Purchasing Consulting

Our aim is to help our clients improve the results they achieve. Nothing is sacred, there is always a way to achieve better results. In short, we collaborate with you to make best use of both partys' experience, expertise and enthusiasm to help you....

In many cases this involves investing in the redeployment, and refocusing, of existing expertise and resources, rather than a need for more resources. The aim should be, at least initially, to get the very best from your current resources.

Before we start an assignment we jointly agree specific objectives, valuable outcomes, key responsibilities and timing. We then collaborate with you and your colleagues to achieve this. Most of our assignments are completed within three to six months. They include many public, and private, sector organisations that trade with the public sector or want to trade with them.

Some examples of what we do

This is a taste of some of our assignments to illustrate the variety of work we do. By no means does it cover all our assignments and expertise. If you'd like to have a chat to find out how we can help you please contact us and we'll give you a call.

Procurement review

This should really be called a procurement challenge as the intention must always be to challenge current performance and results against what it is potentially possible to achieve. Many clients have benefited from our input, this includes Hampshire County Council for whom we carried out a council-wide review of all procurement, challenging their current performance and results, and providing recommendations for improvement. This was an in-depth approach; reviews can be shorter and sharper as was the review we did for Bromsgrove District Council.

Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQ)

Clients often use our pre-qualification questionnaire and the evaluation process that goes with it. It's an important requirement in the public sector for purchases under EU rules. In addition we use it to help clients improve their own approach and then to train people in how to use it. South Bucks District Council used our PQQ and evaluation process for their £17 million refuse collection contract and the LGA used it for their £80 million multi-discipline, support service, outsourcing contract.

Specifications

We've helped countless organisations develop and write clear outcome orientated specifications. For the LGA we facilitated the development, and then wrote an outcome based specification for the outsourcing, of multiple support services, including Finance, Procurement, HR, Print & Design, Facilities etc. We also provide a service specifically to critique, and to help you develop better specifications. Click here to find out more.

Spend data analysis

It constantly amazes us that organisations, especially local authorities, spend copious amounts on spend data analysis that is often already out of date. In most cases they are really buying a reorganisation and categorisation of data, not an analysis.

There is no need to spend thousands of pounds reorganising out of date data. We showed the London Borough of Redbridge how to use widely available software to do their own analysis. Their data is always up to date and more than 90% is categorised, this allows them to accurately monitor the impact of changes made. To find out more please click here.

However the real deal is not analysing historical spend data it's forecasting what will be spent in the future, and analysing that data. That is an another story, click on Future Spend Analysis to read more.

Professional services

We have a particular interest in how organisations achieve valuable outcomes when they purchase and use professional services, for example Consultants, Architects, Solicitors, Barristers, Quantity Surveyors, etc. This is a specific category of expenditure where purchasers struggle to extract all the value there is the potential for them to achieve, especially in the public sector. We provide advice and support on how to specify what is needed (as outcomes), how to monitor performance and measure value. As part of a London Centre of Excellence funded project, Qualitar authored a "How to...." guide on purchasing and using consultancy and other professional services, click here for more information.

Contract value check

It is rare to find organisations that do thorough, but practical reviews of key contracts at different times during their duration. We reviewed three contracts, varying from £5 million to well over £30 million for the London Borough of Camden. There was the potential to increase the value-for-money not only on these contracts but to use the findings to improve others. Read about our contract value check to see how we do this.

The Full Monty

This is when we are fully involved from the start of the business case to the award of a contract and its start. A good illustration of this is the support we provided for South Bucks District Council when they needed to re-tender their £17 million refuse collection, recycling and street cleaning services. We facilitated the development of, and wrote, all the tender documents, price model and evaluation methods. This support continued for the tender evaluation and the choice of supplier. The Council used the considerable savings it made to purchase additional services to provide an even better service to residents.