How to prepare your procurement function for accreditation

Water Infrastructure NSW
Preparing a procurement function for accreditation
Industry: Construction

Preparing your procurement function for accreditation, twice?

In early 2021 Water Infrastructure NSW (WINSW) engaged Grosvenor to conduct a review of their current procurement function against the NSW construction accreditation requirements and develop an improvement roadmap to guide activities.

In 2022, we were re-engaged by WINSW to conduct a second procurement function review in preparation for accreditation, with WINSW seeking to mitigate risks on a crucial initiative.

Who would find most value from this case study?

• Those seeking to understand more about the NSW Government Procurement Accreditation processes
• Those who are seeking procurement function improvement

The First Review

Seeking NSW Construction Procurement Accreditation requires a whole lot of effort. To become an accredited agency your procurement function must reflect good practice across a variety of areas, and good practice is no mean feat.

To ensure their effort was effective and well-directed WINSW engaged us to:

• review their current procurement function, including documentation, workshops, and consultations
• present our findings report on the 24 assessment questions
• develop an improvement and implementation roadmap to guide uplift activities.

We developed, workshopped, and fine-tuned a report detailing the activities WINSW required to achieve accreditation, the difficultly and impact of each activity and a recommended order/process for these activities. Our recommendations included both how to achieve conforming status (good practice) and how to achieve advanced status (best practice). Best practice is not always the most effective use of resources for every agency, depending on a variety of factors such as your size and procurement complexity.

The second review

In 2022 WINSW contacted us again, asking for a procurement function accreditation gap analysis.

WINSW had been working through our improvement roadmap (first review outcome) alongside their BAU over the last year. Now they were looking for our expert input to make sure they had crossed their I’s and dotted their T’s. It was important for them to achieve accreditation at the first try to be able to deliver their pipeline of work.

Accreditation is a resource intensive process. It involves a review process by an accredited reviewer (of which we are). Accreditation is a time- and resource-consuming process, especially so if you do not pass on the first application.

A short, sharp second review displayed the benefits of all WINSW’s hard work from the first review, with only a couple of minor areas flagged, many of which they were aware of and already improving.

The Results

What did WINSW take away from the second review?

• a tailored review process, deep diving their work without paying for an unnecessary re-review of previously conforming work
• reduced risk on their accreditation, a crucial initiative
• confidence in the good practice of their function
• validation of the effort put into their development journey
• identification of a few very minor points to address
• preparation of their employees for the accreditation interview process

 

What did we take away from the second review?

A hugely rewarding experience – Seeing the other side of WINSW’s improvement journey and the value we had brought to them.

At Grosvenor, we pride ourselves on offering clients tailored services to address your specific requirements, rather than taking a ‘one size fits all’ or a generic, ‘cookie cutter’ approach to our work.

This means that you, our clients, can expect us to:

• Continually refine objectives
• Seek clarity and consensus
• Avoid shortcuts and templates
• Adapt, be responsive and flexible
• Apply intellectual rigour at all levels
• Devise effective, practical and practicable measures to achieve outcomes.

Contact us for a free discussion.