published a document on the links between Trade and Innovation in the Pharmaceutical Industry. I was an (unnamed) contributor to the study, which I think is quite interesting. The study was not able to take account of the developments in the industry in the past quarter (the closing of a number of UK based R&D facilities), but highlights the UKs strong position in pharmaceuticals, and the dominance of the developed world. Although India is growing strongly, this is still an industry based in, and for, the "west".

Over time this will surely change, but for the moment the question for Western economies must be how do we build on and maintain this advantage?

The paper can be found here.

A previous study I was involved with looked at Chemicals. It is possible that a revised document will bring together both of these studies later in the year.

Risk

2011-04-18T13:08:00.002+01:00

One of the most important elements in business is risk. It is a commonplace that there is no profit without risk, and that every decision is risky (which is why some people avoid making decisions at all). In the standard Kraljic model of procurment one access is about money, and the other is about supply risk. Unfortunately, human beings are particularly bad at correctly accessing and understanding risk. Even when we have correctly assessed the risk, we often then fail to address it in the appropriate manner. As simple examples, many people are scared of flying when statistically the most dangerous part of the journey is driving to the airport. Having worked in the chemical industry, it is also a fact that despite eye catching disasters such as Bopal and Flixborough, again the most dangerous thing in the chemical industry is driving to work. We all also react irrationally to circumstances. We base our assessment of risk on previous experience. So we may drive too fast thinking it is safe because we have never had an accident. Or put in new security systems because we feel the neighbourhood is unsafe after being burgled. In both cases the actual risk is the same before and after - but we perceive it differently, and react accordingly. (actually there is a slightly increased risk of being burgled again, because some burglers wait for you to replace all your stuff on insurance and then rob you again...). These are unconsious attitudes - partly hardwired, and partly based on experience. But they do affect our ability to be successful in business. The BBC has an interesting experiment that takes about 20 minutes here. It not only gives you some feedback on your personal attitude to risk, but also provides data for a study that will help academics at the University of Cambridge. Well worth the time.

Basics of Business - Ethics part 1

2011-04-06T16:21:00.004+01:00

It was widely reported in Yorkshire that a senior manager at Leeds City Council was also the owner of an events management organisation that had won contracts from Leeds City Council.
The manager involved had declared their interest, and took no part in awarding the contracts to her business. However it still ended up as front page news and a leading item on the regional television news- see here.

This highlights an important element of business ethics - it is not enough to be clear of influence, you have to be seen to be clear of any possible influence. Of course in other countries, Italy comes to mind as their Prime Minister goes to trial today, things are different. However it is a good rule for all people involved in business, particularly those in procurement roles, to consider how their decisions would look if published on the front page of a newspaper.

Perfectly legitimate and legal activities can be viewed as potentially corrupt, and that corrodes confidence in both the individual and the public sector as a whole.

It may well be the case in this situation that no influence was brought to bear on the decision making process - which may well have been a tender. One of the major reasons for running a tender process is because they are seen as more ethically "clean" than negotiated routes, and are harder for people to influence. The price we pay for that is that they are not always the route to best value.

In the middle east I have met course delegates who run businesses that supply their employer. In many cases they are able to demonstrate that this is beneficial for both sides, and that they are able to demonstrate both improved quality and lower prices.
However the question will always linger - who are you really working for?

An April First post

2011-04-01T10:48:00.004+01:00

In a surprise move to open up public procurement, the government today announced that henceforth all central government requirements will be sourced from Cambden Market. A spokesman said, "we have long wanted to obtain lower prices, and to open up government procurement to small businesses. This initiative allows us to achieve both at a stroke.

All of the businesses in Cambden market are small, new and entrepeneurial - in fact some of them are so new that they have not yet registered for VAT or tax. But that is a small detail that we are sure will be addressed in the fullness of time.

It is amazing what you can get there. Software is all lot cheaper than from conventional suppliers, and so are the CDs and DVDs. All the goods are of excellent quality - you can tell because of the wide range of Gucci, Dolce & Gabana and Armani products that are sold there at prices that are frankly unbelievable.

We were concerned that there might be difficulties with the audit trail, but the stall holders have been happy to give us receipts. In fact some have provided blank ones for us to complete later in an effort to speed up the process.

We were initially focussing just on goods, but we are thinking of extending the initiative to cover services having met a guy called Gary, who assures us he is excellent at sorting things out. His rates are very reasonable, and a significant saving over employing Accenture again. Of course, there will be a few teething troubles - especially for Gary who does not appear to have any. He does tend to talk of arranging for people to have accidents, when of course what he means is preventing accidents. He also has excellent sub-contractors in Bert and Dave, thus helping to stimulate further entrepeneurship, who he assures us are expert at making problems and people go away. They also have a side line in concrete posts for motorways, for some reason.

This new initiative promises much for the country, and we are of course happy to stimulate the economy by paying for items cash, no questions asked. This is an initiative for the ages. Or at least until lunchtime...."

Commercial Skills training for Schools

2011-03-25T09:53:00.003Z

On Monday 4th April 2010, we are piloting a new course called Commercial Skills for Schools.
It is aimed at Teachers, governors and school administrators who, facing up to the new realities of school funding, want to improve their commercial skills so that they can get more for less, and get more income into the school from their commercial activities.
This is the first pilot, and if it is successful we shall be looking to launch it from May 2010.
Of course if it is not successful, we shall have to regroup and learn the lessons from the pilot.

This will be a commercial offering, but the primary driver is to help schools to strengthen their financial position. Anyone interested, please drop me a line.

Timeline of the future

2011-03-19T17:22:00.004Z

As the great Yogi Berra said “it’s very difficult to make predictions – especially about the future”. However that does not mean that we should not try to. It can help to shape our business strategy, protect us from shock changes, and besides it can be great fun.

Myers Briggs personality profiles suggest that only 20% of are mainly focussed on the future – 40% are focussed on what we learn from the past, and 40% on the here and now. That is pretty much what you would expect from human beings who evolved in the Savannah - too much dreaming of what might be is not much help in escaping lions, and in fact it might get you eaten.

The same applies in business – not learning from the past, and not focussing on the immediate threats are fatal for businesses. However there is always a need for at least a few people in a business to keep scanning the horizons, and thinking about how things change.

The old metaphor about boiling a frog is appropriate for our attitude to change. Today the internet is pervasive in our society – and most of us forget that a matter of a decade ago it barely existed. Most of us have mobile phones, and we have forgotten what we did before them. Films from the 1990s can feel strangely dated when the central problem could be easily solved in the characters had mobile phones, let alone Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

This makes it difficult for us to think about some of the major changes that can happen to our industry. The rise of 3D printers, which seems like a science fiction technology but is being used in aerospace, changes a lot of our ideas about manufacturing (see The Economist). The internet is of course changing other industries, and in some cases making them redundant – I can’t believe there is a major future in printing yellow pages telephone directories or CD pressing plants.

So what industries will remain unchanged?

Well haulage and distribution will still be essential to move some goods around – despite 3D printers, we are still likely to need to move chemicals and similar raw materials. However it may change significantly within a generation to include much better IT based planning and even more significantly robot driven lorries (it is on the way, trust me).

Television, if we continue to call it that, will probably merge with the web, and be shown on the sort of printed electronics paper thin screens that I have mentioned before.

My industry, consulting and training, will no doubt be changed by intelligent systems and training on demand media. I think though that will always be people who prefer to engage with (flawed) individuals rather than a (perfect) computer database.

