Knowledge becomes power only when we put it into use

I suppose it’s a bit like being in a car and watching the speedometer steadily increase until you are going far too fast and then discovering that the brakes are on the passenger’s side!

The low hanging fruit in achieving "Better for less"

We’ve been attending a few conferences lately focused on the current government initiative “Better for Less” and had plenty of discussions with prospective clients. The predominant theme is, as a tax payer myself, very welcome. Public sector departments and organisations are being actively encouraged to make smarter procurements and to look for the best value from all sources with a particular emphasis on the innovative solutions that can be procured through SME’s at a local level. Great for UK PLC and for us as citizens.

For far too long, in my opinion, the procurement function of the public sector has been dominated by inflexible framework agreements and only been assailable by the large systems houses. Any scraps from the table have been generally given to preferred partners and the contracts associated with delivery so challenging as to deter all but the most desperate and those who want the business at any cost.

Making Outsourcing a Safer Option

Outsourcing is a viable strategy to manage the requirement to control and reduce costs and create a more flexible and reactive resourcing platform; however too many times we have heard the horror stories of when it goes wrong. Successful outsourced relationships are more likely to be achieved when both the customer and the service provider make the effort to ensure that the control mechanisms are in place to provide independent measurement and visibility of service levels and status.