The secret to successful procurement teams

The secret to successful procurement teams

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How to get the best out of your suppliers

How to get the best out of your suppliers

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The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams

Grosvenor's 2024 Annual Procurement study, Stronger Together - The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams - we looked at what makes the difference between a highly mature procurement function and those who are less mature. How mature is your procurement team?

The distinguishing factor between high and low maturity procurement teams is….

The results of our research weren’t a complete surprise to us as we have been seeing more and more evidence that it is the soft skills rather than the technical skills that count in modern day procurement functions.

Australian procurement teams’ top procurement priorities in 2024

Grosvenor undertakes annual research into the State of Procurement and Contract Management in Australia. Over the past six years, we have talked to 640 organisations to track what is top of mind for their procurement teams. What comes out on top for 2024?

How to level-up your procurement maturity

From our latest annual procurement research, Stronger Together, we know what it takes to level up the maturity of your procurement team or your whole procurement function. And the results may surprise you! It is not the way you negotiate with suppliers. So what is it?

Are your stakeholders happy? How to improve stakeholder satisfaction

63% of respondents to our research indicated that their stakeholders are “somewhat happy” or “very happy” with the way that the procurement function works in their organisation. How do you further improve stakeholder satisfaction?

AI adoption by procurement teams

70% of teams we researched in 2024 said that they do not use AI in document creation and 63% say they do not use AI in any other form. It is fair to say that AI has not been adopted widely by Australian procurement teams. But is that about to change?

The role of AI in procurement

The integration of AI technologies is revolutionising procurement. By automating manual processes, leveraging predictive analytics, and enhancing decision-making capabilities, AI empowers procurement professionals to drive efficiency, mitigate risks, and achieve strategic objectives.

A guide to Procurement Category Management

Procurement category management emerges as a crucial element in achieving sustainable success. By implementing a comprehensive category management framework, organisations can navigate the complexities of the supply chain, optimise costs, and build resilient supplier relationships.

Crafting an Effective Procurement Category Management Plan

One of the most powerful tools in procurement is an effective Category Management Plan which enables organisations to optimise their purchasing processes, drive cost savings, and enhance supplier relationships.

The Future of Procurement: A Look Ahead to 2024 and Beyond

We investigate the key trends that are shaping the future of procurement, what Grosvenor’s research found to be the key priorities for 2024 and give you strategies that you can adopt to stay ahead of the curve.

Revolutionising Procurement: Unleashing the Power of Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma can transform procurement practices with a structured and systematic approach to procurement.

Top procurement priorities for 2023

Grosvenor undertakes annual research into the state of procurement and contract management in Australia. Over the past five years we have talked to close to 600 organisations to track what is top of mind for their procurement teams. So what is top of mind in 2023?

Getting the most out of your contracts

Our latest research report, Geared to High Performance, reveals that more than 70% of organisations deploy operational contract management, vendor management and strategic partner management to improve supply chain performance.

How to achieve high supplier performance

Grosvenor's latest State of Procurement in Australia research titled Geared to High Performance, reveals five interventions that make the biggest difference on supplier performance.

When client and supplier see each other as irreplaceable – that’s where the magic happens!

Strategic Partner Management is all about friction-free sharing of information and includes the senior leadership of clients and suppliers to improve the ease of doing business.

Four tips for maximising the value you get from your Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contracts

The top four tips of how to achieve best value from your relationships with vendors of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products.

Approaching power imbalance in a supplier relationship

The power imbalance in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is high to very high. The other party is often a large multinational company who is not willing to negotiate on product specifications, on pricing nor on contract terms & conditions.

So, what is keeping CPOs up at night?

We spoke to 74 procurement organisations in Australia and their number one concern is… none of the above. Resourcing takes out the top spot. Specifically, the inability to find, recruit and train talent to keep up with the workload.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Where are the procurement “quick wins” for an incoming CPO?

As a new CPO you need to make an impact. Fast. Ideally within 100 days. This is important to win trust. Trust from the wider business that procurement will be better this time round. Better, in the sense of being able to help the organisation deliver the strategic goals. An enabler, rather than a roadblock. A coach, not a police offer.

Where are you on the procurement maturity curve?

Ultimately every organisation is making a decision of where its procurement function should sit on the maturity curve taking into account the cost to implement better practice and the value-add this function will generate. So, where does your organisation sit on this maturity curve, and how does this compare to other organisations?

What is the right organisational structure for your procurement team?

How do you set up the right organisational structure for your procurement team? An important decision when answering that question is to set the degree of centralisation: which activities will be done by people outside of the immediate procurement team, versus which activities are done by that team themselves?

How long does a procurement take?

A common issue for procurement teams is to manage the expectations of the rest of the business. This includes communicating just how long it takes to procure goods and services. We provide the following benchmarks in the hope that this allows procurement teams to point to the fact that right across organisations in Australia, the typical procurement projects take a fair bit of time.

What our research says about the state of procurement in Australia

At Grosvenor Procurement Advisory, we undertake annual research to better understand procurement and contracting in Australia. This article provides a summary of our research topics with links to download our highly sought after ebooks for free.

Dealing with supply risk: becoming a customer of choice

Assuring the supply base and its viability is currently an important procurement goal. So how exactly are organisations dealing with mitigation of supply risk? What can you learn and adopt?

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we'd argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

Five challenges we must address when ‘hiring’ our suppliers

What do we get wrong when we 'hire' our suppliers? What can procurement learn from the hiring processes we have in place for our staff and how can those lessons be adopted in better practice procurement functions?

Choosing a suitable eProcurement system: What others had to learn the hard way

Unfortunately, not all procurement teams get to enjoy full benefits from their technology solutions. Why is that? Learn how to avoid missing out these crucial benefits.

More Procurement Insights

When client and supplier see each other as irreplaceable – that’s where the magic happens!

Strategic Partner Management is all about friction-free sharing of information and includes the senior leadership of clients and suppliers to improve the ease of doing business.

Getting the most out of your contracts

Our latest research report, Geared to High Performance, reveals that more than 70% of organisations deploy operational contract management, vendor management and strategic partner management to improve supply chain performance.

How to achieve high supplier performance

Grosvenor’s latest State of Procurement in Australia research titled Geared to High Performance, reveals five interventions that make the biggest difference on supplier performance.

Geared to High Performance – How to get the best out of your suppliers

Grosvenor’s procurement research reveals how to get the most out of your suppliers, service providers and vendors in the future. Find out in the Geared to High Performance Report.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Contract management: seven challenges to better practice

Contract managers right across Australia face difficulties in getting the most from their suppliers. How can we set up our contractual relationships so that the supplier will go the extra mile? Look no further than how we manage our staff and you get an idea of what better practice looks like. Here is a list of seven challenges contract managers often face and how to overcome them.

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we’d argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Carrot or stick? Supplier Performance Study

On average, procurement teams can gain an extra 29% performance from their suppliers with some simple changes. Our 2017 research study uncovered what suppliers would like to (but often can’t) say to buyers to help them turn this around.

Building a relationship with your suppliers

You’re a great team leader, right? Your staff respect you, and you them. Let’s look at the way you work with your staff and see how we can transfer your success there to success in the procurement field.

Gut feelings and hard data

We have gut feeling about plenty of things and maybe we think we know what works when it comes to incentivising behaviour. That’s because we know how we respond to sticks and carrots. But maybe not everyone responds as we do. Maybe different situations call for different approaches.

Love me Tender? Not Likely!

Problems with suppliers create problems for your business. Consider those suppliers who can’t meet deadlines, are financially unstable, have staffing issues, can’t deliver the required quality of work or have weak compliance standards – the list of potential problems can run on and on.

How design impacts procurement contract performance

Most performance management systems that fail, don’t fail because they can’t do the job. They fail because they are too hard to use, take too much effort and as a result, don’t get used as much as they should.

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract. By that I mean don’t ask them to define the scope of services, the pricing model or the performance management structure for a contract.

Why contract performance always disappoints the buyer

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual
performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of
robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff,
purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts?

Be SMART: How to define KPIs that drive better results

Well thought out key performance indicators (KPIs) are a fundamental ingredient of performance management frameworks. But for many, developing a good KPI – one that actually drives behaviour to achieve results – is harder than it looks.

3 steps to negotiate win-win outcomes for your contract

Anyone who’s ever come into contact with a toddler will know that for most of us negotiation skills are learnt early. Unlike a toddler, adult negotiators understand that there are two sides to any negotiation and both negotiators want to have their needs met. Here’s how to negotiate the best outcomes for your contract, while keeping your supplier relationships intact.

“Please return our calls!!!” – Candid comments from your suppliers…

It never ceases to amaze me how important the simple things like returning a phone call or responding to email are to successful buyer / seller relationships. Funny how we expect a supplier to respond and even fall over themselves when we need them. But do we always show the same respect back? Is it ok not to just because we are the ones handing over the cash?

How changing buyer behaviour can double procurement savings

With their focus on keeping supplier costs down, Australasian Chief Procurement Officers are used to having their attention trained on the external market: but did you know you can almost double your savings by turning your attention inside the organisation too?