Health is changing massively – our life expectancy rises by about 3 months every year. Think about that. The consequences are massive – and not just for pensions. This is a societal change that we don’t notice happening even though it is happening rapidly. Partly this is because medicine is advancing so fast – people live who would have died a decade ago, and people are born who would not have existed 30 years ago (including my children).

Prof. Bryan Cox in his Wonders of the Universe TV programme has reminded us that planet earth will one day be destroyed by the sun. Luckily that will be in about 6 billion years, so no need for us to worry just yet.

Trying to think on that timescale can be fun – when you think that human beings have only been around for less than a hundred thousand years. Will people in the year 3011 even be recognisable to us as people? A website providing a timeline of the future can be a way of stimulating thinking, and broadening our horizons (click here) – as can thinking about the Clock of the Long Now (see the picture for the prototype). I don’t agree with all of their projections (some I think will happen much quicker, others not at all) but that is not the point. It won’t tell you what will happen to your industry next month, or even next year, but it does help us stop thinking that the future will be just like the past.

Procurex - themes

2011-03-11T14:05:00.002Z

Procurex was its usual success. Thanks to anyone who went to one of my sessions. The last one was on Risk Management, which in the week of the Japanese earthquake was a salutary reminder of the need for contingency planning.

Obviously my perceptions are my own, and I had little time to see the formal presentations but I found three key themes recurring;
- the need to improve the quality of tender submissions
- the tightness of budgets including travel to a free conference
- Category Management

The category Management theme was an interesting one, and talking to Pro5 I think is one that will be taken on from the OGC frameworks by a number of regional government bodies. It is a good and sensible approach, though for the public sector perhaps it cannot be persuded as aggressively as it is by our leading supermarkets.

Your Flat screen is fat

2011-02-21T10:11:00.002Z

I recently attended an event organised by Chemicals NorthWest on Printable electronics. You may not have heard much about this emerging technology, but it is going to change a lot of the world around us. The sector covers quite a broad range of activities, but the key factor is (as you might expect) electronic components that can be printed on surfaces in a similar way to printing newspapers on paper. Or perhaps slightly closer, printed wallpaper.
There are a myriad of related issues and concepts, such as organic polymer batteries, light sources and the like, but essentially when this technology comes through we can expect to have our televisions as wallpaper in our living rooms – or potentially on the windows. And our energy produced by thin films of photocells on our roof or any other surface (flat or not)

One of the nice things about this is that it is an area where British companies are in with a good chance of establishing a strong position. This is a disruptive technology, so all the companies trying to develop it are pretty much starting from the same position. Ultimately the devices might be assembled in the far east, which is a shame for UK manufacturing, but the real money could be in the design and manufacture of raw materials and components, and the use of design of the end product. In these areas UK businesses are well placed.
Although I was aware of the technology, I was not aware of how advanced it is until this conference. We were shown a Sony OLED TV – which had better colours than most HD TVs, and was at most half the thickness of an IPod. And this dates from about 3 years ago.
The world will look more like Minority Reports than many of us expected, and it will be with us far sooner than I expected. This is expected to be a market worth hundreds of Billions by the end of the decade.
Of course, at the moment it is all quite staggeringly expensive – but that can change over time. And with it will come an even more futuristic world than we can imagine. Of course, when it does arrive we will take it for granted in about six months.
The opportunities for British business are significant. Dr. Chris Drew of Soris compared the state of this industry to that of pharmaceuticals in the 1950s – fast paced, very high specifications, very technical, great potential, still largely undeveloped. The UK was able to take advantage of that – let’s hope we can do the same again.

Contracts Finder

2011-02-15T10:01:00.003Z

Contracts Finder, which is hosted by Business Link, is the new portal for publicising UK public sector tender opportunities. It replaces Supply2gov, and like that will send e-mail notifications of tender opportunities to registerd users as well as making them available online. The intention is that this will be a national portal, and free to use.

Some information about it came in a recent government press release;
Prime minister David Cameron has promised to open up the government’s supply chain to smaller organisations.
Speaking at the launch of a new online tool, Contracts Finder, Cameron said: “Wherever possible, we’re going to break up large contracts into smaller elements, so that SMEs can make a bid and get involved.
“And where that’s not possible, we’ll also work proactively with our large suppliers to directly increase opportunities for smaller organisations in the supply chain.”
Cameron says he wants 25 per cent of all government contracts are awarded to small and medium-sized enterprises.
At the moment it is estimated that SMEs only win five to ten percent of the billions of pounds of public sector business.
“If we meet this goal it will mean billions of pounds worth of new business opportunities for SMEs,” he said.
The move is part of changes to the way government procures goods and services.
“We need to make the system much more open, competitive and transparent,” said Cameron.

Fine words.

But almost identical to whoever said them when Labour were in power.

I cannot disagree with his intentions – I am just sceptical about the results that can be achieved.
If the system is to be open, competitive and transparent then we cannot set targets to favour one group of potential bidders (i.e. SMEs) even though we all think it is necessary to encourage them.
You cannot break up small contracts for the purpose of getting them below the EU threshold limits.
Also breaking up contracts costs money – more administration, fewer economies of scale etc.
Large suppliers subcontracting down the supply chain cannot be mandated, it can only be encouraged – in practice it usually means sub-contracting to already approved suppliers.
The government can WANT to give 25% of contracts to smes – it just does not have the mechanisms to do so. Of the 5% to 10% actually going to SMEs, what % goes to companies at the top end of the band? My guess is more than goes to those in the bottom half of the band - but I admit I have no proof.

I am totally behind the intentions of this initiative - but I believe it will be very difficult to achieve the desired results. Please feel free to disagree - comments are welcome

Intota Expert Network

2011-02-15T09:22:00.002Z

I am now listed on the Intota Expert Network, which provides consultants, researchers and expert witnesses. Apparently they now have more than 10 000 experts listed, which gives an indication of the size of the consultancy industry in the UK.

Procurex National 8th/9th March 2011

2011-02-14T14:30:00.004Z

I am delighted to tell you that I shall be attending the Procurex National Conference on behalf of BIPS. I shall be on their stand both days, apart from when I am presenting a number of short seminars on both days. Topics I shall cover include; Adding Value, Evaluation issues, Sub-contracting, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Supply chain, and Managing Risk.

I know I would say this, but it is an excellent event, and free. It is held at Birmingham NEC.

As part of the build up to the event, BIPS are running a series of Web Seminars on public sector procurement by Eddie Regan. Eddie is a great guy, and his presentations will be informative, provocative and (this time at least) short. Details are here, and the webinars are Tuesday 15th Feb at 10:30am (Award Criteria), Friday 18th at 1:30 (Evaluation) , 24th @ 3pm (debriefing suppliers), and 3 March at 2pm (EU Remedies directive). I'll be logging in (if there is room).
Otherwise I am sure you will be able to catch Eddie at Procurex.

I hope to see you there too.

Dilbert's course in Comparing

2011-02-08T12:49:00.004Z

Anyone who has attended one of my training courses will know that I think that Scott Adams' Dilbert cartoon is not only very funny, but very imformative. (and used by permission of Scott Adams himself, in case you were worrying).

Scott Adams also has a blog, which is generally more serious than the cartoon (not a high bar), where he often raises sensitive and/or controversial issues and floats some quite radical ideas. I am sure he would be pleased to know that I don't agree with everything he writes (I suspect he would be dissapointed if people did), but one of his recent posts I think is really on the money.

He suggests a course in Comparing alternatives. The aim is to make people better at resolving disagreements, and generally make the world more effective. In particular it would allow us to see through some of the standard rhetorical tricks used by politicians of all stances and (I hope) have more sensible debates on policy.

