Setting Procurement Processes for Success in the Public Sector

At Target we are seeing some great results and success from one of our products in the public sector.

Our contract management systems are currently powering procurement and contracts team at; a large County Council, a leading FE College and soon to be our fifth NHS Trust!

Public sector procurement became a high profile topic in the election platforms of the main political parties; the parties made increasing SME participation in the government procurement a key plank of their respective election platforms to reflect a positive drive to reform procurement.

However there is more focus on driving innovation to reform public sector procurement practices…

• The Cabinet Office clarified two key clauses that could shake-up local government procurement – They want to ensure that high-quality procurement processes are in place across the public sector, to streamline procurement practices.
• The Public Contract Regulations 2015 placed focused on the use of electronic communication and access to important documents via the internet or a central procurement system.

Implementing innovative platforms to more effectively manage and safely share information will enable the public sector to streamline processes and timescales for negotiations and decision making, as well as drive cost reductions in the public sector.

Procurement platforms, such as our contract management system Accord which delivers total governance and audit trials, could be the overall key to enable the logistics and management of smaller contacts; and to ensure standards are being met and allowed across the board in a complex procurement environment.

An automated management and reporting system can reduce costs due to organisational and management benefits; such as the structuring process reducing the amount of staff time necessary to devote to complex contract management procedures.

By using the right platform, that is properly deployed to meet both the businesses needs and contract regulations, the public sector can expect to see increased efficiency through set and automated distribution and collection of relevant supplies; as well as a collaborative platform for suppliers and bodies in the public sector to work together for improved coverage and compliance.

An electronic procurement system will improve visibility of the entire procurement process in the public sector and provide better risk management and offer more intelligent reporting systems, which will lead to lessons and system configurations to improve performance and processes over time.

Budgets and spend management are about to come in the lime light; businesses under the public sector that work to adopt change within their procurement practices will see the most advantage by acting now to get control of contracts, compliance and spend.

The public sector and the software industry should and need to work together.