How is service sourcing different from product sourcing?

Services have become a significant part of Australia’s economy. However, businesses are not always sure how to align their purchasing function with this trend. This whitepaper explores differences between physical goods and services and how these influence the procurement function.

What suppliers think about your leadership

We know that your leadership style impacts supplier performance by 27%. Yet most organisations fly blind and don’t seek the feedback of suppliers on how to improve the way they lead.

Are your suppliers punishing you?

Ever wished you were a fly on the wall when your suppliers meet to discuss your contract and the relationship they have with you? Trust me good or bad they have the conversations on many levels just as employees have conversations about their management.

3 steps to take your organisation to supplier leadership excellence

Much has been written about the relationship between leadership and staff performance. There’s no doubt that better leaders also produce better business outcomes. Yet, this kind of thinking is usually limited to staff management. It does not extend to the positive impact leadership might have on the performance of suppliers.

10 tips to improving supplier relationship management

Organisations successful in managing supply chains understand the value of managing effective relationships with their suppliers. These organisations have a knack of building trust and confidence with their suppliers which leads to knowledge sharing and the identification of improvement opportunities.

Best practice KPI development and reporting for stellar supplier outcomes

You may have heard the saying, ‘what gets measured gets done’. Use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is the main way supplier performance is measured and the main mechanism for driving supplier behaviour. Here’s some tips on how to develop and measure best practice KPIs to encourage ongoing performance and exceptional outcomes from your suppliers.

Why a Contract Management Plan makes your work day easy like Sunday morning

The ink on the supplier contract is drying. They’re ready to start contract delivery. How do you harness the goodwill, ensure easy and successful implementation and a functional working relationship for years to come? With a Contract Management Plan (CMP) of course!

Trouble in contract paradise? How to get your project back on course

Issue management can be difficult and confronting for everyone involved. As with any relationship, there will be times when things don’t go to plan and problems crop up. As the contract manager, it falls to you to get things back on course. Here’s how to prevent minor contract issues from becoming major challenges for you and your supplier. 

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Fair Operating Practice

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence. Last year, the International Standard for Sustainable Procurement ISO 20400 was released as a guide to implementing social responsibility and sustainability through the procurement process.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Human Rights

Many people in modern society might think of slavery and child labour as stories from their history books that no longer exist. However, according to Andrew Forrest, Chairman of Fortescue Mining Group and the Walk Free Foundation, “We are all going to have slavery in our supply chains no matter how good we think our corporate social responsibility is”.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Community

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence.

Making the World a better place…Through sustainable procurement

Chances are, social responsibility is not the key driver for your organisation! It might be a nice-to-have, but your key driver is more likely to be super-pleasing your customers, maintaining a competitive-advantage or implementing public policies.

Four common mistakes of overlooking contract pricing

When contracting for services, a lot of attention is focused on the initial contract cost. Hours of spreadsheet time is spent analysing and comparing tendered fees. Unfortunately, very little thought goes into how the ongoing service is paid for and how the ‘pricing model’ (not the initial tendered fee) determines value for money and delivers quality outcomes.

The Disappointment Gap

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff, purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts? Over time; price creep, scope pullback, service level failures, lack of innovation and increasing levels of distrust increasingly characterise their customers’ experiences. We have coined the term; the Disappointment Gap, for this phenomenon.

How to communicate with confidence to manage your contract

Effective communication is an essential skill for Contract Managers. Communicating well is all about making sure the right people have the right information at the right time. But how do you communicate confidently and consistently with your stakeholders to ensure the successful management of your contract and project performance? Answer the following four questions for a helpful starting point to developing your communications plan.

Indemnities versus Insurances: Do you understand the difference?

Indemnities and insurance both guard against financial losses and aim to restore a party to the financial status they held before the event occurred. However, it’s important that Contract Managers understand the significant difference between the two to help protect their business.

Contract Law & Order: 3 terms every Contract Manager needs to know

A contract can be defined as: “A legally binding agreement between two or more parties”. Contract law, which forms the legal basis for contract management, is an interesting and complex topic. But there are three terms of contract law that are particularly important for a Contract Manager to understand to ensure contract delivery and best practice supplier management. They are privity, estoppel and document precedence.

What carrots work for NGO suppliers?

Governments across Australia contract more and more essential services from not-for-profit and non-government organisations (NGOs). Prime examples are the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the NSW Smart, Skilled and Hired program. But how should government agencies go about incentivising these service providers to achieve or better exceed performance expectations?

Contract Extension Checklist: To extend or not to extend?

Long before your contract expires, you should be planning your approach to the contract close out phase. Of course it’s easier to just extend an existing contract. But is it best value for money? Does it effectively address your organisation’s risk exposure? A Contract Extension Checklist can help you make the best contract decision for your business.

4 ‘carrots’ to incentivise Service Provider performance

“Our Service Provider is useless,” is a quote we often hear when we get called in to fix a dysfunctional contract. To be honest, our clients often use more colourful language than that when they describe The Disapointment Gap!

15 essential attributes successful contracts share

While every contract is unique, there are 15 attributes that all successful contracts share – regardless of their size, complexity or challenges.

Contract management in procurement and why Contract Managers are so important

Contract management is often something that gets thrown at you with little explanation of what is required, little to no training in how you monitor supplier performance or understanding on how to avoid the biggest traps.

What skills make a good Contract Manager great?

As the linchpin to achieving your contract’s objectives, contract managers have a wide range of responsibilities. A good contract manager needs to be a Jack of all trades, who is a master of none all.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

The Four Spend Levers – Webinar

Which of the Four Spend Levers should procurement teams utilise for the rest of 2021?

Webinar – Procurement Systems that Fire on all Cylinders

A pre-recorded webinar on how to get the most of your upcoming or current investment into procurement technology

Advanced Spend Analytics to Drive Procurement Reform – A Webinar

Watch our Procurement lead, Dr. Stefan Gassner talks through our work with a past client of ours, City of Sydney, around ‘advanced spend analytics to drive procurement reform’.

How to be a Procurement Savings Champion

Ever wondered where your next wave of procurement savings will come from? This video will tell you how to save an additional 122% using advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter.

Stop Paying Too Much: How to Generate Greater Procurement Savings

Grosvenor’s procurement expert, Dr Stefan Gassner, outlines his findings from his latest procurement research project, the 2015 CPO Study.

Turn Your Focus to Advanced Spend Levers for Additional Savings

The times when running a tender process yielded 20% of savings are over. Charlie and Tom explain how you should now turn your focus internally to leverage advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Smarter and Buy Less.

What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement – A Webinar

Join Grosvenor’s head of procurement, Dr Stefan Gassner, in discussing the findings from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement, and how a recent pandemic has shaped these results in 2020.

PODCAST: AcademyGlobal Podcast Interview: What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement

Listen to Stefan Gassner, our Director and Head of our Procurement Advisory, speak with Genevieve Malcolm from AcademyGlobal. Discussing the findings and insights from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement’.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

The distinguishing factor between high and low maturity procurement teams is….

The results of our research weren’t a complete surprise to us as we have been seeing more and more evidence that it is the soft skills rather than the technical skills that count in modern day procurement functions.

Are your stakeholders happy? How to improve stakeholder satisfaction

63% of respondents to our research indicated that their stakeholders are “somewhat happy” or “very happy” with the way that the procurement function works in their organisation. How do you further improve stakeholder satisfaction?

How to level-up your procurement maturity

From our latest annual procurement research, Stronger Together, we know what it takes to level up the maturity of your procurement team or your whole procurement function. And the results may surprise you! It is not the way you negotiate with suppliers. So what is it?

AI adoption by procurement teams

70% of teams we researched in 2024 said that they do not use AI in document creation and 63% say they do not use AI in any other form. It is fair to say that AI has not been adopted widely by Australian procurement teams. But is that about to change?

Australian procurement teams’ top procurement priorities in 2024

Grosvenor undertakes annual research into the State of Procurement and Contract Management in Australia. Over the past six years, we have talked to 640 organisations to track what is top of mind for their procurement teams. What comes out on top for 2024?

The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams

Grosvenor’s 2024 Annual Procurement study, Stronger Together – The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams – we looked at what makes the difference between a highly mature procurement function and those who are less mature. How mature is your procurement team?

So, what is keeping CPOs up at night?

We spoke to 74 procurement organisations in Australia and their number one concern is… none of the above. Resourcing takes out the top spot. Specifically, the inability to find, recruit and train talent to keep up with the workload.

What does procurement best practice mean to you? Grosvenor Procurement Research 2022

At Grosvenor we undertake annual research into the state of the procurement profession in Australia. This year we want to understand what ‘better practice’ means and make that measurable through benchmarks that are specific to Australia.

Participate now!

Dealing with supply risk: becoming a customer of choice

Assuring the supply base and its viability is currently an important procurement goal. So how exactly are organisations dealing with mitigation of supply risk? What can you learn and adopt?