The agenda he suggests here would also be very useful training for business. In both management as a whole, and for procurement in particular, I think being able to conduct sensible comparisons - and to understand valid and invalid arguments - is absolutely essential.

A good grounding in formal Logic is really rather helpful in negotiations as well. An extremely useful free resource for this is available on Itunes - a 6 part programme called Critical Reasoning for Beginners, from Oxford University. It is also available on the Oxford University website as both audio and video podcasts here. It is delivered by Marianne Talbot.

Progress on PQQs

2011-02-04T10:01:00.002Z

The coalition government is changing a great many things at the moment, and that means that some initiatives are getting very little attention. One that may have passed you by relates to my old favourite topic of PQQ forms.
The government has mandated all central government departments to use a standard PQQ form, and only attach additional questions if absolutely necessary. Of course this is pretty much what OGC guidance on good practice has suggested for years, but it is good to see it being mandated rather than just suggested.
It may seem insignificant, but the time and effort to fill in PQQs can be a significant blocker for smes and micros in applying for business in the public sector. Even filling in forms requiring the same information but in a different order can discourage businesses from applying. You might say that if that puts them off then they are not the sort of company we want supplying the public sector. I would rather think of it as encouraging completion, and not needlessly discouraging it for no good reason.
A standard PQQ form makes it easy to bid to be considered – and that can only lead to more competition in tendering. Remember all we are doing is establishing whether firms should be invited to put in a formal tender submission. If additional information is really required to establish that, then there is no reason not to ask it – but after the standard portion of the PQQ. It will save each bidder only a few minutes, and each buyer only a few minutes, but the cumulative effect will be much greater.
There are of course much bigger issues in public sector procurement, but this one is so easy to fix it should be mandated across other authorities too. At the moment we are waiting to see whether this will be picked up outside of central government.

In Scotland they have already taken up this issue and are undertaking a consultation on establishing a standard PQQ which will be held on a central database so that it only has to be completed once. Details are here. This is a real step forward, and I look forward to it being implemented. Hopefully it will be taken up by other UK governments.

Egypt

2011-02-01T18:05:00.003Z

I have been lucky enough to spend some time in Egypt over the past few years. The image that many westerners have rooted in the ancient past - pyramids, pharoahs, Cleopatra, and just maybe Indiana Jones. As a country it is often seen as a tourist destination with the historical sites competing with the amazing coast line down at Sharm El Sheikh.

These are all a part of the truth. Other parts are that it is a country of some 80 million people, which makes it the second or third largest African nation (after Nigeria and maybe Ethiopia), with 8% of the population of the entire continent. More than half of the population is under 25 (certainly under 30) and it often feels like the other half drives a taxi in Cairo.

Egypt looks both east to the Middle East, and South to Africa. It is a strong economy on a continent that has few of them. Politically it has been relatively stable if not free and open.
The possible paths for Egypt range from the good (a democracy along the lines of Turkey), the middling (retaining the current structures), and the poor (constant disruption and disorder).

However the current crisis turns out politically, I hope that for the Egyptian people it becomes an event that they can build and develop on rather a cause of ongoing instability. Africa, the Middle East and the world need that.

Courses in innovation, Project Management and Supply Chain

2011-01-26T15:30:00.004Z

The SME Knowledge Transfer Network at the University of Bradford School of Management, is running a series of open courses on demand. Details here.
Assuming that there is sufficient interest I shall be running events on 23rd February and 23rd March covering Innovation and NPD, Project Management and/or Supply Chain Management. These will be held at Heaton Mount in Bradford - booking through the SME KTN.

A slow down in the Public Sector

2011-01-15T09:15:00.003Z

When the changes to the public sector were announced, my first thoughts (as a consultant to the sector) were that we would either see a reduction in the number of public sector contracts being put up for tender, or a "splurge" as publically funded bodies spent money while they had it, followed by a reduction. As we move into 2011, it looks like the first of those is pretty much what happened. If you look at the sites were public sector tenders are advertised, the number of opportunities being listed seems significantly lower than this time in previous years. I anticipate that it will be even lower after March 2011, when the new financial year starts.

The two big projects that will of course continue to have requirements are the London 2012 Olympics, and the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. However both of those are now pretty close, and anyone wanting to be involved has a narrowing window of opportunity.

A further change that is coming is that the regional Business Link operators are being closed in November 2011 (rather than March 2012 as many expected). From April 2011 we should expect that regional support services will be running down, ahead of the establishment of a limited national service from November 2011. As a consultant this is mixed news - the Business Link organisations have occasionally introduced me to clients, but in some ways we were in competition. In future businesses looking for support will have to look to the private sector, which means more opportunities for PAWA and similar companies. I would strongly suggest any business looking for support takes advantage of the Business Link now while it is still there in your region - any free or funded support they can offer you is unlikely to be available after this year (or even before that).

Season's Wishes

2010-12-23T16:30:00.002Z

PAWA consulting is closing down the the Christmas and New Year break. Best wishes to all our customers, associates and other readers.

Let us hope that 2011 is the year for a stronger economy after two difficult years.

all the best

Project Management Course

2010-12-06T15:14:00.004Z

At fairly short notice, I am running a Project Management course for the University of Bradford School of Management SME Knowledge Network on Thursday 9th/Friday 10th December 2011.
This is a 2 day modular course targetted at SME and micro-businesses. The first day is an introduction to Project Management, and the second day goes into more detail of some of the tools and techniques and the problems that arise - dealing with variances, team managment, completion dates etc.

If you are interested, drop me a line and I shall get someone to sort out the details.

Tensions in UK Public Sector Procurement

2010-11-19T19:17:00.001Z

I recently ran a day long seminar on Category Management for 23 public sector buyers from a wide range of organisations (on behalf of BIPSolutions).

It was an opportunity to take the temperature of public sector buyers – but naturally we should not assume it is totally representative.

First, I have noticed a couple of quite predictable trends in public sector commissioning following the Comprehensive Spending Review by the coalition government. Firstly the overall level of tenders being advertised seems to be lower than previous years – reflecting an anticipated drop in public sector spending. Secondly, some authorities appear to be spending budget in this financial year, with the clear expectation that there is no point in keeping it for next year - and that there will be no money to spend next year. An example is a council who are looking to arrange 18 one day training courses between January and March 2011 – clearly spending money while they still have it.

My delegates reported extensive pressure on budgets and costs. In some cases this accounted for their presence on the seminar – their authorities were looking to reduce spend by introducing category management. However they were also looking to reduce headcount in procurement, which is very contrary to the approach needed for good category management – rather than fewer people you tend need at least the same number of higher skilled staff (probably more). Given that one authority was looking to introduce category management with only 3 procurement people, they will be lucky to get the sort of improved quality and reduced costs that can be achieved.

There was a lively debate about the priorities for public sector commissioning – one view point was that we are going to be focussed only on lowest price. Another viewpoint was that with authority budgets under pressure there was unlikely to be money available for local economic development, inclusion and sustainability projects and these are potentially going to be pushed down to suppliers in the form of the “Economically Advantageous” element of tenders.

All of this highlighted the continuing tension in public procurement between meeting the EU required objectives of open and fair competition, whilst ensuring Value for Money. Category Management whilst capable of achieving good VFM, may be seen as restricting (managing) competition and therefore clashing with the open and fair agenda. And meanwhile it is likely that procurement will be trying to do more with less (or to be more precise fewer). The case for investment in procurement is understood by the Buyers, but there was a general feeling that it was not an argument that at the moment was going to cut ice. However there was a general feeling that their organisations had good and strong management – which is reassuring in a time of great change and turbulence.

