Good news/bad news - Procure4London

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

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

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  Over time it will become increasingly out of date, but for the next year or so it should still be a good source of information.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

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?

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

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

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.