What our research says about the state of procurement in Australia

At Grosvenor Procurement Advisory, we undertake annual research to better understand procurement and contracting in Australia. This article provides a summary of our research topics with links to download our highly sought after ebooks for free.

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we’d argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

How do organisations go about creating savings post COVID?

Procurement professionals have four spend levers in their toolbox. But which ones were mainly used to combat the impact of the COVID-19 recession? Read on to find that it was the more traditional negotiations that procurement turned to in 2020 and how to generate further savings in 2021.

Government organisations and private sector businesses experienced the pandemic very differently

Public sector procurement teams were tasked with introducing stimulus into the economy rather than reducing cost as was the case in the private sector. How long is this going to last? We surveyed 46 public sector procurement functions in 2020 to understand how the COVID-19 crisis impacted procurement teams in Australia.

COVID – When procurement became critical

COVID brought many struggles. It was also the time for procurement to shine. Read on to see how procurement functions across Australia quickly adapted and shifted their focus from cost reduction to supply risk mitigation and back to cost reduction.

How to be a Procurement Savings Champion

Ever wondered where your next wave of procurement savings will come from? This video will tell you how to save an additional 122% using advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter.

What’s on the chopping block? – The Impact of COVID on Procurement

Procurement teams across the country are chasing savings again to lead the recession recovery. So where will all these savings come from?

What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement – A Webinar

Join Grosvenor’s head of procurement, Dr Stefan Gassner, in discussing the findings from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement, and how a recent pandemic has shaped these results in 2020.

What separates immature and mature organisations?

After learning about procurement’s maturity levels and how these correlate to strategic alignment, we can firmly say, that they go hand in hand. What separates immature and mature organisations?

Big business, small Procurement functions.

Your organisation might turnover a large revenue, with many employees, however, your procurement function might be experiencing the same maturity as a far smaller organisation. What gives?

How the public sector shapes up. Why Procurement could not be further away from what is expected of them!

Findings from our industry study, ‘What Finanance can (and should) expect of Procurement’; we found that not a single respondent from the public sector said cost was one of the most important area of focus. It wasn’t just cost that public sector procurement teams did not consider to be an important area of focus; again, not a single respondent said that risk reduction was an important area of focus, too.

Not on the same page: Procurement and the rest of the business are misaligned.

It’s as simple as that: Procurement and the rest of the business are not on the same page. If you’re already nodding your head in agreement, you’re not alone. More than half of the respondents to our survey indicated that their procurement function operates in a vacuum.

What can Finance expect of Procurement?

Well, it’s often been suggested that Finance and Procurement are at loggerheads about what is good for the organisation. Is it savings? Is it risk reduction? Is it ensuring that sustainability a core focus, or even commercial outcomes? All of the above?

Carrot or stick? Supplier Performance Study

On average, procurement teams can gain an extra 29% performance from their suppliers with some simple changes. Our 2017 research study uncovered what suppliers would like to (but often can’t) say to buyers to help them turn this around.

Business man with crystal ball

Predicting cost savings in Property, ICT and Operations Sectors

In my last article, Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend? I mentioned that one of the goals of our 2018 Procurement Study was to unlock a set of indicators that could be used to identify which categories, supplier and contracts are likely to yield the greatest opportunities to reduce spend.

Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend?

Prioritising your procurement initiatives would be a lot easier if indicators existed that helped you determine where your most likely source of savings is going to come from.

Surprising facts

Some surprising facts from our 2018 Procurement Study

Our 2018 procurement study “Eight savings myths debunked” was expected to stir the pot. It’s easy to allow assumptions and preconceived ideas about finding cost savings to influence where to look and what to expect.

Eight savings myths debunked

Every year Grosvenor conducts a research study focusing on a specific area of procurement practice. These insights are used to inform our industry by aggregating real world experiences from Australian organisations and turn them into strategies that allow us to share knowledge and drive change within our own organisations.

Gut feelings and hard data

We have gut feeling about plenty of things and maybe we think we know what works when it comes to incentivising behaviour. That’s because we know how we respond to sticks and carrots. But maybe not everyone responds as we do. Maybe different situations call for different approaches.

Modern Slavery Act – What have others implemented and what should I be doing now?

Grosvenor benchmarked 31 organisations across Australia and internationally to understand what controls were in place to address the risk of modern slavery within their supply chains. Through our research in June 2018, we discovered what was considered best practice and what organisations across the country can be doing now to address modern slavery risks within their supply chains.

Eight steps to drive more savings

Do you maximise your savings across your suppliers? How do you know which contract to tackle next? How do you prioritise your supply base and identify where the biggest savings potentials are?

Procurement Manager holding a trophy

What is the right size for your procurement team?

Chief Procurement Officers are asked to deliver more and more. They don’t always have the resources to match expectations. What do CPOs need to deliver results and become procurement champions?

“Please return our calls!!!” – Candid comments from your suppliers…

It never ceases to amaze me how important the simple things like returning a phone call or responding to email are to successful buyer / seller relationships. Funny how we expect a supplier to respond and even fall over themselves when we need them. But do we always show the same respect back? Is it ok not to just because we are the ones handing over the cash?

How changing buyer behaviour can double procurement savings

With their focus on keeping supplier costs down, Australasian Chief Procurement Officers are used to having their attention trained on the external market: but did you know you can almost double your savings by turning your attention inside the organisation too?

The next wave of procurement savings

A 2014 Australasian study has found that public sector organisations have at least twice as many procurement staff as private sector organisations. It is probably easy to surmise that this is a consequence of the high accountability, probity and compliance expectations of government. In effect, procurement processes in the public sector are more involved than in the private sector.

How is service sourcing different from product sourcing?

Services have become a significant part of Australia’s economy. However, businesses are not always sure how to align their purchasing function with this trend. This whitepaper explores differences between physical goods and services and how these influence the procurement function.

What suppliers think about your leadership

We know that your leadership style impacts supplier performance by 27%. Yet most organisations fly blind and don’t seek the feedback of suppliers on how to improve the way they lead.

Are you a savings champion?

In 2015, Grosvenor collaborated with PASA to survey hundreds of top procurement professionals in Australasia. Why? Because we wanted to identify the most effective savings tactics in use, and understand who was using them to the best effect. What we discovered might surprise you.

The Four Spend Levers – Webinar

Which of the Four Spend Levers should procurement teams utilise for the rest of 2021?

Where are the procurement “quick wins” for an incoming CPO?

As a new CPO you need to make an impact. Fast. Ideally within 100 days. This is important to win trust. Trust from the wider business that procurement will be better this time round. Better, in the sense of being able to help the organisation deliver the strategic goals. An enabler, rather than a roadblock. A coach, not a police offer.

How do organisations go about creating savings post COVID?

Procurement professionals have four spend levers in their toolbox. But which ones were mainly used to combat the impact of the COVID-19 recession? Read on to find that it was the more traditional negotiations that procurement turned to in 2020 and how to generate further savings in 2021.

How to be a Procurement Savings Champion

Ever wondered where your next wave of procurement savings will come from? This video will tell you how to save an additional 122% using advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter.

Stop Paying Too Much: How to Generate Greater Procurement Savings

Grosvenor’s procurement expert, Dr Stefan Gassner, outlines his findings from his latest procurement research project, the 2015 CPO Study.

Turn Your Focus to Advanced Spend Levers for Additional Savings

The times when running a tender process yielded 20% of savings are over. Charlie and Tom explain how you should now turn your focus internally to leverage advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Smarter and Buy Less.

What’s on the chopping block? – The Impact of COVID on Procurement

Procurement teams across the country are chasing savings again to lead the recession recovery. So where will all these savings come from?

Business man with crystal ball

Predicting cost savings in Property, ICT and Operations Sectors

In my last article, Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend? I mentioned that one of the goals of our 2018 Procurement Study was to unlock a set of indicators that could be used to identify which categories, supplier and contracts are likely to yield the greatest opportunities to reduce spend.

Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend?

Prioritising your procurement initiatives would be a lot easier if indicators existed that helped you determine where your most likely source of savings is going to come from.

Surprising facts

Some surprising facts from our 2018 Procurement Study

Our 2018 procurement study “Eight savings myths debunked” was expected to stir the pot. It’s easy to allow assumptions and preconceived ideas about finding cost savings to influence where to look and what to expect.

Eight savings myths debunked

Every year Grosvenor conducts a research study focusing on a specific area of procurement practice. These insights are used to inform our industry by aggregating real world experiences from Australian organisations and turn them into strategies that allow us to share knowledge and drive change within our own organisations.

Fantastic On Four Fronts

Levers provide you with efficiencies that help move otherwise impossible loads with ease. As a user of these levers, it’s important to be aware of what levers exist and when to use the right lever at the right time. You’d never use a crowbar, for example, to lift the lid on the Milo tin, just like you’d never try to shift that pile of bricks with a pair of tweezers.

Eight steps to drive more savings

Do you maximise your savings across your suppliers? How do you know which contract to tackle next? How do you prioritise your supply base and identify where the biggest savings potentials are?

Category management: Why bother?