Unusual Key Performance Metrics

2010-10-17T10:59:00.001+01:00

The writer Terry Pratchett has a word – Substition. It is the opposite of superstition. Superstition is things that everyone thinks work, but in reality don’t – like crossing your fingers for luck. Substition is things that no one thinks work, but in reality do.

I’ve just been reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis, which to me is about substation. He writes about a baseball team, the Oakland A’s, who in the early part of this century were successful on a very modest budget because they had developed metrics for measuring the worth of a player that were different to everyone else’s. Rather than focussing on the outputs, they were focussing on the process. Players who did the right things at affordable prices, rather than the stars. Rather than RBIs (runs batted in) they evaluated players on their ability to get to first base (i.e. not get out). I suppose in football terms it is like picking players who have a good record of winning corners or drawing fouls rather than scoring goals – the goals will come from the corners if you get enough of them. In cricket maybe it would be bowlers who bowl very few no balls in 20-20 rather than take a lot of wickets.

Terry Pratchett also coined the word “narrativium” for the fact that sometimes the world seems to be driven by a good story rather than anything else. People love a good story, and in business and in sport, we are sometimes guilty of wanting to believe the story rather than the facts. Indeed in Moneyball there are times when the “good story” element dominates over the business lessons.

I’ve read a couple of Michael Lewis’s books – Liars Poker, the New New Thing – and he is always extremely readable although you should always remember that he is writing as a journalist rather than an academic. His books make you see the world in a slightly different way, and make you think about what else you might be missing.

In this case it has made me think a couple of things about business in general. Firstly, I wonder whether there might be novel metrics in business that we could use that would better track business success rather than the traditional ones of turnover, return on assets. Rather than customer satisfaction, perhaps ease of doing business? I don’t know. If anyone has any ideas, I would be most interested. The key point from Moneyball is that these should be measurable so that they can be proven, rather than just a “gut feel”. My first thought is that there is a huge (and sometimes contradictory) set of knowledge held by Business Schools and Academia, that most small businesses just don’t know about. How do we get it out there to where it can be used?

The other thought was to wonder about the superstitions and substitions of business. What are they? What are the things that work, though no one thinks they are important, and what are the things that everyone does but don’t actually work? Again, any thoughts and ideas gratefully received.

OECD Trade and Innovation: Chemicals Sector

2010-10-04T14:28:00.003+01:00

The OECD has just published a report on the linkage between Trade and Innovation in the Chemical Sector. You can read it here. I was one of the contributors to this study, along with Dr. Harry Ziman of PHS consulting.

I hope you find it interesting.

Business of Social Media

2010-09-26T12:26:00.002+01:00

At the SME Conference North West on Thursday, we had a very interesting presentation from Chi Chi Ekweozor of realfresh.tv in Manchester about the increasing use of social media in business. At the end of that I asked the audience, mainly smes, how many of them used various social media. Bearing in mind that it is a bit difficult to be accurate counting hands when you are standing at a podium chairing a conference, I think the split was roughly;
- had a website - 90%
- had a blog 40%
- used Twitter 30% (that is just a few fewer hands than for a blog).

I found that very interesting. Like many people of my generation I find Twitter somewhat alien, and struggle to find a business purpose apart from customer service. A Blog I can understand more as a sort of informal newsletter. What this showed me is that Twitter use is already higher than I imagined, and there is a possibility that it is already more imbedded in business than is clear to the late majority/laggards of the business world.

Certainly it makes me think again about the use of Twitter. And I think you should too.

I am wondering about Twitter as an interactive tool. Would it have been useful to have had a Twitter feed at the conference? Could we have got feedback on what was going well, what was overstaying its welcome? (nothing I think, but how to be sure). Could I have taken questions that way? What about use in training courses?

September/October 2010 open courses

2010-09-17T07:51:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates - September is full of unmissable deadelines.

There is a also number of open training courses, run by BIPS Solutions and presented by me.
The next is two sessions in Leeds on Wednesday 22nd September in Leeds, the first 2 modules of the SME engagment programme - 1. Understanding the Tender Notice, and 2. What I need to tender. You can add one or both, and there are 2 more modules to come on 30th September 3. PQQs, and 4. Effective Tender writing. These 2 modules are also due to be run on 28th September in Manchester, but not by me.

Then there is the SME National conference, at which I shall act as master of ceremonies, on Thursdsay 23rd September - see below.

On 7th October I shall be running a half day procurement training module in Solihull for Business Link (through BIP solutions).

Then starting 17th October I shall be running the Advanced Purchasing event in Amsterdam. This is a 5 day event which as the title indicates aims to cover some of the newest and most advanced topics in Purchasing.

November and December should have include open courses in London and Kuala Lumpur, but I shall list those when they are confirmed.

The Supply conference North West 23rd September

2010-08-18T12:39:00.002+01:00

I will be acting as Master of Ceremonies at the Supply Conference North West on September 23rd at the Hilton Deansgate in Manchester. I have not been there yet, and am looking forward to finding out what it is like.

I shall also be giving a short session on best practices in tendering and tender evaluation, in which I hope to use some examples from a couple of tender evaluation processses I am involved in for UKTI in September.

Full details are here. Not a flattering photo if you don't know me.

More courses are being arranged and I shall list them in the next couple of days.

OPEC

2010-07-24T07:37:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the lack of entries. It is tremendously busy at the moment. Much of which I am not able to write about.

What I can talk about though is that I recently had the opportunity to visit OPEC in Vienna. A very interesting event, and there were 3 key messages that they put out.
First, they are not a Cartel
Second, $70 a barrel is a reasonable price for oil, and
Third, better that countries set the price of oil than the British Army

Interesting key messages. Their argument on Cartels is that this is an association of willing participants. There are oil producers not involved (such as the USA which does not export), who are free to set their own prices. Any OPEC member is also free to disregard anything agreed and go their own way with no consequence. They do not set prices as such.

The price for oil is not going down to $25 again in the near future, and if they have their way not at all. The world recession was caused by banks, not the price of oil so they feel confident that they can leave it at $70. The price anyway is set by traders and speculators, who were the ones who drove it up to $150 - not OPEC. This relatively high price will allow them to invest in extraction capacity for the next 20 years.

Finally, as the USA seems to line up to attack BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster and the Lockerbie bomber and Libya, it is worth remembering why the comments about the British Army were so forcefully made. BP of course used to be Anglo-Iranian oil, and was implicated in the establishment of the Shah of Iran and the overthrow of a democratic government. The UK has in the past 100 years had some role in overseeing most of the OPEC members, and as far as oil goes we ran them as pretty much client states. The UK and other western powers did dictate the price of oil, and backed it up by force of arms. This still rankles. Well naturally. I believe the UK spy is a stock villain on Iranian tv to this day. It may not suit us, but you can understand their point of view that it is their economic asset, and how it is used should be determined by the owners of that asset not by the users through use of force. Those days are long gone, despite what people think about the invasion of Iraq, but the worry is still there. We have many bridges to build to overcome that history (which is largely forgotten in the west).

And in the meantime, I suggest we put a lot of resources into alternative energy. In purchasing terms it is never a good idea to be beholden to a key supplier with a grudge.

Government Opportunities FAQ: Supply Chain Management

2010-06-10T07:07:00.004+01:00

I was asked to contribute a few words on Public Sector Supply Chain Management to the latest issue of Government Opportunities Magazine. With their permission, the article is shown above. The whole magazine can be read as an e-document here.

