Procurement Diagnostic and Implementation of Better Practice

The Client

NSW Government

The Situation

Our client is responsible for the biggest program of public transport infrastructure in Australia. The agency identified a need to review its procurement processes to ensure, not only that they remain compliant with government policies, but also align with better practice, ensuring a seamless experience for the end users and suppliers.

Our client partnered with Grosvenor to define a best-in-class procurement function for its professional services category, to tailor the new processes and principles, and to apply them to a complex engineering contract.

The Objectives

The objectives of the project were to ensure effective and efficient procurement and contract management that:

• delivers value for money
• has robust governance and probity
• uplifts commercial processes and procedures
• optimises the procurement pipeline
• follows higher order policies.

The Project

Grosvenor undertook a comprehensive review, assessment and gap analysis of existing professional services procurement and contract management governance, probity and controls.

Specifically, Grosvenor provided:

• overview of current state process, procedures, and governance controls
• gap analysis against best practice (through Grosvenor’s Better Practice Comparator)
• facilitation of a Maturity Self-Assessment through client stakeholders
• compliance analysis with government procedures and regulations
• opportunities for improvement in current delegations, competition limits and accountabilities (RACI)
• identification of ‘blockers’ and pain points within current governance, probity and controls processes.

We based our analysis on multiple inputs, including a detailed and structured document review, consultations and workshops with the procurement team as well as the wider business, a comprehensive self-assessment undertaken by staff of the agency and the analysis of available data sources.

The Outcome

Our client embarked on an ambitious program to implement a function that is now ‘owned’ by the wider business, creates customer centric account management and drives business value through market insight teams.

Grosvenor supported the implementation of the Target State over a nine month period to achieve the following benefits:

• procurement actively implements the Corporate Strategy
• procurement meets the maturity level expected by stakeholders
• our client achieves improved value for money outcomes.
  

  “It was great to have a knowledgeable organisation conduct an external review and document a vision of where we want to be as a Procurement and Contract Management function. Grosvenor provided clear and useful advice to our senior management both verbally and in the current and future state reports as well as presentations throughout the engagement.”

Key initiatives

The key initiatives that were identified and implemented during the project included:

• a procurement function that is led by a procurement governance group. This group will ensure broader business participation, collaboration and governance across the procurement function. Grosvenor developed and implemented a Procurement Function Strategy and People Strategy to support this initiative.
• offering a business partnering and market insights model. Our client assigned Procurement Business Partners to be a single point of contact for procurement and contract management queries and activities for each key business unit. Market insights teams align with a specific market segment (e.g. geotechnical engineering), articulate a strategy for that segment and have visibility of all current, past and potential suppliers and their capabilities and capacity.
• defined contract governance roles depending on value/risk of the contract and work together with the business units for improved performance management.
• value/risk triage to identify those procurements that can be completed through business self-service rather than require to go through the procurement team
• improved and aligned existing procurement templates and guidance.

 

Are you experiencing the same issues? Do you need a comprehensive review, assessment and gap analysis of your procurement and contract management? We are genuinely interested in what is happening for you in your procurement team. Book a meeting for an obligation free chat.