Our client is a public sector organization that manages one of the UK’s largest property portfolios consisting of hundreds of clinical and non-clinical locations across the UK. Discover how we used on-demand procurement to make a change.
Challenge
The client was seeking to create a number of countrywide commercial strategies and on demand procurement frameworks that could be used UK-wide flexibly, driving preferred pricing but also speed, convenience, and consistent quality of service.
Key frameworks would need to be put in place for Architecture Services and Development Managers however, the client had no commercial experience in this marketplace within the procurement team, and the key business stakeholders had not run a tender process before.
Starting afresh, the client had no pipeline data representing likely demand patterns nor any models for specification, baselining, strategy, or contract creation. With time of the essence and a limited budget, the client turned to Proxima for creative solutions on how to drive a fast, compliant, and cost-effective process.
Approach
Proxima scoped an on-demand procurement program together with the Procurement Director that would see us deploy a senior subject matter expert into the client team for the duration of the project. To balance insight and efficiency, this expert was part-time and supplemented by operational support from Proxima’s Procurement Operations Centre. This meant that the Proxima consultant could focus on high-value-adding tasks and thought leadership while using a specialist on-demand procurement delivery “engine” to provide administration, analysis, and project support.
Together with the Director of Property Design and Development, our consultant facilitated several stakeholder workshops to build a robust requirements model incorporating CCS standards and thinking where needed. To ensure that these workshops were executed quickly and produced high-quality outputs, we leveraged pre-existing Proxima models, benchmarks, and intellectual property recently used to great effect in the public and private sectors.
We then advised on the best tender route, Proxima influenced the client to choose a different option than originally planned to meet the desired timelines. This would not be a choice that the client would ordinarily be able to make, as a single open process would attract a high volume of supplier responses to review. However, it was made possible by leveraging Proxima’s operations center to drive the tender and facilitate scoring and supplier notifications at scale.
With the sourcing strategy selected, the Proxima consultant built the invitation to tender, evaluation criteria, and model contract before overseeing the tender process and handing over a recommendation to the client on time and within budget.
Results
Following the tender, the client put in place two panels consisting of approximately five suppliers each. As a consequence, customers around the UK are now able to quickly access vetted and high-quality supplier capability under a centrally managed framework. Furthermore, Proxima fully debriefed key stakeholders and procurement on the process and tools used, conducting a ‘capability leave-behind’ exercise that would ensure that our clients were equipped to manage the framework and run call-off competitions as needed.