Change of dates

2010-06-08T09:54:00.004+01:00

There have been a few rearrangements to the training schedule, with a number of events put back to later in the year.

Understanding Public Procurement in Newcastle is now Tuesday 14th September, and the Manchester date is Thursday 16th September
The Leeds SME workshops are now on Wednesday 22nd September 2010.

By that time we might also have more details about any changes in the public sector that could impact on public procurement processes, but given that they are all under the EU frameworks these changes will only be relatively minor.

The European Purchasing Masterclass is confirmed as going ahead in Vienna from the 5th to the 9th July 2010.

Twittering Meetings

2010-05-31T09:23:00.001+01:00

I was talking to a colleague who described a recent meeting between two rather traditional multi-national organisations. On the face of it there was an imbalance in the meeting between the host company who had 6 people in the meeting, and the visitor who only had 4. You would expect therefore that, allowing for individual skill and experience levels, that the hosts would be in the stronger position – being in their own offices and having greater resources available.

In fact the opposite applied. The reason? The visitors were live twitter feeding the meeting back to their colleagues in offices across Europe. So while the hosts were drawing on the 6 people in the room, the visitors were able to draw the experience and knowledge of about 20 people all across Europe.

Now, there are a number of issues raised by this. One is a certain level of politeness, because while the hosts were talking the visitors were busy tapping away on Blackberries sharing information with other people (and no doubt doing other things). This could certainly be seen as rude. But then again I am of a certain generation, and I am told that to people in their 20s this is actually perfectly normal. There is also a question of whether the visitors were paying due attention to the discussion going on around them while they fiddled with their technology.

Another issue is about security, and whether confidential information about a high level meeting was accessible to third parties if they were in some way able to access the feed. An important issue, but one that is increasingly common anyway as use of ICT becomes ever more prevalent.

Certainly the consequence of the meeting was that the visitors were able to draw on evidence not actually available to the people in the room, and were able to have suggestions and ideas tested live by a wide community of people who would be effected by the decisions. In previous times, the decisions would have been made in the room, carved in tablets of stone (or at least memos), and then distributed to the masses. Now the people involved could have an input and course correct the meeting as it happened, without having to take time out from their daily activities. As a result, not only will the decisions made be more robust and tested, they are also more likely to be implemented because the people delivering them have been involved in their construction. Action started the moment the meeting wrapped up, rather than sometime after the minutes were written, circulated and then forced through by the project leader.

Now this is in a staid, traditional industry – not media, ICT or creative industries. As my colleague said, one party was in the 1980s, one party was in the 21st century. There are issues to be worked out, but I think we are going to see a lot more of this style of working. Of course one of the drawbacks is that only the people in the room were able to go on the post meeting celebratory bar crawl….

Training Course Schedule

2010-05-12T08:47:00.003+01:00

We are involved in an extensive schedule of training events over the next couple of months.
Firstly, our own Market Research in the Chemical Industry was a great success on Monday 10th May
16th to 20th May I shall be running the Complete Course in Purchasing Management in Cairo for Aztech
26th May I am running an event on Supply2gov for BIP Solutions in Leeds
27th May is an event on the Competitive Dialogue process in Manchester for BIP, repeated 10th June in Birmingham
I shall be running the SME Engagement programme covering Tendering and PQQs on 3rd June in Newcastle, 8th in Manchester, 16th Derby, 17th London, 22nd West midlands, and the 30th in the Black Country. So lots of opportunities to attend those.
As well as those there are a couple of in-house events before we move along to
the European Purchasing Masterclass in Vienna 5th to the 9th July.

I hope to see you at one of these events. For more details, leave a message or drop me a line.

BOGOF

2010-04-19T13:40:00.004+01:00

Buy one get one free. Or in this case, enforced. I am currently in week two of a one week holiday in Sharm El Sheikh, courtesy of the Icelandic volcanic eruption. Due back in the office last Friday, I now have no idea of when my family will be able to return. But it could be worse.

The situation created a few thoughts on customer service. This is the sort of thing that sorts good customer service from poor - and the reprocussions will go on for long time.

So, let's look at my personal situation - on holiday with 2 young children and my wife. At totally unexpected event means our flight has been first delayed and then cancelled. What did Thomas Cook do, and what could be improved? (It was mostly good).

Thomas Cook moved us from our all inclusive hotel to another (rather less fancy) all inclusive hotel and are putting us up at their expense on an all inclusive package. Ok, it is not as nice as our just out of sight hotel round the corner, but it is free. A Bogof holiday. We are now here until at least Wednesday, and it is a good resort. All the people from the Manchester flight are now billetted together.

What could have been improved was the initial stages of the crisis when the passengers were considerably better informed than the rep. Thomas Cook, whilst admittedly facing a totally off scale problem, seemed to be a bit slow in getting to grips with the scale of the problem. Thompsons appeared to make the decision that we were staying and not just delayed about 6 hours earlier than Thomas Cook.

Secondly, Thomas Cook made one of the fatal mistakes in communications in setting deadlines for reporting back, and them missing them and extending the deadline by another hour. Clients want certainty. They should either have set longer deadlines or shown more of their thinking at the hourly reporting sessions - that way people could plan their day rather than just hang around the airport.

Thirdly, I was quite surprised at the low tech nature of the interaction - a poor, long suffering rep getting personally slammed by customers who knew more than her. I was thinking that this was perfect for a Twitter feed, and if they took all of our mobile numbers they could have mass texted us every hour or so. As it is the rep would have to text herself, rather than TC.

Interestingly the people on a package have been treated very well, while those who booked flight only have had to pay for their ongoing accommodation and claim it back on insurance, which is a strong incentive to buy a package in future.

Apart from those minor gripes (or opportunities) we have been very well treated, and it is almost like a second holiday. I am itching to be back at work though.

So, learning to date:
1. The world is globally interconnected - even physically
2. Customers often know just as much as sales representatives
3. Make the customers happy and they will come back (we will buy a package from TC again)
4. Use Twitter and texting to keep customers in touch with rapidly changing situations
5. Egypt is very hot.

Ok, the last is not terribly insightful. Time to go.

The outlook from SMEs

2010-03-26T18:32:00.002Z

I have been running a number of workshops for SMEs in the North and Midlands this month, around Tendering, PQQs and the opportunities from London 2010.
As part of that I have asked how many businesses have seen their turnover increase over the past 12 months, during the recession. More than half indicated that it had, and I would guess about a quarter said turnover went down. That is better than I expected, and certainly better than you would expect if you took the media at face value.

Now this group of businesses is hardly a fully representative sample of the sme community - they are ones prepared to invest time and money in attending seminars about business opportunities and how to improve. So maybe I should expect them to be doing well even in difficult conditions. However they were not insolvency practictioners either, so they have got there despite the economy not because of it.
It made me feel more confident about the strength of the UK Small business sector. I hope that I am right.

SME business, public sector procurement and recession

2010-03-07T18:02:00.003Z

Last week I ran a couple of sessions for SME businesses on PQQs and Tender writing for public sector contracts. We had over 100 businesses over the 2 sessions (which are running again in Leeds at the end of the month), and they were a lively group with lots of interesting questions and points of views.

Two points stood out for me. The first is the one that I have raised many times before of the need for a standardised PQQ form for all public sector contracts. The OGC template is fine as long as all public sector bodies use it in the same form. Ideally the information would be centrally held, but let's not be too idealistic. But the use of a standard form would be simple and easy.

