SMEs still miss out on Public Sector Contracts

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

The article is here

Keep that thought

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More courses for 2012

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

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

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

Amazon link to Excellence in Public Sector Procurement

Advertising the competition

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

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

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

Enjoy.  But please come back here too!

Government becomes an office landlord

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

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.