Under the banner of a legitimate report on negotiating cloud contracts Gartner’s latest report torpedoes the new players using IBMs old FUD approach . . . will the market listen?
p>The following first post in the 9-Part Analysing The Analyst: Negotiating Contracts in the Cloud Series has been reprinted with permission from the Procurement Insights Blog. Under the banner of a legitimate report on negotiating cloud contracts, Gartner’s latest offering should be viewed in the context of my January 7th, 2011 post “Madison Avenue ooops . . . make that Gartner,...
Read MoreColin Cram’s 5 Recommendations for a Successful Government Procurement Contest
Similar to the Coles Notes or, the . . . For Dummies series of books, 30 year plus UK public sector veteran Colin Cram has, as a lead in to our October interview on the PI Window on Blog Talk Radio, provided his five recommendations for a successful procurement contest initiative. For those who may not be familiar with the concept, I recently published the 3-Part Procurement Contests Review...
Read MoreAre raising the discretionary spending caps a way for governments to keep business with local or preferred suppliers?
Of the many questions that came out of my interview with the City of Gatineau’s Alain d’Entremont regarding their new Supplier Portal is this . . . are raising the discretionary spending caps a way to keep business with local or preferred suppliers? NOTE: Here is the on-demand link to my interview with the City of Gatineau’s Alain d’Entremeont, Head of Public Relations @...
Read MoreBridging the disconnect between finance and purchasing (Part 3): EPS and the Swinging Pendulum of Responsibility
p>Now comes the fun part. The changes which are possible – based on what I’ve described so far, are identified in blue in the next figure. Revenues are shown to increase 3%, purchased goods and services costs (as a % of revenues) are reduced from 60% to 55%, and SG&A expenses as a % of revenues are reduced by 1%. Those three improvements – which, by the way, are very...
Read MoreDon’t sweat the small stuff? Why industry experts point to Indirect Material Spend as an important reservoir of untapped savings!
With regard to costs, the conventional wisdom is that procurement should focus principally on the “big ticket” areas of spend, such as raw materials and energy. And, you certainly should devote attention to raw materials and energy – not just to reduce costs, but also to reduce volatility through better risk management. But, if you focus only on the big ticket spend categories, you’ll be...
Read MoreFiscal realities and Government contracting (Part 4): Supplier cause and effect
It is a funny thing that as a writer when you put the virtual pen to paper you never really know what will or will not strike a note with your readers. All you can truly hope is that your passion for the subject matter coupled with sound research practices will prove worthy of consideration in what is at times an overcrowded social media world. Occasionally, and when all the proverbial stars...
Read MoreAre procurement contests just another way for government to pass the innovation buck to a preferred outside vendor?
The basic idea of a procurement contest — sometimes called a prize or challenge — is to set out a performance requirement for a capability that needs development work and offer a prize, usually money, for the first or best entity to produce a product or capability meeting the requirement. from the Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech August 15th, 2011 article Procurement contests...
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