The second issue is the impact of the recession on company turnovers. It has been a hard year or two for many companies, and turnovers are often down on previous years. There is a concern that this may be a negative for some public sector buyers, who will be worried that the companies are not financially secure. If it is a universal downturn (and it will not be) then everyone will be in the same place, but realistically good companies may also have had a deterioration in their trading position and it may make them look weaker than they really are. The second part of this is that for many contacts there is a requirement that the bidders turnover must be a multiple of the contract value i.e. the contract can make up no more than say 25% of turnover in any one year. If turnover is down, then the value of contracts that a company can bid for will be lower, which will in turn reduce the potential turnover in future. A tricky cycle could be established. It may not be an issue for most companies, but it will surely effect some. A little leighway may be necessary when drafting requirements - when the PQQ and ITT are written it is too late.

Supply The National SME Engagement Programme - Workshop

2010-02-27T12:09:00.004Z

I shall be delivering 2 seminars on Wednessday 3rd March 2010 on behalf of BiP Solutions. These will cover Effective Tender Writing, and Understanding Pre-Qualification Questionnaires.

The venue is the Stuart Hotel, 119 London Road, Derby. Details are here. The cost is £75+VAT per delegate for each event.

I shall be presenting the same two seminars at the Jury's Inn in Leeds on 24th March 2010. Same price, details are here.

Course: Market Research in the Chemicals Industry

2010-02-19T07:51:00.003Z

We are due to run the above course on Monday at the Heath in Runcorn.
We have been asked by potential delegates to consider an additional date - 10th May 2010.
If anyone would be interested, please could they let me know. The content and timings would be as advertised, but the venue is not yet fixed.

New Product Development (two day workshop) 22/23 March 2010

2010-02-17T18:18:00.005Z

I shall be running a 2 day event for the SME network at Bradford University School of Management at the end of March 2010.

All businesses need to develop new products and services in order to keep up with changing customer requirements and to beat the competition.
These can be new physical products, new services or even just new ways of delivering your existing
products. The path from idea to successful delivery and profit can be long and difficult.
This two day seminar will go through the process with case studies, worked examples and exercises to allow
you to create a template for new product development for your business.

· Why NPD?
· Stages of NPD
· What products/service?
· Generating ideas
· Research and development
· Stage gate processes
· Market testing
· Launching new products
· Feedback and continual improvement

If you would like to sign up to this event please contact us on smenetwork@bradford.ac.uk

Research into Innovation

2010-02-16T08:25:00.004Z

PAWA consulting have been asked by UKTI Northwest to provide an independent evaluation of an project supporting innovative R&D based companies to export. The aim of this project has been to stimulate both exports and further R&D in the UK.

Having just completed a study into links between Innovation and trade (about which we sadly cannot give details), it is clear that in technology industries it is essential that UK companies continue to develop their R&D in order to maintain the commercial advantages we still have over developing regions. The UK has a real advantage because of the existing knowledge base within the country, which we can retain if we continue to innovate.

NPD - slides

2010-02-12T18:30:00.004Z

As promised.

NPD - a personal case study

2010-02-12T17:52:00.005Z

On Tuesday night I gave a personal case study on New Product Development at the SME Network at Bradford School of Management. Apologies for the delay in putting the slides up.

I am experimenting with using docstoc.com for hosting these files, so please forgive any unusual formatting. You should be able to access a PDF file by clicking here, or on the title. And just to be sure I shall attach the slides as Jpegs as well.

NPD case study presentation -

Evening Master Class – New Product Development – 9th February 2010

2010-02-08T17:01:00.004Z

I shall be speaking at the Bradford University School of Management SME network event on Tuesday 9th February 2010. The event is supported by a range of funds, and so is free to attend.

Dr Rana Tessabehji will be presenting before me, with an interesting talk entitled : Killer Ideas, developing new products and services. I will then be talking through a case study from my days in the chemical industry

The event kicks off at 5pm for coffee, with presentations from 5:30 to 7:15pm, followed by networking. Directions to the venue can be found by clicking here.

We hope to follow this event with a full day event later in February or March 2010.

Business Basics 6: Leadership and Management

2010-02-04T07:13:00.004Z

I have been reminded this week that so much of business comes down to leadership and management at the top level. In particular the way in which senior people set the values and tone of an organisation. You might call it the predominant meme of the business.

By leadership, I am not thinking of the sort of problems that have been in the papers recently about the role of John Terry as Captain of the England team – whatever the ethics and morals of that situation the management issue there is about relationships within the team.

When I started in consulting one of my drivers was to help improve the status and delivery of purchasing within businesses. My view was that this important function was undervalued, under resourced and misunderstood in many organisations.

This week I was at a seminar at Bradford University on Innovation, which emphasised how easy it is for management to accidentally prevent innovative behaviours in their organisations by not showing behaviours that will encourage innovation, such as experimentation, broad thinking and (that most difficult thing to accept) failure.

It is quite easy to see both of these as functional issues, and indeed tackling them functionally is part of what we do as a consultancy. However it is also clear that the problems of both of these vital business activities can easily arise from failures in general business management and leadership.

Senior managers have difficult and demanding jobs, and naturally they tend to pay the most attention to the areas that they understand in detail – which are usually the areas that they previously worked in. Which is only natural, but some functions then get stuck in a catch-22 like cycle where they get little attention because they are not a route to senior management roles, and therefore no senior manager understands them and gives them special attention.

The senior management also set the tone for communication within the business. A positive outlook can be essential for success in a business, but if that slips into a refusal to listen to negative comments a business may lose the opportunity to solve problems quickly at an early stage. A focus on improving standards may stifle trying out new concepts and ideas. A culture of success may actually encourage staff not to do anything untested in case it is not successful.
It is difficult to get the balance right, but senior managers have to be aware that they set the tone for the business, and that although company culture is a very difficult thing to pin down and measure, it is vital to the success of a business.

Business Basics 5: People buy from people

2009-12-12T14:45:00.002Z

I haven’t seen Geoff for about 10 years, but he still had my contact details through Linked-in and newsletters. He gave me a call because the multi-national he works for is bidding for some business with a major sporting event, and wondered if I would be able to help. In the end nothing came of it, but it illustrates a key point about business – people buy from people. There are pages of consultants on Google, and in the Yellow Pages if anyone still uses that, but people prefer to buy from people that they know personally and have dealt with before. How do you know whom to choose from a long list of names?

There is always a risk when appointing an unknown supplier. Maybe they will exceed expectations and everyone will be delighted. Or maybe they will be terrible. Who knows? At least with existing suppliers you know what their faults are and where the likely problems are going to be, and can try to manage round them.

On a recent project looking at suppliers for major sporting events we asked event organisers what they were looking for, and almost to a man (or woman) they said a relevant track record. When that track record is wedded to a personal relationship the combination is very strong.

So there is always an inbuilt advantage to suppliers already known to the buyer. You might ask whether tendering processes are meant to eliminate that bias, and in principle they should. In practice knowing a supplier gives a least a tiny, unintentional, unconscious weighting to the scoring and might mean a known supplier getting the benefit of the doubt and an extra point or two that makes all the difference if the scoring is close.

On top of that there is the fact that people tend to get along with people who share similar values, styles and experiences. There is a story that Bill Gates made all the guys at Microsoft where shirts and ties the first time they met IBM, just to make them seem more like IBM then all the tie dyed t-shirted code writers they met on the rest of their trip. If he did, it was a brilliant move.

