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Public Sector Procurement Survey Reveals Room for Improvement, Enthusiasm for the Future
Procurement professionals struggling to implement best practice solutions due to lack of organizational support but are aware of their poor spend visibility, BravoSolution survey reveals
London — July 23, 2008 — Public sector procurement professionals are struggling to implement best practice solutions due to lack of organizational support but are aware of their poor spend visibility, room for improvement in process efficiency and need to increase adoption of "green" procurement practices, according to a recent survey conducted by BravoSolution.
For the survey, BravoSolution investigated the views of 107 procurement professionals, nearly half of whom were from medium-to-large organizations (500+ staff) across various public sector specializations, including central and local government, healthcare and education.
The survey revealed that only two-fifths of respondents (41 percent) feel their overall process is either very efficient (8 percent) or efficient (33 percent). The remaining 59 percent feel it's either inefficient or there is room for improvement, placing respondents in difficult positions since two-thirds of them (67 percent) feel the government efficiency agenda has placed extra pressure to generate cost-savings.
Respondents' views on the effectiveness of e-sourcing were positive, with the majority either agreeing or strongly agreeing to statements that it "reduces timescales of tendering" (89 percent), "reduces tender administration costs and effort" (88 percent) or provides "better access to information for suppliers" (88 percent).
Elsewhere, when asked whether their 2008 sourcing strategy has shown marked savings compared to this stage in 2007, nearly half of respondents (45 percent) said they didn't know, demonstrating surprisingly poor spend visibility.
In terms of the barriers to e-sourcing adoption, respondents cite "insufficient top management support" and 'no formal budget' as the joint main roadblocks to adoption. Other survey options around "lack of understanding of potential benefits" and "internal resistance to change" got low response rates, demonstrating the respondents' willingness to improve, according to BravoSolution's analysis of the data.
With regard to "green supply chain" issues, only one in five respondents (21 percent) felt that their current sourcing strategy is very "eco-friendly," while the remaining 79 percent feel there is room for improvement or that they're not eco-friendly at all.
Other findings:
Commenting on the survey results, Nader Sabbaghian, managing director of BravoSolution UK, said, "While it's encouraging to see respondents' appreciation of the advantages that e-sourcing offers, there is still more adoption of web-based tools required to introduce efficiencies in the procurement process and at the next stage dramatically improve visibility over spend."
Sabbaghian added: "It's also good to see that procurement professionals feel e-sourcing enables better access to information for suppliers, contradicting many past perceptions that technology drives a wedge between buyers and suppliers. As more e-sourcing best-practice case studies come to light in the future, the investment and senior support that procurement professionals clearly need will inevitably come."
For the survey, BravoSolution investigated the views of 107 procurement professionals, nearly half of whom were from medium-to-large organizations (500+ staff) across various public sector specializations, including central and local government, healthcare and education.
The survey revealed that only two-fifths of respondents (41 percent) feel their overall process is either very efficient (8 percent) or efficient (33 percent). The remaining 59 percent feel it's either inefficient or there is room for improvement, placing respondents in difficult positions since two-thirds of them (67 percent) feel the government efficiency agenda has placed extra pressure to generate cost-savings.
Respondents' views on the effectiveness of e-sourcing were positive, with the majority either agreeing or strongly agreeing to statements that it "reduces timescales of tendering" (89 percent), "reduces tender administration costs and effort" (88 percent) or provides "better access to information for suppliers" (88 percent).
Elsewhere, when asked whether their 2008 sourcing strategy has shown marked savings compared to this stage in 2007, nearly half of respondents (45 percent) said they didn't know, demonstrating surprisingly poor spend visibility.
In terms of the barriers to e-sourcing adoption, respondents cite "insufficient top management support" and 'no formal budget' as the joint main roadblocks to adoption. Other survey options around "lack of understanding of potential benefits" and "internal resistance to change" got low response rates, demonstrating the respondents' willingness to improve, according to BravoSolution's analysis of the data.
With regard to "green supply chain" issues, only one in five respondents (21 percent) felt that their current sourcing strategy is very "eco-friendly," while the remaining 79 percent feel there is room for improvement or that they're not eco-friendly at all.
Other findings:
- Although four-fifths of respondents (83 percent) say they are sharing best practice with other departments, few are yet to conduct joint procurement activities to unlock greater cost and efficiency savings.
- In spite of an awareness and appreciation of Web sourcing tools' capabilities, in no single category do more than half of respondents always use Web-based tools to carry out core procurement functions such as publishing official contract notifications; collecting supplier responses; managing contracts/tracking supplier performance; and conducting electronic reverse auctions.
Commenting on the survey results, Nader Sabbaghian, managing director of BravoSolution UK, said, "While it's encouraging to see respondents' appreciation of the advantages that e-sourcing offers, there is still more adoption of web-based tools required to introduce efficiencies in the procurement process and at the next stage dramatically improve visibility over spend."
Sabbaghian added: "It's also good to see that procurement professionals feel e-sourcing enables better access to information for suppliers, contradicting many past perceptions that technology drives a wedge between buyers and suppliers. As more e-sourcing best-practice case studies come to light in the future, the investment and senior support that procurement professionals clearly need will inevitably come."
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