Celebrating our Awesome Procurement Graduates 2021 – 2022!

We’re thrilled to announce the following graduates who have achieved their public sector Procurement Qualification through working through the Clever Buying Procurement training and assessment programme in 2021 – 2022. Every one of these people has demonstrated they have excellent practical skills in procurement planning, developing RFx documents, and managing tender processes and evaluation. These […]

How to get great suppliers in a stretched market

“I got no tender responses! Now what?”  More and more clients are finding nobody wants to bid for their projects. It’s too easy to just put this down to suppliers being busy. But smart procurement professionals are finding ways to attract the best, (and the busiest) contractors to their projects. Here are four proven ways […]

Tender Evaluation Red Flags: Is 70:30 PQM wasting your procurement budget?

It may be a shock to find out that the traditional default tender evaluation method used by many organisations delivers the worst of all worlds. But a careful analysis of how it works reveals that Price Quality Method with 70:30 weightings is time-consuming, expensive for clients, expensive for suppliers, and almost always delivers the same […]

What Evaluation Method Should I Use?

A checklist for practitioners The range of evaluation methods available for you to use is fairly broad, and not all methods are well known. Here is a quick and dirty summary of the main evaluation methods that are available, together with some guidelines on when and how to use them. Direct Appointment: Used frequently in […]

Tender Evaluators match-making service – Available now at no cost!

Need a skilled tender evaluator? We can put you in with a skilled procurement professional who needs examples of tender evaluations to complete their NZQA Procurement Qualification. Each of these candidates has completed 80% of the qualification, and has been thoroughly trained in best practice in evaluating tenders and procurement probity. We have candidates based […]

Should our big spenders be qualified?

Isn’t it time that those who spend tens of billions of dollars of public money every year should be obliged to be trained and qualified to spend it wisely?  We think a generic NZQA-accredited procurement qualification should be required for procurement practitioners of significant projects. The savings – both in procurement process efficiency and in […]

A Landmark Legal Decision exposes unfair Tendering Practices

A victory was scored by a supplier in late July 2015, with a High Court decision against a Ministry that breached Government’s Procurement Rules. The tendering decision was overturned, and all legal costs of the plaintiff were borne by the defendant. The Problem Gambling Foundation has successfully challenged a tendering decision by the Ministry of […]

New Tools That Cut Tender Evaluation Costs

The NZTA’s Procurement manual, together with various guides available from MBIE, is now firmly established as the benchmark for local government procurement. Many councils have opted to use the NZTA’s procedures for procurement in areas that have no relation to the NZTA-funded transport projects (where the procedures are mandatory). A series of workshops for qualified […]

Procurement in the 21st Century

So you’re new to procurement and tendering? Or maybe, you’re just keen to see the latest developments in procurement best practice. This article gives you a snapshot of what to expect, and how to make life easier for everyone through solid preparation on your procurement process. Put simply, procurement is the process of acquiring goods […]