Does category management deliver benefits beyond just doing good procurement practice? Does it involve new techniques or practices? Or worse, is it just a fad word to make procurement practitioners or management consultants sound cutting edge?

Pay Less, Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter: The 4 Spend Levers

When we think of generating savings, many of us automatically think of simply paying less for goods and services: whether we’re talking about tenders, volume aggregation or minimising contract leakage, this tried and tested method of using spending power to beat down prices has delivered significant savings over the years.

What Category Management tells us about the future of procurement

It’s been called a lot of things: strategic procurement, Category Management, strategic commissioning and customer centric procurement. What it really should be called is “good procurement practice”.

Are you a savings champion?

In 2015, Grosvenor collaborated with PASA to survey hundreds of top procurement professionals in Australasia. Why? Because we wanted to identify the most effective savings tactics in use, and understand who was using them to the best effect. What we discovered might surprise you.

Webinar – Procurement Systems that Fire on all Cylinders

A pre-recorded webinar on how to get the most of your upcoming or current investment into procurement technology

Advanced Spend Analytics to Drive Procurement Reform – A Webinar

Watch our Procurement lead, Dr. Stefan Gassner talks through our work with a past client of ours, City of Sydney, around ‘advanced spend analytics to drive procurement reform’.

Why you are not happy with your eProcurement system

Often the answer to why your existing system is not firing from all cylinders can be found in our previous article. It’s likely that your implementation project skipped one of those lessons-learnt and you have consequently ended up in a situation where the uptake of your system is poor, end users complain about the usability, manual workarounds are in place, suppliers are unhappy and most of the benefits from your business case have gone out the window.

Choosing a suitable eProcurement system: What others had to learn the hard way

Unfortunately, not all procurement teams get to enjoy full benefits from their technology solutions. Why is that? Learn how to avoid missing out these crucial benefits.

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution: 1. Are you paying the same rate for the same type of employee across the whole business?, 2. Do you know what technology solutions the market offers?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system: 1.  Do you know the current procurement technology market and capabilities?, 2. Are your procurement processes fit for purpose and ready to be supported by a system?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system: 1. Are your processes now faster and more efficient? All of them?, 2.  Is everyone happy with the system and consistently using it?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system: 1. Are you realising all the expected benefits?, 2. Are your processes now faster and more efficient?, 3. ….

5 ways to ensure procurement stays relevant

Are you struggling to extract further savings through the application of spending consolidation and market testing? Are most of your spend categories now mature and behave predictably?

The distinguishing factor between high and low maturity procurement teams is….

The results of our research weren’t a complete surprise to us as we have been seeing more and more evidence that it is the soft skills rather than the technical skills that count in modern day procurement functions.

Are your stakeholders happy? How to improve stakeholder satisfaction

63% of respondents to our research indicated that their stakeholders are “somewhat happy” or “very happy” with the way that the procurement function works in their organisation. How do you further improve stakeholder satisfaction?

How to level-up your procurement maturity

From our latest annual procurement research, Stronger Together, we know what it takes to level up the maturity of your procurement team or your whole procurement function. And the results may surprise you! It is not the way you negotiate with suppliers. So what is it?

AI adoption by procurement teams

70% of teams we researched in 2024 said that they do not use AI in document creation and 63% say they do not use AI in any other form. It is fair to say that AI has not been adopted widely by Australian procurement teams. But is that about to change?

Australian procurement teams’ top procurement priorities in 2024

Grosvenor undertakes annual research into the State of Procurement and Contract Management in Australia. Over the past six years, we have talked to 640 organisations to track what is top of mind for their procurement teams. What comes out on top for 2024?

The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams

Grosvenor’s 2024 Annual Procurement study, Stronger Together – The secret to the success of better practice procurement teams – we looked at what makes the difference between a highly mature procurement function and those who are less mature. How mature is your procurement team?

The role of AI in procurement

The integration of AI technologies is revolutionising procurement. By automating manual processes, leveraging predictive analytics, and enhancing decision-making capabilities, AI empowers procurement professionals to drive efficiency, mitigate risks, and achieve strategic objectives.

Crafting an Effective Procurement Category Management Plan

One of the most powerful tools in procurement is an effective Category Management Plan which enables organisations to optimise their purchasing processes, drive cost savings, and enhance supplier relationships.

A guide to Procurement Category Management

Procurement category management emerges as a crucial element in achieving sustainable success. By implementing a comprehensive category management framework, organisations can navigate the complexities of the supply chain, optimise costs, and build resilient supplier relationships.

The Future of Procurement: A Look Ahead to 2024 and Beyond

We investigate the key trends that are shaping the future of procurement, what Grosvenor’s research found to be the key priorities for 2024 and give you strategies that you can adopt to stay ahead of the curve.

Revolutionising Procurement: Unleashing the Power of Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma can transform procurement practices with a structured and systematic approach to procurement.

Four tips for maximising the value you get from your Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contracts

The top four tips of how to achieve best value from your relationships with vendors of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products.

Approaching power imbalance in a supplier relationship

The power imbalance in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is high to very high. The other party is often a large multinational company who is not willing to negotiate on product specifications, on pricing nor on contract terms & conditions.

When client and supplier see each other as irreplaceable – that’s where the magic happens!

Strategic Partner Management is all about friction-free sharing of information and includes the senior leadership of clients and suppliers to improve the ease of doing business.

Getting the most out of your contracts

Our latest research report, Geared to High Performance, reveals that more than 70% of organisations deploy operational contract management, vendor management and strategic partner management to improve supply chain performance.

Top procurement priorities for 2023

Grosvenor undertakes annual research into the state of procurement and contract management in Australia. Over the past five years we have talked to close to 600 organisations to track what is top of mind for their procurement teams. So what is top of mind in 2023?

How to achieve high supplier performance

Grosvenor’s latest State of Procurement in Australia research titled Geared to High Performance, reveals five interventions that make the biggest difference on supplier performance.

Geared to High Performance – How to get the best out of your suppliers

Grosvenor’s procurement research reveals how to get the most out of your suppliers, service providers and vendors in the future. Find out in the Geared to High Performance Report.

What the heck is FinOps?

FinOps is a set of cultural practices for proactively managing dynamic spend incurred using cloud infrastructure. It aims to maximise the value of cloud infrastructure by aligning spend with defined business objectives. It requires organisational change to enable cross organisational collaboration and is driven by a central FinOps team but delegates financial decisions and accountability to users of the cloud infrastructure.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

How long does a procurement take?

A common issue for procurement teams is to manage the expectations of the rest of the business. This includes communicating just how long it takes to procure goods and services. We provide the following benchmarks in the hope that this allows procurement teams to point to the fact that right across organisations in Australia, the typical procurement projects take a fair bit of time.

Where are you on the procurement maturity curve?

Ultimately every organisation is making a decision of where its procurement function should sit on the maturity curve taking into account the cost to implement better practice and the value-add this function will generate. So, where does your organisation sit on this maturity curve, and how does this compare to other organisations?

What is the right organisational structure for your procurement team?

How do you set up the right organisational structure for your procurement team? An important decision when answering that question is to set the degree of centralisation: which activities will be done by people outside of the immediate procurement team, versus which activities are done by that team themselves?

So, what is keeping CPOs up at night?

We spoke to 74 procurement organisations in Australia and their number one concern is… none of the above. Resourcing takes out the top spot. Specifically, the inability to find, recruit and train talent to keep up with the workload.

What does procurement best practice mean to you? Grosvenor Procurement Research 2022

At Grosvenor we undertake annual research into the state of the procurement profession in Australia. This year we want to understand what ‘better practice’ means and make that measurable through benchmarks that are specific to Australia.

Participate now!

Dealing with supply risk: becoming a customer of choice

Assuring the supply base and its viability is currently an important procurement goal. So how exactly are organisations dealing with mitigation of supply risk? What can you learn and adopt?

The Four Spend Levers – Webinar

Which of the Four Spend Levers should procurement teams utilise for the rest of 2021?

Contract management: seven challenges to better practice

Contract managers right across Australia face difficulties in getting the most from their suppliers. How can we set up our contractual relationships so that the supplier will go the extra mile? Look no further than how we manage our staff and you get an idea of what better practice looks like. Here is a list of seven challenges contract managers often face and how to overcome them.

Where are the procurement “quick wins” for an incoming CPO?

As a new CPO you need to make an impact. Fast. Ideally within 100 days. This is important to win trust. Trust from the wider business that procurement will be better this time round. Better, in the sense of being able to help the organisation deliver the strategic goals. An enabler, rather than a roadblock. A coach, not a police offer.

What our research says about the state of procurement in Australia

At Grosvenor Procurement Advisory, we undertake annual research to better understand procurement and contracting in Australia. This article provides a summary of our research topics with links to download our highly sought after ebooks for free.

Five challenges we must address when ‘hiring’ our suppliers

What do we get wrong when we ‘hire’ our suppliers? What can procurement learn from the hiring processes we have in place for our staff and how can those lessons be adopted in better practice procurement functions?