And the more times you meet someone the more you get to know and understand each other. If there is a clash of personalities – then you had better either change your personality or more realistically get someone else to manage that client. It is the approach that we take with one major client where a clash of personalities was a major problem until we worked out the best people to work together and lead the project on both sides.

So, the key message? Get out there and meet your customers. You never know when they are going to have a need and your name will come to mind. Could be tomorrow (wouldn’t that be nice), or it could be in a decade. You don’t know. But if they don’t know you personally, they will probably go with someone they do know.

Chemical Industry Purchasing & Supply chain course 2012

2009-12-02T13:12:00.002Z

Rob Milner Associates and PAWA Consulting are running the above course at the Heath Runcorn in February 2010. More details in the flier.

Market Research - open training course 2010

2009-12-01T16:10:00.002Z

Rob Milner Associates and PAWA Consulting are pleased to announce that we are running a course on Market research, focussing on the Chemicals industry at the Heath in Runcorn in February.
Details in the attachment.

Training Event - Newcastle

2009-11-20T18:41:00.004Z

I shall be running the Quality and London 2012 workshops again for BiP Solutions on Thursday 26th November 2009, at the Hilton Newcastle Gateshead Hotel, which is actually in Gateshead. The event in Leeds had an interesting mix of delegates and both sessions had lively debates. I look forward to similar in Gateshead.

Booking is £75 for each event, details in previous blog.

Training events - Leeds - 2012 and Quality

2009-11-16T13:52:00.003Z

I shall be running 2 training events for BiP Solutions in Leeds on Wednesday 18th November
The first is "Using Quality Standards to create Competitive Advantage", and the second is "Winning Business through London 2012".

You can attend either event or both, and they are being held at the Jury's Inn, Leeds. Cost is £75 for each half day session.

They can be booked by clicking here.

Procurex 09

2009-11-04T10:36:00.003Z

I had a very interesting and productive time at the Procurex 09 conference on behalf of BiP solutions. Very busy, and some very interesting discussions at the sessions and on the stand.
Obviously there is a focus on Scottish Procurement, but there were a lot of English and Irish people there as well - and at the Procurex National event in Birmingham in March no doubt there will be even more. I am hoping to write an article about the event with one of the attendees - more details if it comes off.

The presentations from the 2 days (not just mine) are up on the site at
www.procurexscotland.co.uk/day1zone3

Preregistration for 2010 is already on line at

www.procurexscotland.com/2010

I hope to be there.

YCF Conference - Buying in Uncertain Times

2009-10-15T13:05:00.005+01:00

Here is the presentation I gave 14th October 2009 at the Yorkshire Chemical Focus annual Conference in Bradford. Any questions or comments please fire away. Sorry, I can't seem to find an easier way of putting the powerpoint slides in the blog.

2009/10 Training programmes

2009-10-06T15:53:00.004+01:00

We are delighted to announce that we shall be running our own training programmes in 2010, starting on 22nd February with Market Research for the Chemical Industry, at The Heath Runcorn (with Robert Milner Associates).
The next day 23rd February 2010 we shall be running Chemical Industry Purchasing and suppy Chain Management, also at the Heath.

At a date to be arranged we shall be running "Beat the Buyer" a half day course focussing on sales and purchasing negotiations (in conjunction with NBA4Business).

In the remainder of this year we have;
Purchasing, Negotiation and Cost control 19-23rd October 2009 in Kuala Lumpur, and
Professional Purchasing Skills, 8th-12th October 2009 in Dubai, and
Complete Course in Purchasing Management, 13th - 17th December 09 in Cairo.

In addition we have a full programme of international training programmes in 2010.

The Complete Course on Purchasing Management
15 - 19 February Kuala Lumpur
The Complete Course on Purchasing Management
16 - 20 May Cairo
Purchasing Management Master Class (Certified Purchasing Professional)
5 - 9 July Vienna
The Complete Course on Purchasing Management
26 - 30 July London
Purchasing Management Master Class (Certified Purchasing Professional)
2 - 6 August Geneva
Purchasing Management Master Class (Certified Purchasing Professional)
1 - 5 November London
The Complete Course on Purchasing Management
29 Nov - 3 Dec Kuala Lumpur
Purchasing Management Master Class (Certified Purchasing Professional)
20 - 24 December Kuala Lumpur

Rio 2016

2009-10-05T09:03:00.004+01:00

Hard to believe that it is more than 4 years since London won the right to stage the 2012 Olympics. What a thrill it was, coupled with a certain Schadenfreude at the French disappointment. London 2012 made a great pitch - pointing out the UK is such as young country, and that London is one of the great international cities. Maybe only New York has that same buzz. And now less than 3 years until the Games themselves.

Although it may have been easier for UK companies to get business in Madrid or Chicago because of proximity or a common language, there should be lots of opportunities in Rio. The fact that this is the first Olympics in South America, means that there will not be the level of established infrastructure and preferred suppliers that there is in Europe and North America.
Obviously some of that will develop during the World cup of 2014 - but the page will be blanker than it is for most Games, and UK companies should have the momentum coming out of 2012 to do well.

Business Basics 4: Turnover is ego - profit is everything

2009-09-20T17:46:00.004+01:00

When I was about the same age as my children are now, my father became insolvent and lost the chain of television shops he had spent a decade building up. His business, as I now understand, was profitable – but the amount of money he was owed by debtors and the amount of money he owed his creditors balanced – and there was no way through the cashflow crisis that created. As a child I didn’t understand the reasons for the change in our circumstances but as I grew up I had two simple messages reinforced to me by my father: Turnover is good for your ego, but profit is everything. And Cashflow is king – but that is another Business basic.

During the dotcom boom, and several other booms, business sometimes seems to find a way round this dictum but, inexorable as gravity, in the end we all need to make a profit. Google did not make money for a long time, but now is a cash machine with the profits from online advertising. Skype on the other hand now seems to be worth a lot less than ebay paid for it.It is an easy thing to assume that if the turnover is there, then the profitability will follow – at a reasonable percentage. However the evidence is there that lots of businesses are what are uncharitably known as “busy fools” – working harder, bringing in more work, but not increasing profits at the same rate (or even at all). How long will Twitter and Spotify be able to go on growing without making a profit? Will they survive?

The holy grail of business is to increase volumes and margins at the same time, and it is the mantra of many sales managers (“sell more at higher prices”), which is instantly dismissed as impossible by many salesmen. It seems far easier to increase volumes by eating away at margins – which means we have to work harder to make the same money. That is the Red Queen’s Race in Alice in Wonderland, where we have to run just as fast as we can to stand still. In the end it is often unsustainable, and volumes drop without margins returning to previous levels and then the trouble starts.

As a consultant I am aware of some of my colleagues and competitors working for low rates that they hope will keep them busy. During the bad times, like the ones we have now in 2009, if the volume of work drops then they no longer able to sustain their business. If more profitable work becomes available they are often unable to take advantage because their time is fully booked with low value work. Clients buy our expertise, but they buy it in time based units. When it is gone, it is gone.

There are valid reasons for pushing for increased turnover – some Buyers will insist that a single contract is no more than 25% of a suppliers turnover, so the bigger the turnover the bigger the contract you can bid for. It can make the company seem more substantial that it is in reality. And as an owner or director it sounds great to define your business by the turnover - £1m, £10m, £100m. It is worth remembering that that is the way the big bankrupt companies described themselves, rather than their profitability - £10k, £20k or even nothing at all.

Of course, if you can maintain reasonable margins, then growth in turnover is excellent. We just have to remember that what we are trying to achieve is more profit, and that does not inevitably follow from increased turnover.

