OUR BLOG HAS MOVED!! PLEASE VISIT OUR EXCITING NEW SITE – SPEND MATTERS UK / EUROPE

by Peter Smith on October 26, 2010

As we discussed here, our Blog has merged with Spend Matters, probably the world’s greatest procurement blog / web resource, to form Spend Matters UK / Europe.
Please visit us here and don’t forget to bookmark the new site -
http://spendmatters.co.uk
for Procurement and Supply Chain news, views, opinion, and analysis: as well as the odd post on [...]

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Comments round-up: pearls of wisdom from our readers

by Peter Smith on October 25, 2010

We get some great comments on our posts but I think they get somewhat lost, sitting at the end of posts that have fallen down the page.  So here are some recent examples.
Steve Mullins – a legend of the procurement world no less, and a man clearly in the know about this topic – comments [...]

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Cameron mentions public procurement (but only just); and how to help SMEs

October 25, 2010

UK Prime Minister David Cameron made his pro-growth speech this morning.  Alongside a lot of good stuff around large-scale investment projects, I thought there might be some mention of how public procurement might help smaller businesses – and there was.  But only just… a blink and you miss it moment.
That means opening up access to [...]

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Get your BATNA out for the lads; did Wayne Rooney learn from Harvard? (Part 2)

October 25, 2010

We discussed Wayne Rooney’s deal with Manchester United here yesterday, and how the negotiation concept of a BATNA played a key role.   So was he consciously or sub-consciously developing that – his Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement – to improve his negotiation position with United?  It certainly looked that [...]

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Get your BATNA out for the lads; did Wayne Rooney learn from Harvard? (Part 1)

October 23, 2010

Rooney is staying at Manchester United – a bit of a shock after all the things he said about ‘lack of ambition’ at the club!
But was this all part of his negotiating strategy; was he merely building his BATNA, or the appearance of his BATNA? The ‘Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agremeent’ was described by [...]

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Aircraft Carrier contracts and submarine ahoy…

October 22, 2010

The Times from behind their paywall reports that the reason the second UK aircraft carrier is going ahead is that the contract was ‘unbreakable’ – it guaranteed the shipyards 15 years work.  Therefore cancelling the second carrier would have cost more than completing it!  That is a pretty unusual thing to do in contracting and [...]

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David Noble in Supply Management part 2: A licence to practice procurement? No, no, no!

October 22, 2010

There is a lot of good stuff going on in CIPS, some of which we discussed in our post yesterday regarding the CIPS Chief Executive’s interview in Supply Management.  But today, I’m going to be less positive, because on one particular point, I believe David Noble is pursuing an extremely misguided objective.
He wants procurement people [...]

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Cap Gemini CPO Report; mixed findings and lots of reading

October 22, 2010

Cap Gemini published their Global Chief Procurement Officer 2010 Survey report a couple of weeks ago. (Available free, registration required).  It is a slightly unusual document in that it is very much in two halves.  The first part is a fairly conventional but useful  survey of procurement leaders, with analysis and comment as you would [...]

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What the Spending Review may mean for suppliers to Government

October 21, 2010

In truth, there weren’t many big surprises in the Review, although you might consider squeezing another £7 billion out of a range of seemingly obscure welfare measures either impressive or harsh.
But there is still no real clarity on what it means for Government procurement, including OGC / ERG, although the additional £3 billion admin savings [...]

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David Noble in Supply Management part 1: CIPS world domination?

October 21, 2010

David Noble is one year into his role as CIPS Chief Executive and Supply Management has a very interesting interview with him.  I’m going to publish two posts on this; today it is the good news; tomorrow I’ll pick up on one particular issue where I’m somewhat less positive!
When Simon Sperryn, the previous CEO, ‘left’ [...]

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