Moving from the private to the public sector procurement takes adjustment. Initially, public sector procurement feels slower and less flexible without negotiation. However, the public sector offers benefits like consortia frameworks and no competition law issues. While there is less freedom, proper preparation including strong requirements, market intelligence, and stakeholder management can blend the best of both worlds. Public sector experience values disciplined, structured processes while private sector skills provide commercial knowledge and an ability to challenge limitations productively. The ideal is bringing the confidence and control of private sector experience together with the strengths of public sector collaboration and evaluation techniques.

1. Transitioning from Private to Public Sector
Procurement – and back?
Jim Reed
Director of Procurement
University of Nottingham

2. Why move?
• To make a difference
• Government are only looking for private sector expertise
(apparently)
• To transfer commercial skills into the public sector
• A better pension?

3. What does it Feel Like – at first?
• As someone moving
– As though your heart beat is deliberately being slowed
– As though the art of negotiation is forbidden
– What you decide to buy - you get, even if it is found to be the wrong
answer
• To the user/incumbents
– You seem to be impatient and cocky
– You must be coming from a world where anything goes
– Procurement without structure
– Just come off the golf course where you sealed a deal?

4. What is good and bad about moving to Public Sector
• Good
– Testing the entire European Market
– Consortia Frameworks
– Crown Commercial Services
– No Competition Law
– A disciplined structured and audited process
• Bad
– Freedom of Information requests (open source pre-sales)
– Bureaucracy
– “Restrictive Practices” – no negotiation, no change of scope, very little dialogue
– No ambition – “be safe”
– Inability to have real dialogue with suppliers

5. What do we leave behind?
• Pace
• The ability to change direction, back out
• Heavy negotiation all the way through the process
• Commercial choice at every stage.
• Generally a joined up compliant customer base

6. What should we hang on to?
• The “why on earth do we do it that” way questions?
• Impatience
• Challenging the process limitations
• The deeper knowledge of suppliers and relationships with them.
• Negotiating plans/procurement plans and over-arching sourcing
strategies
• The ability to manage stakeholders, users and senior management
• Knowledge of building commercial business cases and persuading
stakeholders to support them

7. A Private Sector View of Public Sector Buying?
• Bland deals that are safe
• No real market investigation – let the market tell us at tender
• Little benchmarking

8. The Magic Blend?
• Very good preparation (ie force the process to work at it’s optimal level)
– Baselining and granular current state and performance information – for you and for suppliers
– Detailed and unambiguous requirements (ie
– Strong Market intelligence
– Negotiating Strategies (MDO, LAA, BATNA)
– Strong stakeholder management
– Ability to corral and challenge demand and variance
• Strong management of the process
– Interaction with stakeholders
– Evaluation, selection and award
– Control of the teams
– Dealing wit suppliers
• A very good sponsor
• Air cover from the top
• Suppliers who trust you
• A trustworthy process and people running it

9. Bringing in the best of…..
• Commercial experience
• Confidence of being in control of the process rather than it
running you!

10. What about the other way?
• The strength of a process orientated methodology
• Strong evaluation techniques
• Collaboration bias
• Strong networks