Entries by Helen

The Importance of Stakeholder Engagement

We work with a number of different food manufacturers, delivering tenders and procurement projects where procurement teams are under-resourced. With no exceptions, stakeholder engagement is key to the successful delivery of a tender or procurement project.  It doesn’t matter how good your invitation to tender, your supplier research and quality of data is, getting buy-in, […]

Procurement Policy Basics

Do you have a procurement policy outlining your procurement process, spend thresholds and rules? Do teams adhere to it? Do they even know it exists? A procurement policy is an important pre-requisite for controlling spend. It should be accessible to all staff who have the authority to purchase goods and services in an easily readable […]

Our Top Tips for an Effective ITT

Not to blow our own trumpets, but we often get praised for the effectiveness of our tender documents. So, what are our top tips for an effective ITT? –       Consider your audience. –       Keep it precise, to the point, yet engaging. –       Be clear on the objectives and the drivers for the tender. –       Provide a clear set of […]

An example of outsourced procurement in practise

A valuable client of ours is a UK based food manufacturer who have a strong procurement team overseeing the purchase of raw materials and packaging.  The management of in-direct procurement is outsourced to Pare. One recent project we completed saved them £48k per annum on their PPE and janitorial spend (a saving of 18%).  That’s […]

What % of your spend is “unmanaged”?

What % of your business’ overall spend is not “managed” in the same way as the spend which falls under the control of your procurement team? There are opportunities to make savings and reduce risk when the same procurement principles are applied to tail spend, not to mention the raft of other benefits (improved credit […]

Is it time to change your supplier strategy?

When was the last time you carried out an in-depth review of your suppliers? We are all aware of the supply chain challenges that businesses are faced with.  In light of these, is your business looking to resurrect a more local supply chain to re-direct risk across a broader supply base? Historically, sourcing activities were […]

Procurement Resource

All procurement projects need to be data driven, however, this often requires additional resource in your procurement team or otherwise.  It is necessary to get into the granular detail in order to identify the best purchasing opportunities and deliver consistent, successful results.  This often requires the detail included in invoices and unless you have an […]

Why Outsourced Procurement?

Are procurement projects a priority in your business, or do they frequently get put on the back burner in order to deal with more pressing issues? Should these projects be deemed less of a priority when Procurement is one of the key functions to drive improvements in a business’s profitability and cashflow? An outsourced procurement […]

How robust is your procurement process?

A poorly executed procurement process often leads to failed sourcing activities with detrimental consequences: budget over-spend, losses, frustrated stakeholders and suppliers, wasted resource, fragmented buying, maverick spending. We regularly hear that procurement processes are avoided because they are authorisation and admin heavy and actually easy to circumvent.  A robust procurement process doesn’t necessarily mean that […]