Procurement

PricewaterhouseCoopers has developed a leading capability in helping public sector organisations, both large and small, improve their procurement effectiveness. We work with our clients to plan, execute and manage their spending with suppliers in order to deliver better value.

We have delivered a range of landmark projects within the public sector including:

• reviewing of the role of markets in the delivery of local government services for the Department of Communities and Local Government
• establishing and supporting the Department for Education and Skills; Centre of Procurement Performance
• designing and implementing a new library stock supply regime for the Museum, Libraries, Archives Council on behalf of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport
• delivering a collaborative procurement on agency staff for Association of Greater Manchester Authorities
• supporting a range of activities with the Regional Centres of Excellence
• delivering a variety of procurement improvements across the local government, health, education and central government sectors

It is clear that there is a huge amount more benefit that the public sector could secure through more joined up/organised procurement but it also clear that this benefit will not be achieved without proper stakeholder engagement/management and a programme of activity to push spend through better deals.

We believe that an effective procurement capability is critical to an organisation's ability to not only achieve efficiencies but also to support in achieving its strategic objectives. To that end we view procurement as the whole life cycle from initial concept and definition of business needs through to the end of the useful life of an asset or end of a service contract.

Potential issues

In our experience, organisations are facing a number of challenges in maximising the effectiveness of its procurement function, key challenges include:

• Raising the profile of procurement in the organisation, through more effective procurement strategy, training, contract management techniques
• Using strategic sourcing and better contract management to drive significant savings, in line with the Gershon efficiency review; lack of capacity to complete such change programmes
• Supporting the design, delivery and management of sustainable commercial procurements whilst ensuring consistent, effective, legal and efficient approaches
• Managing the performance of key suppliers to defined standards; if necessary, establishing supplier development/improvement programmes; sharing information with suppliers to improve quality and delivery performance
• Measuring the efficiency and effectiveness of procurement activities; where appropriate, defining performance measures or targets to assess the value that procurement adds to the organisation
• Moving forward on e-procurement and away from the inefficiencies of manual, paper-based systems
• Achieving a thorough understanding of spend by supplier and spend type in order to set improvement objectives for better procurement activity

PwC services

In responding to these challenges PwC has developed a range of key service areas to support in the improvement of an organisation's procurement capability, key services include:

• Designing and establishing the procurement function allowing it to effectively function as a strategic centre of excellence
• Contract and supplier management involving performance measures based on best practice standards and procedures and regular monitoring
• Supporting the design, delivery and management of sustainable commercial procurements, within a legal and efficient framework
• Guidance on e-procurement and other technical solutions to improve efficiency, make contracts more accessible and provide access to key data for management reporting, including: e-auctions, e-tendering, e-invoices, reverse auctions, procurement cards
• Spend profiling/analysis; cost reviews to identify opportunities for savings through better procurement
• Auctions and procurement cards as standalone units or integrated e-procurement systems
• Developing structured sourcing strategies for specific product or service groups; category expertise on goods and services; use of collaborative purchasing to leverage buying power