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GSA $2.5 Billion Cloud Computing Procurement RFQ: Real Opportunity or a Mirage for SME Vendors
The Federal Cloud Computing Initiative is partnering with GSA SmartBuy and the Defense Department’s Enterprise Software initiative for the cloud services contracts. The contracts are reported to be worth an estimated $2.5 billion over five years. Multiple contracts are expected to be awarded. from May 10th, 2011 Washington Technology article GSA launches $2.5B cloud computing…
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Failure and a lack of preparation pose the greatest risk to public sector shared services success
Recently the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee’s 2009 report, Central Government’s Management of Service Contracts, found there were no documented plans for managing 28% of contracts. A further 56% of contracts did not have a contingency plan in case of supplier failure. from the overview of the late David Kaye’s Briefing Paper – Public…
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Managing Supply Chain Risk: The Nokia and Ericsson Case Study
Everywhere you look whether in the blogs, or social networking groups or for that matter even the more traditional media streams, the term supply chain risk pops up with increasing frequency. Of course catastrophic events such as the recent earthquake in Japan have a way of igniting widespread interest if only for the time that…
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UK public sector veteran Cram stirs the pot of both creative thinking and controversy
The following is an excerpt from the May 16th, 2011 article by 30 plus year UK public sector expert Colin Cram titled “Connecting the dots: shared services” which appeared in the guardian.co.uk Procurement Leaders Network website. The public sector needs to take advantage of economies of scale and join up its services states Colin Cram…
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Guest Author Colin Cram provides a hands-on approach to procurement
30 year plus public sector veteran and expert Colin Cram’s recent article in the public leaders network titled Hands On Approach To Procurement provides an interesting and unique lens into the restructuring of central government procurement in the UK. Colin as you know was a guest on the PI Inquisitive Eye in December and again…
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IACCM Survey seeks to understand what the future holds for public sector professionals
When IACCM CEO Tim Cummins dropped me a line asking if I would be willing to extend to our audience base the organization’s latest survey seeking to understand how the shifting public sector landscape is likely going to affect government procurement professionals, I was more than pleased to accommodate the request based on my respect…
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Government purchasing expert confirms that 90% of RFP winners decided before RFP is actually issued . . . with an important caveat!
When the procurement ombudsman for the Canadian Federal Government announced last summer that “The government has inadvertently created the conditions (for monopoly),” and that “It’s not what the government intended to do and that’s why we think a review would be beneficial to see what the impacts are, including the unintended effects,” it was not…
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The winning bidder in government tenders are selected before the RFP is actually issued 90% of the time . . .
According to the former Senior Aide for Gov. Mario Cuomo, Al Gordon, the winning bidder in government tenders are selected before the RFP is actually issued 90% of the time. In this second segment excerpt from the Government Contracts Made Easier Series of interviews with Small -Medium Enterprise or “SME” business owners, we welcome to…
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Are Discriminatory and Preferential Government Procurement Practices Damaging to International Trade? One Might Think So . . .
Discriminatory or preferential procurement practices can take several explicit forms, including “outright exclusion” in which foreign bidders are excluded from the tendering process (for example, defense contracts are often, but not always, reserved for domestic suppliers). Under “preferential price margin,” purchasing entities accept the bids of domestic suppliers over foreign suppliers as long as the…
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Supply Chains are indeed the ties that bind us all in a global economy
Last June 23rd I can vividly recall the feelings I had when while sitting at my desk, our region was struck by what turned out to be a 5.0 magnitude earthquake. With the epicenter a mere 25 kilometers from my office, the rolling build-up and corresponding shaking, was tantamount to a jet airplane flying through…
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Supply Chain Finance (Part 3): How A Misdirected Overemphasis On Process Undermines Best Value Purchasing
In the previous installment in this series, I talked about the fact that it has became abundantly clear that addressing the challenges that vendors face when they decide to pursue government contracts, is not something that can be solved from the supplier side of the equation. For example, and citing the AMEX study results yet…
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Absence of Truth in Bidding Post Should Get Everyone in the Contracting Pews Standing Up and Shouting AMEN!
IACCM research has revealed widespread concern about the integrity of the bidding and negotiation process. Contracts and Legal practitioners recognize that this is the phase when foundations are laid for future claims and disputes. A recent survey suggests that failure to properly describe, understand or respond to requirements accounts for 40% of failed or troubled…
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Supply Chain Finance (Part 2) Efficiency Over Financing: A 30 Year Public Sector Executive Provides His Take On Supply Chain Financing
No, this is the “cost” of doing business with the government. B2G is NOT for everyone and there are no guarantees that after 19.5 months business will occur. There are resources to help companies long the way, though: PTACs, SBDCs and SCORE are all excellent – see links below. Like any market niche, there are…
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More people weigh in on the question of governments funding suppliers . . .
As any blogger or social networking maven will tell you, comments from readers are sometimes far and few between depending on the topic being discussed. While I have certainly enjoyed the commentary feedback from as many as 50 plus people for a particular post or article – usually dealing with the lighter side of the…
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Response to government’s subsidizing supplier participation seems to be more a question of why versus how
In my February 17th post “Supply Chain Finance (Part 1): How do governments finance suppliers when their own credit worthiness is in question?,” I broached the concept of governments financing supplier involvement in the acquisition process as a means of addressing the steadily declining responses to public bids. It is not that outlandish an idea…
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Proactive Recognition on the part of IACCM will help their members maintain relevancy in a changing world
No sooner do I talk about a study spanning several decades which concluded that generally speaking executives perceive the buyer role as a low level position, in which “one strategic business thinker with the right skills and capabilities is worth 10 or 12 of your normal, run-of-the-mill purchasing people,” and (not surprisingly) IACCM demonstrates their…
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Complex contracting in the public sector: Managing relations and negotiating contracts in the absence of market discipline
Governments buy lots of goods and services. The U.S. federal government spent over $419 billion in fiscal year 2006 for procurement, almost double 2001 procurement expenditures (Hutton, 2008). The rationale for buying is to lower costs through scale or market efficiencies, spark service delivery improvements or innovation through competition, and access expertise or capacity unavailable…
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Complex acquisitions still presents significant obstacles in the public sector
The last few weeks have been extremely interesting in the world of public sector procurement, as two separate government undertakings or initiatives if you like are underway on both sides of the Atlantic. What started as an interview with the new Secretary of Administration for the Commonwealth of Virginia culminated in the release last week…
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Define, Align and Quantify: Expert Guest Panel Opinion Regarding Virginia’s Supplier Diversity Report
It was to say the least a fast-paced and definitive review of the recently released Governor’s Supplier Diversity Advisory Board’s report that came out of Virginia last week. Joining me for the 60 minute segment was Mark Amtower and Colin Cram, both of whom have a breadth and depth of experience in terms of public…
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House of Lords tackle the question; Can public procurement be used as a tool to stimulate innovation?
As I spend an increasing amount of time crisscrossing the pond I have seen an emerging trend that is perhaps a strong reflection of the globalized nature of our collective world, including within the arena that is public sector procurement. What I am talking about is the commonality of challenges that many governments are now…