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we’d argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

Webinar – Procurement Systems that Fire on all Cylinders

A pre-recorded webinar on how to get the most of your upcoming or current investment into procurement technology

How do organisations go about creating savings post COVID?

Procurement professionals have four spend levers in their toolbox. But which ones were mainly used to combat the impact of the COVID-19 recession? Read on to find that it was the more traditional negotiations that procurement turned to in 2020 and how to generate further savings in 2021.

Government organisations and private sector businesses experienced the pandemic very differently

Public sector procurement teams were tasked with introducing stimulus into the economy rather than reducing cost as was the case in the private sector. How long is this going to last? We surveyed 46 public sector procurement functions in 2020 to understand how the COVID-19 crisis impacted procurement teams in Australia.

COVID – When procurement became critical

COVID brought many struggles. It was also the time for procurement to shine. Read on to see how procurement functions across Australia quickly adapted and shifted their focus from cost reduction to supply risk mitigation and back to cost reduction.

Advanced Spend Analytics to Drive Procurement Reform – A Webinar

Watch our Procurement lead, Dr. Stefan Gassner talks through our work with a past client of ours, City of Sydney, around ‘advanced spend analytics to drive procurement reform’.

Why you are not happy with your eProcurement system

Often the answer to why your existing system is not firing from all cylinders can be found in our previous article. It’s likely that your implementation project skipped one of those lessons-learnt and you have consequently ended up in a situation where the uptake of your system is poor, end users complain about the usability, manual workarounds are in place, suppliers are unhappy and most of the benefits from your business case have gone out the window.

Choosing a suitable eProcurement system: What others had to learn the hard way

Unfortunately, not all procurement teams get to enjoy full benefits from their technology solutions. Why is that? Learn how to avoid missing out these crucial benefits.

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution: 1. Are you paying the same rate for the same type of employee across the whole business?, 2. Do you know what technology solutions the market offers?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system: 1.  Do you know the current procurement technology market and capabilities?, 2. Are your procurement processes fit for purpose and ready to be supported by a system?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system: 1. Are your processes now faster and more efficient? All of them?, 2.  Is everyone happy with the system and consistently using it?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system: 1. Are you realising all the expected benefits?, 2. Are your processes now faster and more efficient?, 3. ….

How to be a Procurement Savings Champion

Ever wondered where your next wave of procurement savings will come from? This video will tell you how to save an additional 122% using advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter.

Stop Paying Too Much: How to Generate Greater Procurement Savings

Grosvenor’s procurement expert, Dr Stefan Gassner, outlines his findings from his latest procurement research project, the 2015 CPO Study.

Turn Your Focus to Advanced Spend Levers for Additional Savings

The times when running a tender process yielded 20% of savings are over. Charlie and Tom explain how you should now turn your focus internally to leverage advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Smarter and Buy Less.

What’s on the chopping block? – The Impact of COVID on Procurement

Procurement teams across the country are chasing savings again to lead the recession recovery. So where will all these savings come from?

What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement – A Webinar

Join Grosvenor’s head of procurement, Dr Stefan Gassner, in discussing the findings from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement, and how a recent pandemic has shaped these results in 2020.

We asked 49 procurement teams how their focus has changed during COVID. Here is what they said.

What a different world this is! Just three months ago we published our research on what the focus of procurement teams should be. Now we need to start from scratch as the COVID-19 pandemic rewrites the rules of business around the world.

PODCAST: AcademyGlobal Podcast Interview: What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement

Listen to Stefan Gassner, our Director and Head of our Procurement Advisory, speak with Genevieve Malcolm from AcademyGlobal. Discussing the findings and insights from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement’.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

How can your Procurement function deliver more value?

Procurement should align its vision, strategy and policies with the overall company objectives. When procurement does not align these with company objectives, we found that this led to friction between stakeholders and unrealised opportunities.

What separates immature and mature organisations?

After learning about procurement’s maturity levels and how these correlate to strategic alignment, we can firmly say, that they go hand in hand. What separates immature and mature organisations?

Big business, small Procurement functions.

Your organisation might turnover a large revenue, with many employees, however, your procurement function might be experiencing the same maturity as a far smaller organisation. What gives?

How the public sector shapes up. Why Procurement could not be further away from what is expected of them!

Findings from our industry study, ‘What Finanance can (and should) expect of Procurement’; we found that not a single respondent from the public sector said cost was one of the most important area of focus. It wasn’t just cost that public sector procurement teams did not consider to be an important area of focus; again, not a single respondent said that risk reduction was an important area of focus, too.

Not on the same page: Procurement and the rest of the business are misaligned.

It’s as simple as that: Procurement and the rest of the business are not on the same page. If you’re already nodding your head in agreement, you’re not alone. More than half of the respondents to our survey indicated that their procurement function operates in a vacuum.

What can Finance expect of Procurement?

Well, it’s often been suggested that Finance and Procurement are at loggerheads about what is good for the organisation. Is it savings? Is it risk reduction? Is it ensuring that sustainability a core focus, or even commercial outcomes? All of the above?

Findings from our Sustainable Procurement Research

Grosvenor and Progressive Systems undertake regular research to understand the state of the procurement profession in Australia and New Zealand. This report details our findings from surveying 98 organisations about their efforts to implement sustainable practices in their procurement function.

Carrot or stick? Supplier Performance Study

On average, procurement teams can gain an extra 29% performance from their suppliers with some simple changes. Our 2017 research study uncovered what suppliers would like to (but often can’t) say to buyers to help them turn this around.

Business man with crystal ball

Predicting cost savings in Property, ICT and Operations Sectors

In my last article, Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend? I mentioned that one of the goals of our 2018 Procurement Study was to unlock a set of indicators that could be used to identify which categories, supplier and contracts are likely to yield the greatest opportunities to reduce spend.

Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend?

Prioritising your procurement initiatives would be a lot easier if indicators existed that helped you determine where your most likely source of savings is going to come from.

Surprising facts

Some surprising facts from our 2018 Procurement Study

Our 2018 procurement study “Eight savings myths debunked” was expected to stir the pot. It’s easy to allow assumptions and preconceived ideas about finding cost savings to influence where to look and what to expect.

Eight savings myths debunked

Every year Grosvenor conducts a research study focusing on a specific area of procurement practice. These insights are used to inform our industry by aggregating real world experiences from Australian organisations and turn them into strategies that allow us to share knowledge and drive change within our own organisations.

Fantastic On Four Fronts

Levers provide you with efficiencies that help move otherwise impossible loads with ease. As a user of these levers, it’s important to be aware of what levers exist and when to use the right lever at the right time. You’d never use a crowbar, for example, to lift the lid on the Milo tin, just like you’d never try to shift that pile of bricks with a pair of tweezers.

Building a relationship with your suppliers

You’re a great team leader, right? Your staff respect you, and you them. Let’s look at the way you work with your staff and see how we can transfer your success there to success in the procurement field.

Gut feelings and hard data

We have gut feeling about plenty of things and maybe we think we know what works when it comes to incentivising behaviour. That’s because we know how we respond to sticks and carrots. But maybe not everyone responds as we do. Maybe different situations call for different approaches.

Love me Tender? Not Likely!

Problems with suppliers create problems for your business. Consider those suppliers who can’t meet deadlines, are financially unstable, have staffing issues, can’t deliver the required quality of work or have weak compliance standards – the list of potential problems can run on and on.

Modern Slavery Act – What have others implemented and what should I be doing now?

Grosvenor benchmarked 31 organisations across Australia and internationally to understand what controls were in place to address the risk of modern slavery within their supply chains. Through our research in June 2018, we discovered what was considered best practice and what organisations across the country can be doing now to address modern slavery risks within their supply chains.

Eight steps to drive more savings

Do you maximise your savings across your suppliers? How do you know which contract to tackle next? How do you prioritise your supply base and identify where the biggest savings potentials are?

How design impacts procurement contract performance

Most performance management systems that fail, don’t fail because they can’t do the job. They fail because they are too hard to use, take too much effort and as a result, don’t get used as much as they should.

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract. By that I mean don’t ask them to define the scope of services, the pricing model or the performance management structure for a contract.

Procurement Manager holding a trophy

What is the right size for your procurement team?

Chief Procurement Officers are asked to deliver more and more. They don’t always have the resources to match expectations. What do CPOs need to deliver results and become procurement champions?

Why contract performance always disappoints the buyer

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual
performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of
robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff,
purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts?

Category management: Why bother?

Does category management deliver benefits beyond just doing good procurement practice? Does it involve new techniques or practices? Or worse, is it just a fad word to make procurement practitioners or management consultants sound cutting edge?

Be SMART: How to define KPIs that drive better results

Well thought out key performance indicators (KPIs) are a fundamental ingredient of performance management frameworks. But for many, developing a good KPI – one that actually drives behaviour to achieve results – is harder than it looks.

3 steps to negotiate win-win outcomes for your contract

Anyone who’s ever come into contact with a toddler will know that for most of us negotiation skills are learnt early. Unlike a toddler, adult negotiators understand that there are two sides to any negotiation and both negotiators want to have their needs met. Here’s how to negotiate the best outcomes for your contract, while keeping your supplier relationships intact.