In the North we have a phrase about being all fur coat and no underwear… (to use the polite version). It is worthwhile for all of us to have a good look at the business we are gaining and checking that it really is generating a respectable profit (or that we have other reasons for taking it on), and that we are not just fooling ourselves into taking on more work for no gain.

Details of YCF Seminars 14th Oct 2009

2009-09-10T16:24:00.003+01:00

PAWA at YCF 14th October 2009

2009-09-07T16:49:00.002+01:00

I shall be presenting at the Yorkshire Chemical Focus Annual Conference on 14th October 2009 in Bradford. Time should be late afternoon, and the venue will be the Cedar Court Hotel at the top of the M606.

Procurex 2009

2009-09-07T15:13:00.002+01:00

I shall be presenting a couple of sessions at Procurex Scotland 2009, the Scottish Procurement exhibition 28-29th October 2009. More details to follow.

Business Basics 3. What is in a name?

2009-08-11T16:44:00.004+01:00

Large corporations put a lot of time and effort into branding - much of which seems to be a waste of time to those of us Luddites who still think that Snickers should be called Marathon bars. The change of name can sometimes seem bizarre, when as part of a restructuring a well known brand or company name is thrown away - as seemed to happen when the Virgin Megastores were briefly taken over and run as Zaavi. Whatever value there was in a music retail store in the days of instant downloads, surely a lot of it resided in the Virgin brand which has been around for 40 years.

So there is worth to company names. As part of a current project we are researching into suppliers to major sporting events. As part of the process we have to look a huge range of companies, and a few things very quickly come to mind. The first is that you can very tell many of the one man bands - they are called things like John Smith and Associates (there is at least one in the UK, and I am sure it is a very fine business). Nothing wrong with the name, but it can lead customers to think that you are small and not as capable as you might be.

Secondly, companies that have quite specific names describing what they do, often keep the name after they have expanded away from their original priority. That makes it difficult for new customers to recognise them. An example we came across was an agricultural business that now makes temporary buildings for many different applications - but the Agricultural in their name possibly puts people off.

Third thing is that having a common name can make it very difficult to distinguish you from similar sounding companies. Your Company Ltd. may be practically indistinguishable from Yourcompany, and Your Company International, and Your Company Trading etc. Often companies are stuck in the bind of having built up a reputation over years, but now being indistinguishable from lots of others with similar names. Likewise companys named after places are hard to find on Google.

Finally if you have made your company stand out by having an unusual spelling, or using X instead of ex- or something similar - you had better hope that your advertising is strong enough for your individual spelling to stick in the mind - otherwise people won't find it.

The easier it is for people to find your business the better. Tradition or a fancy name should not stick in the way of easy recognition on the internet.
Do we follow these rules? Well, we do have difficulties with people not knowing how to spell PAWA if they hear it rather than see it. Something we will think about as we grow.

Business Basics 2 : It's a numbers game

2009-07-28T16:23:00.007+01:00

Another truism – the more customers you see, and the more you see your customers, the more successful you are likely to be. Obvious, but for many of us there can be a gap between what we know intellectually and what we believe in our hearts and do as a result. Outside of work life as well as inside.

Of course there is no guarantee that if you get in front of a lot of customers you will win business – your proposition could be so unappealing that no matter how many people you see no one will buy (though people will buy quite remarkable things – do you remember pet rocks?). But whatever your success rate, 99% or 1%, if you see more existing and potential clients more often you are likely to get more business. As said in the book Rainmaking, by Ford Harding, if my success rate is 10% and yours is 20%, I’ll still win more business than you if I see 21 customers and you only see 10.

Salesmen are used to thinking that every rejection moves them closer to a sale – the rest of us are less sanguine. It hurts when a client says no. When times are hard – like they are at the moment – and possible projects are being put on the shelf it takes a strong mental attitude to keep putting yourself in the way of rejection. And of course, when things get better we are all often too busy doing the work in hand to spend too much time seeing people other that existing clients.

As a consultancy we can talk ourselves out of business quite easily – our current project we nearly didn’t bid for on the grounds that the client knew us well but did not invite us in.. Naturally (and wrongly) we thought they did not want us. Another client I saw recently asked why we didn’t bid on a piece of work that was a follow up to an earlier project of ours – the answer was that we did not know about it. Talking more to our clients more often would have avoided both of the those problems.

In industries like Speciality Chemicals, the risks of a new supplier can be high – and so customers want to see consistent commitment to them as an account before taking a chance on change. Other times technical requirements change quite quickly, which an incumbent supplier might not notice but a hungry supplier on the outside might notice and take advantage of. And sometimes you get lucky and call straight after a need for your services has just arisen.

Of course call rate along guarantees nothing, but little and often (and for a long time) can be the way to get business.

Beat the Buyer - 14th October 2009

2009-07-15T09:32:00.005+01:00

We are delighted to announce a new joint development with NBA4Business - a negotiation skills Workshop entitled "Beat the Buyer". This is part of a very reasonably priced series of 5 workshops which are being held at the award winning Shine Business Centre in Leeds - more details here.

Nick Bramley is an experienced saleman and trainer, and I will be bringing my expertise as a buyer to give people an opportunity to practice negotiation skills in a realistic setting. This is a unique opportunity to see negotiation from the viewpoints of both the Buyer and the Seller.

Prices for the workshop start at a very reasonable £75+VAT. Booking through NBA4Business .

Business Basics 1. More businesses go wrong by not doing the basics than not being sufficiently advanced

2009-07-07T15:57:00.003+01:00

This may sound like a consultant talking himself out of business – where would we be if there were no fancy new business model every few years? Some ground breaking new innovation that will change everything about business beyond recognition. Be it the internet, or supply chain integration, or “organic” produce.

Well, I am not saying that these things are not vitally important, and that for some businesses failing to embrace them will mean the end of their business. After all the number of Fletchers decreased after the invention of the gun. But not immediately. Arrows and guns co-existed for a while (at least according to the Western movies of my youth), even if in the end there was only going to be one winner in that technology shift. There are even a few niche fletchers around now.

A fletcher who, unable to transfer his skills to metalworking, ignored the coming of guns surely found that the number of his customers declined over time (presumably after every battle) – but it would have tailed off rather than stopped instantly. However a fletcher who did not pay his bills, made wonky arrows and worked in a shed no one could find would go about of business even quicker.

So, getting the basics of business right is essential in order that you are around in business long enough to worry about the new, new thing. So, what are the basics of business – in a nutshell (or sheaf) they are cashflow, customer satisfaction, profitability, quality of production, security of supply, and promotion. And that has not changed in centuries – internet or not.

Feel free to disagree or tell me something essential I have missed out.

Business Basics: Introduction

2009-07-07T15:55:00.002+01:00

One of the interesting things about being a consultant and trainer is that over the years you find that some of the same issues recur on regular basis. The great thing about this for a consultant is that we can quickly come up with an opinion, viewpoint or (ideally) an answer because we have already thought about it. The surprising thing is that many of the repeating issues are fairly standard issues in business, and are addressed in lots of books, training videos, MBA courses etc. You might think that they would never occur again – but they do. And as a consultant I find myself saying some of the same lines over again to different clients.

I thought it might be useful, for me as well as any clients, to put some of these on the blog. I make no claims for these to be the result of years of scientific study, or to be the leading edge of business management research. For that read Harvard Business Review. This simply an occasional series of posts dealing with some of the common issues in business. You may disagree (with either the problem or the answer), and I look forward to hearing from you if you do.