Yes, to me, lowest price wins

With so much attention on UK public procurement there is perhaps some comfort that there are questions also being asked in the USA about public procurement. And in answer to those questions we hear that a culture of 'lowest price wins', lack of skills and risk aversion prevails. The blame is clearly laid at the door of procurement professionals with a perception that they just are not up to the mark.

Let's forget about arguing whether or not the perception is justified because it appears to be a fairly prevalent perception on both sides of the Atlantic.

While the perception may be completely inaccurate, why would those in the private sector, who have that perception, ever want to employ someone from the public sector? That is particularly an issue in the UK where it was hoped that the private sector would pick up some of the many UK public sector staff shed as a result of the austerity strategy.

Those who hold the belief increasingly appear be highly respected business leaders and influential with politicians. They are also be reinforcing others opinions, however unfounded, that public sector procurement wastes money as opposed to having a strategic role in cost reduction.

Sadly, while we hear plenty of reference to Purchasing Managers' Indices we have no such measure of public perception of procurement as adding value or indeed that lowest price does not prevail.

Those of us who consider procurement to be our profession need to start redressing the balance because the next thing may well be that resourcing the procurement function may be at lowest price too.

Return of the iPads

I recently  referred to being asked to produce a business case for iPads. I was astounded that, without any meaningful development of a business case, a self-fulfilling conclusion seemed to have been arrived at that business could no longer be carried out efficiently without this 'must have accessory'. 

Anyway our friends at Apple seemed to have just developed the 'sale of the century'. Now all those procurement and finance people who would advocate the need for a meaningful business case have just been punched in the solar plexus - the House of Commons Administration Committee has apparently now recommended "rapid rollout of suitable mobile table hardware" to all 650 MPs.

It's not that the MPs lack technology to support them in their work; they already have three desktops and two laptops - I suspect also a Blackberry. (I hope someone has asked the question relating to how much slower they travel with all this luggage.  I also hope they have completed an H&S assessment to protect against potential injury.)
Nevertheless,

Obama's State of the Union message to procurement

It’s not often I take the time to look for procurement messages in a US Presidential address, but Obama’s State of the Union address has some interesting messages for the procurement world.

Obama views the economy has been weakened as a result of outsourcing!  Does he mean