“Please return our calls!!!” – Candid comments from your suppliers…

It never ceases to amaze me how important the simple things like returning a phone call or responding to email are to successful buyer / seller relationships. Funny how we expect a supplier to respond and even fall over themselves when we need them. But do we always show the same respect back? Is it ok not to just because we are the ones handing over the cash?

How changing buyer behaviour can double procurement savings

With their focus on keeping supplier costs down, Australasian Chief Procurement Officers are used to having their attention trained on the external market: but did you know you can almost double your savings by turning your attention inside the organisation too?

5 ways to ensure procurement stays relevant

Are you struggling to extract further savings through the application of spending consolidation and market testing? Are most of your spend categories now mature and behave predictably?

Pay Less, Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter: The 4 Spend Levers

When we think of generating savings, many of us automatically think of simply paying less for goods and services: whether we’re talking about tenders, volume aggregation or minimising contract leakage, this tried and tested method of using spending power to beat down prices has delivered significant savings over the years.

The next wave of procurement savings

A 2014 Australasian study has found that public sector organisations have at least twice as many procurement staff as private sector organisations. It is probably easy to surmise that this is a consequence of the high accountability, probity and compliance expectations of government. In effect, procurement processes in the public sector are more involved than in the private sector.

How is service sourcing different from product sourcing?

Services have become a significant part of Australia’s economy. However, businesses are not always sure how to align their purchasing function with this trend. This whitepaper explores differences between physical goods and services and how these influence the procurement function.

What suppliers think about your leadership

We know that your leadership style impacts supplier performance by 27%. Yet most organisations fly blind and don’t seek the feedback of suppliers on how to improve the way they lead.

Are your suppliers punishing you?

Ever wished you were a fly on the wall when your suppliers meet to discuss your contract and the relationship they have with you? Trust me good or bad they have the conversations on many levels just as employees have conversations about their management.

3 steps to take your organisation to supplier leadership excellence

Much has been written about the relationship between leadership and staff performance. There’s no doubt that better leaders also produce better business outcomes. Yet, this kind of thinking is usually limited to staff management. It does not extend to the positive impact leadership might have on the performance of suppliers.

10 tips to improving supplier relationship management

Organisations successful in managing supply chains understand the value of managing effective relationships with their suppliers. These organisations have a knack of building trust and confidence with their suppliers which leads to knowledge sharing and the identification of improvement opportunities.

What Category Management tells us about the future of procurement

It’s been called a lot of things: strategic procurement, Category Management, strategic commissioning and customer centric procurement. What it really should be called is “good procurement practice”.

Are you a savings champion?

In 2015, Grosvenor collaborated with PASA to survey hundreds of top procurement professionals in Australasia. Why? Because we wanted to identify the most effective savings tactics in use, and understand who was using them to the best effect. What we discovered might surprise you.

Best practice KPI development and reporting for stellar supplier outcomes

You may have heard the saying, ‘what gets measured gets done’. Use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is the main way supplier performance is measured and the main mechanism for driving supplier behaviour. Here’s some tips on how to develop and measure best practice KPIs to encourage ongoing performance and exceptional outcomes from your suppliers.

How to get started with sustainable procurement?

With spend in supply chains representing an average of 60% of an organisation’s budget, procurement strategy and processes have a profound ability to affect the social, environmental and economic sustainability of business at large. The power of procurement to contribute, both positively and negatively, to sustainable objectives has never been so widely recognised.

What works best to motivate suppliers?

In 2017, we surveyed 163 buyer and 89 supplier organisations across Australasia managing a combined spend of over $5.6bn designed to bring you the latest key insights for helping you boost your supplier performance.

Why a Contract Management Plan makes your work day easy like Sunday morning

The ink on the supplier contract is drying. They’re ready to start contract delivery. How do you harness the goodwill, ensure easy and successful implementation and a functional working relationship for years to come? With a Contract Management Plan (CMP) of course!

Trouble in contract paradise? How to get your project back on course

Issue management can be difficult and confronting for everyone involved. As with any relationship, there will be times when things don’t go to plan and problems crop up. As the contract manager, it falls to you to get things back on course. Here’s how to prevent minor contract issues from becoming major challenges for you and your supplier. 

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Fair Operating Practice

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence. Last year, the International Standard for Sustainable Procurement ISO 20400 was released as a guide to implementing social responsibility and sustainability through the procurement process.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Human Rights

Many people in modern society might think of slavery and child labour as stories from their history books that no longer exist. However, according to Andrew Forrest, Chairman of Fortescue Mining Group and the Walk Free Foundation, “We are all going to have slavery in our supply chains no matter how good we think our corporate social responsibility is”.

Supplier Performance Study: How leadership impacts supplier value

Do you suspect that your contract is not performing as well as it could? There must be something you can do to get more out of your suppliers, right? Learn how the principles of leading staff also applies to the leadership of suppliers, in Grosvenor’s 3rd Annual Procurement Study.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Community

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence.

Public sector procurement: the next wave of savings

Any head of procurement who has worked in government will know that effective procurement is a top priority in the public sector. But are you doing all you can to maximise the savings available?This year, Grosvenor collaborated with PASA to survey hundreds of top procurement professionals in Australasia (including a large number of federal and state government organisations) to identify where the next wave of procurement savings will come from.

Making the World a better place…Through sustainable procurement

Chances are, social responsibility is not the key driver for your organisation! It might be a nice-to-have, but your key driver is more likely to be super-pleasing your customers, maintaining a competitive-advantage or implementing public policies.

Four common mistakes of overlooking contract pricing

When contracting for services, a lot of attention is focused on the initial contract cost. Hours of spreadsheet time is spent analysing and comparing tendered fees. Unfortunately, very little thought goes into how the ongoing service is paid for and how the ‘pricing model’ (not the initial tendered fee) determines value for money and delivers quality outcomes.

3 steps to take your organisation to supplier leadership excellence

Much has been written about the relationship between leadership and staff performance. There’s no doubt that better leaders also produce better business outcomes. Yet, this kind of thinking is usually limited to staff management. It does not extend to the positive impact leadership might have on the performance of suppliers. And that is despite the fact that businesses spend over 80% of their revenue on external suppliers depending on industry.

PODCAST: The Procurement Corner with Steve Moore and Kris Wozniak

For many organisations, a supplier relationship can seem more like a liability always demanding attention, than a valuable asset worthy of investment. So, what makes the difference between these two perceptions? Leadership.

5 habits of highly effective supplier managers

Hand on heart, do you think you’re giving your suppliers a similar level of attention and leadership as to your own team? It’s difficult, we get it. Internal demands can often seem more pressing – not least because you’re so much more easily accessible for the people who work with you onsite. But what if we told you that better leadership in supplier management is directly related to better business outcomes?

The Disappointment Gap

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff, purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts? Over time; price creep, scope pullback, service level failures, lack of innovation and increasing levels of distrust increasingly characterise their customers’ experiences. We have coined the term; the Disappointment Gap, for this phenomenon.

What’s the difference between suppliers and employees when it comes to motivating for high performance?

As it turns out – nothing! When you think about it, why would or should it be any different: in both situations we are talking about the motivation of human beings.

How to communicate with confidence to manage your contract

Effective communication is an essential skill for Contract Managers. Communicating well is all about making sure the right people have the right information at the right time. But how do you communicate confidently and consistently with your stakeholders to ensure the successful management of your contract and project performance? Answer the following four questions for a helpful starting point to developing your communications plan.

2016 Supplier Performance Benchmarks: How do you compare to Australia’s champions?

In Grosvenor’s latest procurement study, we investigated the relationship between supplier performance and leadership style more closely. After surveying 119 organisations in Australia, we found that Transformational Leaders receive up to 27% higher performance from their suppliers than leaders who prefer a different leadership style.

10 Questions To Assess Contract Management Capability

Procurement is finally getting the opportunity to become more involved in contract management. Here are 10 questions contract managers should ask themselves to baseline the current skill set and prioritise areas of improvement.

Want to spend less time worrying about poor supplier performance?

Supplier management is often something that gets thrown at you with little explanation of what is required, little to no training in how you monitor supplier performance or avoid the biggest traps. Spend less time worrying about poor performance and more time on making strategic decisions that truly deliver value for money for your organisation.

Indemnities versus Insurances: Do you understand the difference?

Indemnities and insurance both guard against financial losses and aim to restore a party to the financial status they held before the event occurred. However, it’s important that Contract Managers understand the significant difference between the two to help protect their business.

Winners are grinners: 3 ingredients for win-win supplier relationships

The culture of your contract will have been established early in the sourcing process. During the tender period, documentation and interactions with suppliers will have set the tone for the ongoing relationship during the contract management phase.

