Europe Articles & Perspectives

An article in Forbes looks at the ways electronic procurement can increase transparency and cut down on corruption. Aside from increasing efficiency, the article notes that e-procurement can often open government markets to more vendors, and help bring down costs. “The metrics for the success of...

NIGP (The Institute for Public Procurement) presents the basics of risk management in this tutorial. This basic tutorial covers sources or risk, how to identify risk, all the way through how to manage risk. A helpful read on the basics of risk management. Also presented are additional resources for...

The Procurement of Innovation Platform presents insights on managing risk across the entire procurement cycle. The approach presented is adapted from the risk management methodology “RISMAN”, adjusted to suit application in the public procurement of innovation. Also included is a helpful risk...

General Electric is well known to be at the cutting edge when it comes to procurement. In this article, GE Capital has summarized some interesting lessons on best practices in sourcing and procurement, lessons we can all learn from and apply not only as organizations but also as those executing...

While slightly dated, this article strikingly highlights many of the critical practice improvement areas needed in public procurement (along with a comparison to the private sector) – the same practices recently highlighted by members of the Global Public Procurement Leaders Exchange. In...

While “best value” is a very broad term with imprecise meaning, this position paper from NIGP takes a leadership oriented view on the notion of “best value”, what factors may drive it and most importantly, how to orient your organization toward achieving it. It is not necessarily a...

Measuring public procurement performance is no simple proposition. We find it useful to broadly reference examples of public procurement performance from public organizations, public procurement associations, and other leading thinkers on this topic. We at Public Spend Forum are also working with...

NIGP provides solid perspectives on the role of the public procurement function and how procurement’s overall positioning and the authority of the Chief Procurement Officer are cornerstones of supporting how well the procurement function can deliver against the organization’s mission. What are...

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan famously declared, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” When I first wandered into the area of public sector procurement more than two decades ago, I came at things from the same...

The Keys to Value and Success in the Public Sector Working within the public sector has its challenges. All too often, the entire public sector market—buyers and suppliers alike—is subjected to arbitrary policies drafted by groups that have little understanding of how to generate value or...

Think you know all about public sector owned professional buying organisations (PBOs) and what they do? Here are ten interesting facts that might just surprise you: Public sector owned professional buying organisations were set up by local government to support local government procurement....

At the last U.S. Leaders Exchange for Public Procurement meeting, participants (primarily senior executives within the procurement community) provided recommendations for priorities the Trump Administration should focus on. In addition to compiling the feedback provided by participants, we have...