Archive

Spend Network is pleased to release our survey on the gender pay gap data in public procurement. We linked gender pay gap reports from over 2,600 organisations across nearly 31,000 contracts won by these organisations during the 2017-2020 period. This gave us insight into what organisations public money is going to, what gender pay bias exists ...

We recently launched our new global classification tool. Just three months later and we've been able to launch an upgraded version, which now achieves an accuracy rate of 92%, an improvement of 8% on the original algorithm. We're not finished either. We're starting to develop custom classifications for our customers, and we're tackling new challenges to enhance the data ...

Yesterday the FT published an article, £19bn of UK Covid-related contracts awarded without seeking rival bids. The report reviewed the value of direct award government contracts over the pandemic, and was based on Spend Network's government contract data, analysed for the 12 months to March 18, when the govenrment first invoked its emergency procurement procedures. Our data showed ...

Selling to procurement professionals is something that most people find frustrating, mainly because they are highly resistant to direct sales. Why? Well, no one in procurement cares about your product, they only care about making sure their organisation succeeds. That means the right product at the keenest possible price. So the following sales techniques are bound to fail: Calling ...

The right data. When you want it. How you want it. Every day. Our API is built to meet your needs. That means the right data, every single day in a globally recognised data standard. It also means flexible search properties across millions of high-quality records in seconds. With easy-to-use tools, our product will your teams to build brilliant products faster ...

Social value has become an increasingly  critical feature of public procurement. The $13tn of global public procurement expenditure provides opportunities to meld policy and delivery in a pragmatic way. We have seen the Canadian government establish a preferential policy for minority owned businesses, something that has been a common feature of both US federal procurement and South ...

Both South Africa and Kenya lead the way in procurement transparency according to our data, South Africa and Kenya publish more tender notices than the rest of the continent combined and Kenya is the only country with that systematically publishes contract award notices. Both countries have implemented transparency initiatives and both are committed to using transparency ...

There is a famous quote about the fragility of knowledge by Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish US Secretary of Defence during the Iraq war: "as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not ...

-Ian Makgill In my last post, I covered off framework agreements, and the advantages of using them for both government and suppliers.In this post I cover some of their less attractive features. Frameworks act to moderate the way in which buyers test a market, which is all well and good, but they do have some problems. They can suppress competition. If ...

-Ian Makgill Framework agreements are like umbrella agreements, and are usually made with a group of providers to supply a set of goods or services. The initial framework tends to be a broad agreement which sets out general requirements that must be met before a supplier is able to join the contract. They are designed to 'refine' ...

We're always pleased to see governments around the world improving their procurement processes, by broadening opportunities for all types of business to sell to them. This week, the Australian state of New South Wales announced a number of new initiatives as part of its ICT/Digital Sovereign Procurement Taskforce, that began midway through last year. The objective of ...

We are always pleased to see governments taking steps towards better procurement practices. Recently, the Canadian Government took a step forward for green procurement with Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) announcing an RFP for clean electricity to power operations in Alberta. This Clean Electricity Initiative aims to use 100% clean electricity by 2022, reducing greenhouse gas ...

With the Brexit transition period officially behind us, it's worth considering the potential impacts of Brexit on Government procurement into the future. While no one can guarantee what will happen, it is expected that demands for a commitment to better processes with greater transparency will continue. There are two international procurement arrangements in place for the UK, and ...

-Fiona Hunt As my colleague Ian wrote this week, governments are increasingly looking to procurement to deliver better social outcomes. President Biden began his term in office by implementing new rules in US government procurement around these very outcomes. These executive orders focus on local economic development and reducing carbon, both present significant challenges for the procurement ...