New Guidance for Local Authorities on Procuring Digital Services
Jul 14, 2017
UK Local Government Association (LGA) on July 11 released its ‘National technological and digital procurement category strategy’ guidance. It is intended to help councils make the right choices in procuring contracts for IT services. The strategy calls for Local Authorities to use the guidance...
Hacking the Defense Acquisition Cycle
Jul 12, 2017
Product innovation in the U.S. Department of Defense follows an implicit rule: “Better, cheaper, faster—pick two.” Today, the military is simultaneously confronted with declining budgets, skyrocketing system development costs, and a diverse spectrum of rapidly evolving complex military...
USDA’s Innovative Procurement Success Story
Jul 7, 2017
Ed Harper, the Food and Nutrition Service’s director of the Office of Program Integrity for Child Nutrition Programs, worked with the Presidential Innovation Fellows to create a new online application prototype for free and reduced lunches. Harper explains they started under the America Competes...
Protecting Past Performance in a Competitive Marketplace
Jun 30, 2017
In today’s marketplace, government contractors must build a track record of strong past performance—it is a critical metric necessary to secure future awards. With each new contract, you have the opportunity to showcase your workforce and technical proficiency. Importantly, contractors who...
Best Practices for Technology Procurement from Miami-Dade County
Jun 28, 2017
Adil Khan, procurement business administrator for Miami-Dade County, offers insights and lessons learned on procurement information technology in state and local governments. According to Khan, electronic procurement management systems have benefits, but those that are currently available do not...
Cooperative Buying Pays Off for Kansas City
Jun 6, 2017
American City & County looks at how Kansas City, Missouri found success through cooperative procurements. The city’s procurement division has won two Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Awards from the National Procurement Institute, and found that lean staffing and heavy workloads led to...
Six Ways for Public Procurement Buyers to Get the Best Price
May 31, 2017
Competitive pricing is predicated on a keen understanding of a number of factors, including a market and its suppliers, internal user requirements and their demand patterns, and alignment with the user community. Several sophisticated techniques can and should be explored to determine their...
The False Promise of Scale in Public Procurement and Government Contracting
May 31, 2017
Procurement and acquisition professionals often struggle with the tradeoffs of “scale economies” versus “socio-economic goals.” The assumption derives from a false premise that bigger companies and bigger contracts inherently yield lower cost. But, that assumption fails to understand the...
Defense Acquisition Reform Bill Wants to Create a Marketplace Like Amazon
May 19, 2017
Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX) has released his defense acquisition reform bill, which will be folded into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) later this year. The bill focuses on improving the Department of Defense’s purchasing of commercial items. According to Federal News Radio, “The...
How the Navy Reduced Its IT Budget by 17%
May 15, 2017
The Air Force has been able to reduce its information technology (IT) budget of $3.9 billion by about 17% ($565 million) in real or potential savings. According to the article, the Air Force has been able to bring down costs by organizing and getting greater transparency into its data. Butch...
Useful Tips And Perspectives For Conducting Market Analysis
May 4, 2017
This article presents helpful tips and perspectives on conducting market analyses. Add these tips to your tool box for conducting market analyses – specific tips covered include: supplier market analysis, demand analysis, supplier interviews, and spend category risk level.
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10 Rules for Successful Requirements Gathering
May 4, 2017
This article focuses on the actual gathering of requirements as part of requirements development and writing. While not written with a procurement context specifically in mind, it does provide helpful tips on gathering requirements. In addition to the “10 rules for gathering requirements”, the...
Case Studies
The public sector is undergoing massive changes with greater fiscal spending, tax changes, constrained budgets and much more scrutiny and regulation. Public procurement and finance …
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