Does size matter? – the truth revealed

You could be forgiven for thinking that suppliers provide better performance to their larger clients. Or those that are more profitable. Or those that represent growth opportunities. After all, it would make sense that a supplier does everything they could, go the extra mile for their bigger clients. Well actually the data gathered in our 2017 Procurement Study tells us that the contract value or the size of the supplier has little impact on the level of performance the buyer receives.

Contract Law & Order: 3 terms every Contract Manager needs to know

A contract can be defined as: “A legally binding agreement between two or more parties”. Contract law, which forms the legal basis for contract management, is an interesting and complex topic. But there are three terms of contract law that are particularly important for a Contract Manager to understand to ensure contract delivery and best practice supplier management. They are privity, estoppel and document precedence.

What carrots work for NGO suppliers?

Governments across Australia contract more and more essential services from not-for-profit and non-government organisations (NGOs). Prime examples are the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the NSW Smart, Skilled and Hired program. But how should government agencies go about incentivising these service providers to achieve or better exceed performance expectations?

Procurement Champions – Benchmark Study 2014

Chief Procurement Officers are asked to deliver more and more. They don’t always have the resources to match expectations. What do CPOs need to deliver results and become procurement champions?

Contract Extension Checklist: To extend or not to extend?

Long before your contract expires, you should be planning your approach to the contract close out phase. Of course it’s easier to just extend an existing contract. But is it best value for money? Does it effectively address your organisation’s risk exposure? A Contract Extension Checklist can help you make the best contract decision for your business.

4 ‘carrots’ to incentivise Service Provider performance

“Our Service Provider is useless,” is a quote we often hear when we get called in to fix a dysfunctional contract. To be honest, our clients often use more colourful language than that when they describe The Disapointment Gap!

3 Steps to Procurement Utopia

Procurement and contracting is more complex than many people realise. It’s not simply buying goods and services to the cost, quality and time you need them.

15 essential attributes successful contracts share

While every contract is unique, there are 15 attributes that all successful contracts share – regardless of their size, complexity or challenges.

Contract management in procurement and why Contract Managers are so important

Contract management is often something that gets thrown at you with little explanation of what is required, little to no training in how you monitor supplier performance or understanding on how to avoid the biggest traps.

What skills make a good Contract Manager great?

As the linchpin to achieving your contract’s objectives, contract managers have a wide range of responsibilities. A good contract manager needs to be a Jack of all trades, who is a master of none all.

Is your leadership style impacting supplier performance?

Chances are that you suspect your contract isn’t performing as well as it could. There must be something you can do to get more out of your suppliers, right? Did you know that improving your leadership skills could improve supplier relationships and contract performance?

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Five challenges we must address when ‘hiring’ our suppliers

What do we get wrong when we ‘hire’ our suppliers? What can procurement learn from the hiring processes we have in place for our staff and how can those lessons be adopted in better practice procurement functions?

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we’d argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

Government organisations and private sector businesses experienced the pandemic very differently

Public sector procurement teams were tasked with introducing stimulus into the economy rather than reducing cost as was the case in the private sector. How long is this going to last? We surveyed 46 public sector procurement functions in 2020 to understand how the COVID-19 crisis impacted procurement teams in Australia.

Advanced Spend Analytics to Drive Procurement Reform – A Webinar

Watch our Procurement lead, Dr. Stefan Gassner talks through our work with a past client of ours, City of Sydney, around ‘advanced spend analytics to drive procurement reform’.

PODCAST: AcademyGlobal Podcast Interview: What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement

Listen to Stefan Gassner, our Director and Head of our Procurement Advisory, speak with Genevieve Malcolm from AcademyGlobal. Discussing the findings and insights from our latest study, ‘What Finance can (and should) expect of Procurement’.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

What separates immature and mature organisations?

After learning about procurement’s maturity levels and how these correlate to strategic alignment, we can firmly say, that they go hand in hand. What separates immature and mature organisations?

How the public sector shapes up. Why Procurement could not be further away from what is expected of them!

Findings from our industry study, ‘What Finanance can (and should) expect of Procurement’; we found that not a single respondent from the public sector said cost was one of the most important area of focus. It wasn’t just cost that public sector procurement teams did not consider to be an important area of focus; again, not a single respondent said that risk reduction was an important area of focus, too.

Findings from our Sustainable Procurement Research

Grosvenor and Progressive Systems undertake regular research to understand the state of the procurement profession in Australia and New Zealand. This report details our findings from surveying 98 organisations about their efforts to implement sustainable practices in their procurement function.

Building a relationship with your suppliers

You’re a great team leader, right? Your staff respect you, and you them. Let’s look at the way you work with your staff and see how we can transfer your success there to success in the procurement field.

Gut feelings and hard data

We have gut feeling about plenty of things and maybe we think we know what works when it comes to incentivising behaviour. That’s because we know how we respond to sticks and carrots. But maybe not everyone responds as we do. Maybe different situations call for different approaches.

Love me Tender? Not Likely!

Problems with suppliers create problems for your business. Consider those suppliers who can’t meet deadlines, are financially unstable, have staffing issues, can’t deliver the required quality of work or have weak compliance standards – the list of potential problems can run on and on.

Modern Slavery Act – What have others implemented and what should I be doing now?

Grosvenor benchmarked 31 organisations across Australia and internationally to understand what controls were in place to address the risk of modern slavery within their supply chains. Through our research in June 2018, we discovered what was considered best practice and what organisations across the country can be doing now to address modern slavery risks within their supply chains.

Why contract performance always disappoints the buyer

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual
performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of
robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff,
purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts?

Be SMART: How to define KPIs that drive better results

Well thought out key performance indicators (KPIs) are a fundamental ingredient of performance management frameworks. But for many, developing a good KPI – one that actually drives behaviour to achieve results – is harder than it looks.

The next wave of procurement savings

A 2014 Australasian study has found that public sector organisations have at least twice as many procurement staff as private sector organisations. It is probably easy to surmise that this is a consequence of the high accountability, probity and compliance expectations of government. In effect, procurement processes in the public sector are more involved than in the private sector.

What suppliers think about your leadership

We know that your leadership style impacts supplier performance by 27%. Yet most organisations fly blind and don’t seek the feedback of suppliers on how to improve the way they lead.

How to get started with sustainable procurement?

With spend in supply chains representing an average of 60% of an organisation’s budget, procurement strategy and processes have a profound ability to affect the social, environmental and economic sustainability of business at large. The power of procurement to contribute, both positively and negatively, to sustainable objectives has never been so widely recognised.

When client and supplier see each other as irreplaceable – that’s where the magic happens!

Strategic Partner Management is all about friction-free sharing of information and includes the senior leadership of clients and suppliers to improve the ease of doing business.

Getting the most out of your contracts

Our latest research report, Geared to High Performance, reveals that more than 70% of organisations deploy operational contract management, vendor management and strategic partner management to improve supply chain performance.

How to achieve high supplier performance

Grosvenor’s latest State of Procurement in Australia research titled Geared to High Performance, reveals five interventions that make the biggest difference on supplier performance.

Geared to High Performance – How to get the best out of your suppliers

Grosvenor’s procurement research reveals how to get the most out of your suppliers, service providers and vendors in the future. Find out in the Geared to High Performance Report.

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Contract management: seven challenges to better practice

Contract managers right across Australia face difficulties in getting the most from their suppliers. How can we set up our contractual relationships so that the supplier will go the extra mile? Look no further than how we manage our staff and you get an idea of what better practice looks like. Here is a list of seven challenges contract managers often face and how to overcome them.

Light years behind: Supplier leadership vs people leadership

Let’s face it, we’re light years behind in how we source and manage suppliers. At least in comparison to how we select and lead our staff. In fact we’d argue that the same strategies work across managing people and managing suppliers. And that those organisations that do receive much better performance from their supply base

The Art of Successful Contract Management – A Webinar Series

Often, contract management is something that gets thrown at you. Without much explanation of what is required. That changes today! Purchase the seven-part contract management webinar series now. Each 45-minute webinar lesson covers everything you need to know about the art of successful contract management and improving supplier performance.

Carrot or stick? Supplier Performance Study

On average, procurement teams can gain an extra 29% performance from their suppliers with some simple changes. Our 2017 research study uncovered what suppliers would like to (but often can’t) say to buyers to help them turn this around.

Building a relationship with your suppliers

You’re a great team leader, right? Your staff respect you, and you them. Let’s look at the way you work with your staff and see how we can transfer your success there to success in the procurement field.

Gut feelings and hard data

We have gut feeling about plenty of things and maybe we think we know what works when it comes to incentivising behaviour. That’s because we know how we respond to sticks and carrots. But maybe not everyone responds as we do. Maybe different situations call for different approaches.

Love me Tender? Not Likely!

Problems with suppliers create problems for your business. Consider those suppliers who can’t meet deadlines, are financially unstable, have staffing issues, can’t deliver the required quality of work or have weak compliance standards – the list of potential problems can run on and on.

How design impacts procurement contract performance

Most performance management systems that fail, don’t fail because they can’t do the job. They fail because they are too hard to use, take too much effort and as a result, don’t get used as much as they should.

