Comments on: WeThink: Its Time People Started Getting Fired For Buying IBM

By: The mother of invention? | Local Democracy

The mother of invention? | Local Democracy — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 11:19:03 +0000

[...] As a microcosm of what’s wrong with our democracy, there can be few better examples. It’s substantially driven by insidious pressure groups (suppliers) who have captured departements and are capable of cranking up demand for what they are selling. As my friend Dominic Campbell put it recently, it’s time people start getting fired for buying IBM. [...]

By: Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:30:19 +0000

Hands up who thinks the government procurement process is great? I don’t think I have ever met anyone who likes it either inside the public sector or outside it. But it is not as though people have just noticed the problem. Like you, I am not an expert on procurement but the creation of the Office of Government Commerce certainly seems to have been inspired by the desire to speed up the procurement process and deliver better outcomes for the public sector. And as I understand it, the most concrete improvement you suggest (having a qualification stage and then working with a small group of potential suppliers to develop the specification and test in practice their ability to deliver what is needed) is an option currently open to public sector procurers and used in a fair number of large procurements.
The underlying difficulty in the public sector is the need to be fair and be seen to be fair. And of course nowadays that also means being fair and being seen to be fair to all European Union countries and not just your national companies. So lets innovate, but lets recognise the constraints and lets see some thinking that actually shows how we could improve the current way thinks are done.

By: Dom Campbell on agile procurement

Dom Campbell on agile procurement — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 18:28:19 +0000

[...] Great work by Dom Campbell on procurement, and I really love the title: Its Time People Started Getting Fired For Buying IBM from the WeMedia site. [...]