Supply Chain

Case study: driving culture change at the Crown Commercial Service

“Our vision is to put finance at the heart of decision making – driving the agenda, not just keeping score”, head of the UK government finance function, Mike Driver, said […]

EU payments rules look set to take SMEs by surprise

National financial regulators have signalled that they’ll be flexible in policing the implementation of new EU regulations, due to come into force on 14 September, which are designed to tackle […]

UK to insist suppliers pay SMEs quickly, says commercial chief

The UK Government is to exclude companies from government procurements if they fail to pay their own suppliers within 60 days, the UK’s chief commercial officer told delegates at Innovation […]

Spend it wisely, part 1: streamlining the tender process

With so much public money now spent with private sector suppliers, interest is growing in ways to reform and improve public procurement. In the first of two linked articles on […]

Beyond the contract: getting value from incumbent suppliers, part 2

In the second part of our feature on ‘add-on’ sales, poacher-turned-gatekeeper James Johns explores how public sector commercial teams can outmanoeuvre supplier teams and introduce competitive pressures when purchasing from […]

Beyond the contract: getting value from incumbent suppliers, part 1

Nowadays, many public commercial teams know that contract management is just as important as procurement. But there’s a third strand to good commercial operations: negotiating and managing additional work placed […]

Contractors for US federal IT upgrade announced

The starting gun has been fired on a drive to modernise information technology across the US Federal Government, with the award of contracts to five private companies. The drive, which […]

Nigerian president orders procurement officials to favour domestic firms

Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari has signed an Executive Order requiring public bodies to give preference to Nigerian companies when awarding procurement contracts. Executive Order 5, issued earlier this month with […]

Officials ready to rejig poor contracts, says UK government chief executive

UK civil service chief executive John Manzoni hinted last week that the government might wish to revisit some poorly-functioning private sector delivery contracts, in the wake of the high-profile collapse […]

Don’t let your procurement hit the buffers

In the wake of the collapse of the UK’s huge contractor Carillion, new concerns are being raised about the weaknesses in public procurement and contracting. Former senior supplier manager James […]