Public Spend Forum (PSF) is a public sector procurement global community and market intelligence platform dedicated to improving public procurement and the public sector market. On its website you will find articles, podcasts, opinion pieces, discussion trails and news stories. GovShop is its platform for finding and connecting suppliers with the public sector market.
Recent highlights include:
The Negotiation Rottweiler: Should we beat up our suppliers or collaborate with them?
Jonathan O’Brien discusses how conflict is perceived to be an essential part of every great negotiation, which permeates through practice in the procurement community. As a result, the ‘Negotiation Rottweiler’ has become the hero and something to aspire to – exactly what companies need to send in to get the deal. The majority of negotiation training programs aimed at procurement professionals were designed for sales people and so place the emphasis on managing ‘the negotiation event.’ In procurement, taking part in sales-based negotiation training focused on power and conflict only gets us so far, but generally tends to fall short. He explains here.
Summary Reports for Your Procurement Files
Being able to summarize a market in terms of available minority suppliers, suppliers by size, and other demographics is important. And until now, it has been a time-consuming process. With GovShop’s newly-added Summary Report feature, you can now quickly print a report and share with your colleagues or add it to your files. Available for export, the report provides an easy-to-read report simplistically laid out on a single page. With a quick glance, the dashboard displays the quantity of suppliers belonging to certain set-aside programmes, PSC-code breakdown, and much more. See an example here.
How to include innovative SMEs in your procurement process
ICLEI – local governments for sustainability – is working with the European Commission to help procurers and SMEs from across Europe to engage and discuss opportunities for collaboration. They invite you to share your experiences and challenges for improving access to SMEs in your procurement. The responses will allow them to arrange relevant supplier dialogue events, webinars and other activities that could support you in increasing the innovation potential of your procurement. Add your input here.
And in other news …
Seven European cities pilot solutions to be more circular
CCS sets up £166m purchasing system for IT testing
Most companies fail to sell through G-Cloud
