Europe Articles & Perspectives

Nearly any expert you talk to in government procurement will tell you that the workforce needs more support and better training. But why? What makes the public procurement workforce so important to the work of government? In this excerpt from our study on public procurement skills, we look at why...

Over the course of our study of public procurement skills, we talked with nearly 50 leaders in the public sector about what they thought the desired outcomes for public procurement—and the role of the procurement function within the larger organization—should be. Full Article: Public Spend...

As part of our study of public procurement workforce skills, Public Spend Forum interviewed 31 procurement leaders and asked them to rate the public procurement workforce’s proficiency in 12 core skills, based on their experiences and interactions. They were also asked to explain their rating and...

Stay Informed About Procurement Fraud and Stay Out of Trouble! Both public sector procurement and private sector procurement are excellent fields full of incredibly talented people, but every so often problems still come up. Fraud isn’t something you want to experience in any field, and...

Everything You Need to Successfully Navigate the Procurement Industry No matter what your sector or industry, procurement is procurement, right? Well, not quite. There are definitely some aspects of procurement that remain the same whether you’re involved in public procurement or private...

This story by Matthew Weigelt originally ran in Washington Technology, on September 8, 2011. A new industry group is attempting to warn growing small businesses of the cliff they’re approaching as they graduate from federal contract set-aside programs. Mid-Tier Advocacy (MTA) is a new group of...

Acquisition professionals and contract officers are besieged by a variety of different sourcing solutions designed to help them reduce their purchased cost of materials and services. For example, the FedBid reverse auction tool was widely recommended as a competitive tool available to contract...

Over the Christmas and New Year period, we will be featuring a daily favourite article from each month of this year (2016), which should take us nicely up to January 8th when we assume everything kicks back into gear! We’ll start today with this from January 2016. John Seddon is a guru of...

Developed in coordination with the Volcker Alliance, our draft model of the key competencies that are required for the public procurement workforce identifies 12 key competencies critical to every public procurement organization. This quick reference guide lays out and describes all twelve....

Last week, the third Greenwich Symposium on Responsible Public Procurement featured a roundtable discussion with several alumni of the public procurement world; it was a good session, and the panel even got a few laughs from the audience! It was chaired by Emma Nicholson of APUC (which buys for...

The most outstanding innovative procurement activities were showcased last week at the Procura+ Awards in Sweden. We have been highlighting the shortlisted entries for the past couple of weeks, here and here. These awards are part of the ICLEI (local governments for sustainability) network’s...

Ask anyone in procurement what they most worry about, and most times, you will get an answer that includes the word “afraid.” From fancy corner offices to the cubicles filled with those of the front lines of the agency, there is always that “afraid” factor—worried that an unintentional...