State Procurement 101

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State Procurement 101 A VIEW FROM THE INSIDE

• Tom Blaine, CPPO, FCPM, FCPA
• President, Public Sourcing Research Consulting,
  LLC

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Expecting life to treat you well because you are
a good person is a bit like expecting an angry
bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.
-Dennis Wholey
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FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF
SCIENTIF- IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE
OF MANY YEARS
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How many Fs are in the sentence?
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FINISHED FILES ARE THE RE- SULT OF YEARS OF
SCIENTIF- IC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE
OF MANY YEARS
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Your Experiences
As a business what has been your experience in
dealing with the government procurement
process?
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Its not your fault!
Not all the rules of the game are written down.
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Private vs. Public Sector Purchasing-Similarities
and Differences

• Private Sector Purchasing
• Cost Evaluation
• Strategic Partnerships, long term relationships
• Small group of Vendors
• Select Business Partners via closed process
• Can do anything that is not illegal
• Accountable to Management

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Private vs. Public Sector Purchasing-Similarities
and Differences

• Public Sector Purchasing
• Price Evaluation
• Vendors are adversaries-Arms length relationship
• Large group of Potential Bidders
• Most of the process is in the public
• Competition is the preferred method of purchase
• Can only do what the rules/laws allowed

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Current Trends in Public Procurement

• Green Purchasing
• Green Building Standards and Remodeling
• Energy Saving Products
• Recycled/Recyclable Products
• Find a product or service the government wants
  that the large companies are not selling
• Spend Analysis
• Strategic Partnerships

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Perspective of the Players

• Requisitioner / Specifier
• Wants something that works
• Doesnt want a hassle
• Prefers long working relationships with suppliers
• If a product or service works well, wants to keep
  it

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Perspective of the Players

• Departmental Managers
• Dont want the rules broken
• Dont want productivity of department affected

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Perspective of the Players

• Procurement Staff
• Multiple stakeholders- administration, elected
  officials, citizens, news media, vendor community
• Disinterested third party Dont care who gets
  the award
• Perspective depends on the type of the
  organization
• Clerical, Bureaucratic, Professional

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Perspective of the Players

• Clerical
• Typically are clerks, push the paper
• May issue the bid, send results to department for
  decision
• Processes the PO after the decisions are made by
  the department
• May be organized to look like one of the other
  types, but no decision authority

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Perspective of the Players

• Bureaucratic
• Bureaucratic and Professional Purchasing
  organizations-may be hard to distinguish
• Impediment to introducing and maintaining
  efficient government
• Tends to focus on control processes
• Know all the rules, regulations and laws
  pertaining to procurement
• Process over results
• Concerned with transparency

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Perspective of the Players

• Bureaucratic
• Typically makes award decision
• A majority of the organizations have certified
  staff and managers
• Majority of purchasing organizations

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Perspective of the Players

• Professional
• Highly educated multi-disciplinary staff
• Concerned with adding and documenting value to
  the government
• Significant scrutiny over specifications
• Focus on knowledge and information
• Conducts market research
• Documents vendor performance
• Eliminates poor performing vendors
• Concerned with transparency and value
• May over-exhibit professionalism

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Perspective of the Players

• Elected and Appointed Officials
• Dont want scandals
• May become overactive in the procurement process
  to assist a constituent
• Prefer to keep the purchases local
• Do not have significant knowledge of process and
  my be influenced by lobbying form those they
  trust

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Who is the decision maker?
 

• Centralized vs. decentralized
• Centralized-Procurement makes /recommends the
  important decisions
• Decentralized- Departments make the important
  decisions
• Need to determine who makes what decisions
• Need to do some research

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Finding Business OpportunitiesOn- Line
Registration
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Federal Vendor Registration
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Bid Aggregation Sites

• Web site that searches government bid posting
  sites and aggregates all those to one location.
• Reduces the time needed to search for bidding
  opportunities
• Most are a paid subscription
• Some are free for basic services

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Bid Aggregation Sites
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Free Bid Aggregation Site
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www.InstantMarkets.com
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Questions?