All Learning Content
Three Key Skills This Procurement Leader Thinks Everyone Should Have
Mar 5, 2018
Even into her third year as Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Jenny Doherty hasn’t stopped doing what she loves: bringing private sector best practices into government. Whether its saving money through innovative practices like reverse auctions or streamlining...
A Smarter State Needs Smarter Procurement
Mar 2, 2018
With the UK public-sector IT market expected to be worth £11.9bn by 2019 and some £3.8bn of IT contracts set to end over the next three years, there is a major opportunity for both buyer and supplier. Computer Weekly has published an opinion piece worth reading which sets out recent studies, and...
UK Rail Research and Innovation Network Launched
Mar 2, 2018
The UK rail industry, with help from British Steel, has created a ground-breaking partnership with eight universities to deliver four world-class centres of excellence – they will cover rolling stock, infrastructure, digital systems and testing and trialling. This exciting new £92m rail...
SmallGovCon Week In Review: February 26 – March 2, 2018
Mar 2, 2018
March has arrived, and soon it will be time for all the March Madness fun. But first, I will be heading to sunny Florida for the APTAC Spring 2018 Training Conference on Monday. If you’re a PTAC counselor, I hope to see you there.
In today’s edition of the SmallGovCon Week in Review,...
New Platform Launched for UK and International Trade
Mar 2, 2018
“A new business and trade platform designed to increase trade between the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth launched at the House of Commons recently. The Maritime Connects Initiative is a new initiative developed by the Commonwealth Enterprise and Investment Council, in partnership with...
Russia signs next 10 year state arms procurement programme
Mar 2, 2018
President Vladimir Putin has signed Russia’s new state arms procurement programme for 2018-2028. Last November, the Deputy Defence Minister said the new state arms programme would spend 19 trillion rubles (325 billion US dollars) on military equipment procurement and one trillion rubles (17...
GAO: Understated Pricing Alone Isn’t “Unbalanced Pricing”
Mar 2, 2018
Under the FAR, unbalanced pricing may increase performance risk and can result in the government paying unreasonably high prices. But the concept of unbalanced pricing is often misunderstood in practice.
As the GAO wrote in a recent bid protest decision, unbalanced pricing doesn’t exist merely...
GAO Confirms: No Protests of Most Subcontract Awards
Feb 27, 2018
Despite older case law to the contrary, the GAO ordinarily lacks jurisdiction to decide a protest challenging the award of a subcontract, even where the subcontract is alleged to have been made “for” the government, as in the case of some subcontracts awarded by DOE Management and Operation...
UK Government Issues Professional Standards for Contract Management
Feb 27, 2018
The UK government (via the “Government Commercial Function”) has issued a set of professional standards for Contract Management. The standards have been given a high profile, as can be seen by the fact that the foreword to the document is credited to Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and...
A New Era for Big Data in Procurement
Feb 26, 2018
The Convergence of the Internet of Things, Blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence. Part 1.
There is an important issue in the world of Procurement. While the future of the function is at stake, too many CPOs and Procurement organisations are looking at the future of Procurement solely through a...
Best Practices in Public Sector Spend Analytics Featuring Professor Rob Handfield
Feb 26, 2018
When it comes to making sense of spend analytics, the sheer amount of meaningful data can make it feel like you’re searching for a needle in a haystack full of needles! Every trend and pattern seems useful at first, but if you aren’t careful you may end up chasing dead ends. When it comes to...
Latest Corruption Perceptions Index – Transparency International
Feb 23, 2018
Transparency International has published its latest annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption. It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean. (Its methodology can be...