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract

Don’t ask a lawyer to scope a contract. By that I mean don’t ask them to define the scope of services, the pricing model or the performance management structure for a contract.

Why contract performance always disappoints the buyer

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual
performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of
robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff,
purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts?

Be SMART: How to define KPIs that drive better results

Well thought out key performance indicators (KPIs) are a fundamental ingredient of performance management frameworks. But for many, developing a good KPI – one that actually drives behaviour to achieve results – is harder than it looks.

3 steps to negotiate win-win outcomes for your contract

Anyone who’s ever come into contact with a toddler will know that for most of us negotiation skills are learnt early. Unlike a toddler, adult negotiators understand that there are two sides to any negotiation and both negotiators want to have their needs met. Here’s how to negotiate the best outcomes for your contract, while keeping your supplier relationships intact.

“Please return our calls!!!” – Candid comments from your suppliers…

It never ceases to amaze me how important the simple things like returning a phone call or responding to email are to successful buyer / seller relationships. Funny how we expect a supplier to respond and even fall over themselves when we need them. But do we always show the same respect back? Is it ok not to just because we are the ones handing over the cash?

How changing buyer behaviour can double procurement savings

With their focus on keeping supplier costs down, Australasian Chief Procurement Officers are used to having their attention trained on the external market: but did you know you can almost double your savings by turning your attention inside the organisation too?

How is service sourcing different from product sourcing?

Services have become a significant part of Australia’s economy. However, businesses are not always sure how to align their purchasing function with this trend. This whitepaper explores differences between physical goods and services and how these influence the procurement function.

What suppliers think about your leadership

We know that your leadership style impacts supplier performance by 27%. Yet most organisations fly blind and don’t seek the feedback of suppliers on how to improve the way they lead.

Are your suppliers punishing you?

Ever wished you were a fly on the wall when your suppliers meet to discuss your contract and the relationship they have with you? Trust me good or bad they have the conversations on many levels just as employees have conversations about their management.

3 steps to take your organisation to supplier leadership excellence

Much has been written about the relationship between leadership and staff performance. There’s no doubt that better leaders also produce better business outcomes. Yet, this kind of thinking is usually limited to staff management. It does not extend to the positive impact leadership might have on the performance of suppliers.

10 tips to improving supplier relationship management

Organisations successful in managing supply chains understand the value of managing effective relationships with their suppliers. These organisations have a knack of building trust and confidence with their suppliers which leads to knowledge sharing and the identification of improvement opportunities.

Best practice KPI development and reporting for stellar supplier outcomes

You may have heard the saying, ‘what gets measured gets done’. Use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is the main way supplier performance is measured and the main mechanism for driving supplier behaviour. Here’s some tips on how to develop and measure best practice KPIs to encourage ongoing performance and exceptional outcomes from your suppliers.

Why a Contract Management Plan makes your work day easy like Sunday morning

The ink on the supplier contract is drying. They’re ready to start contract delivery. How do you harness the goodwill, ensure easy and successful implementation and a functional working relationship for years to come? With a Contract Management Plan (CMP) of course!

Trouble in contract paradise? How to get your project back on course

Issue management can be difficult and confronting for everyone involved. As with any relationship, there will be times when things don’t go to plan and problems crop up. As the contract manager, it falls to you to get things back on course. Here’s how to prevent minor contract issues from becoming major challenges for you and your supplier. 

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Fair Operating Practice

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence. Last year, the International Standard for Sustainable Procurement ISO 20400 was released as a guide to implementing social responsibility and sustainability through the procurement process.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Human Rights

Many people in modern society might think of slavery and child labour as stories from their history books that no longer exist. However, according to Andrew Forrest, Chairman of Fortescue Mining Group and the Walk Free Foundation, “We are all going to have slavery in our supply chains no matter how good we think our corporate social responsibility is”.

Sustainability through procurement – Spotlight on Community

Responsible procurement contributes to a sustainable world. It can also help your organisation build a stronger reputation, grow brand recognition, increase revenue and improve consumer confidence.

Making the World a better place…Through sustainable procurement

Chances are, social responsibility is not the key driver for your organisation! It might be a nice-to-have, but your key driver is more likely to be super-pleasing your customers, maintaining a competitive-advantage or implementing public policies.

Four common mistakes of overlooking contract pricing

When contracting for services, a lot of attention is focused on the initial contract cost. Hours of spreadsheet time is spent analysing and comparing tendered fees. Unfortunately, very little thought goes into how the ongoing service is paid for and how the ‘pricing model’ (not the initial tendered fee) determines value for money and delivers quality outcomes.

The Disappointment Gap

A recurring theme for many procurement staff is the erosion over time of the actual performance of their service contracts. Why is it that, despite the increasing use of robust tools and templates and the increasing proficiency of procurement staff, purchasers continue to feel dissatisfied with their contracts? Over time; price creep, scope pullback, service level failures, lack of innovation and increasing levels of distrust increasingly characterise their customers’ experiences. We have coined the term; the Disappointment Gap, for this phenomenon.

How to communicate with confidence to manage your contract

Effective communication is an essential skill for Contract Managers. Communicating well is all about making sure the right people have the right information at the right time. But how do you communicate confidently and consistently with your stakeholders to ensure the successful management of your contract and project performance? Answer the following four questions for a helpful starting point to developing your communications plan.

Indemnities versus Insurances: Do you understand the difference?

Indemnities and insurance both guard against financial losses and aim to restore a party to the financial status they held before the event occurred. However, it’s important that Contract Managers understand the significant difference between the two to help protect their business.

Contract Law & Order: 3 terms every Contract Manager needs to know

A contract can be defined as: “A legally binding agreement between two or more parties”. Contract law, which forms the legal basis for contract management, is an interesting and complex topic. But there are three terms of contract law that are particularly important for a Contract Manager to understand to ensure contract delivery and best practice supplier management. They are privity, estoppel and document precedence.

What carrots work for NGO suppliers?

Governments across Australia contract more and more essential services from not-for-profit and non-government organisations (NGOs). Prime examples are the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and the NSW Smart, Skilled and Hired program. But how should government agencies go about incentivising these service providers to achieve or better exceed performance expectations?

Contract Extension Checklist: To extend or not to extend?

Long before your contract expires, you should be planning your approach to the contract close out phase. Of course it’s easier to just extend an existing contract. But is it best value for money? Does it effectively address your organisation’s risk exposure? A Contract Extension Checklist can help you make the best contract decision for your business.

4 ‘carrots’ to incentivise Service Provider performance

“Our Service Provider is useless,” is a quote we often hear when we get called in to fix a dysfunctional contract. To be honest, our clients often use more colourful language than that when they describe The Disapointment Gap!

15 essential attributes successful contracts share

While every contract is unique, there are 15 attributes that all successful contracts share – regardless of their size, complexity or challenges.

Contract management in procurement and why Contract Managers are so important

Contract management is often something that gets thrown at you with little explanation of what is required, little to no training in how you monitor supplier performance or understanding on how to avoid the biggest traps.

What skills make a good Contract Manager great?

As the linchpin to achieving your contract’s objectives, contract managers have a wide range of responsibilities. A good contract manager needs to be a Jack of all trades, who is a master of none all.

The Four Spend Levers – Webinar

Which of the Four Spend Levers should procurement teams utilise for the rest of 2021?

Where are the procurement “quick wins” for an incoming CPO?

As a new CPO you need to make an impact. Fast. Ideally within 100 days. This is important to win trust. Trust from the wider business that procurement will be better this time round. Better, in the sense of being able to help the organisation deliver the strategic goals. An enabler, rather than a roadblock. A coach, not a police offer.

How do organisations go about creating savings post COVID?

Procurement professionals have four spend levers in their toolbox. But which ones were mainly used to combat the impact of the COVID-19 recession? Read on to find that it was the more traditional negotiations that procurement turned to in 2020 and how to generate further savings in 2021.

How to be a Procurement Savings Champion

Ever wondered where your next wave of procurement savings will come from? This video will tell you how to save an additional 122% using advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter.

Stop Paying Too Much: How to Generate Greater Procurement Savings

Grosvenor’s procurement expert, Dr Stefan Gassner, outlines his findings from his latest procurement research project, the 2015 CPO Study.

Turn Your Focus to Advanced Spend Levers for Additional Savings

The times when running a tender process yielded 20% of savings are over. Charlie and Tom explain how you should now turn your focus internally to leverage advanced spend levers such as Buy Cheaper, Buy Smarter and Buy Less.

What’s on the chopping block? – The Impact of COVID on Procurement

Procurement teams across the country are chasing savings again to lead the recession recovery. So where will all these savings come from?

Business man with crystal ball

Predicting cost savings in Property, ICT and Operations Sectors

In my last article, Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend? I mentioned that one of the goals of our 2018 Procurement Study was to unlock a set of indicators that could be used to identify which categories, supplier and contracts are likely to yield the greatest opportunities to reduce spend.

Is there a pot of gold hidden in your procurement spend?

Prioritising your procurement initiatives would be a lot easier if indicators existed that helped you determine where your most likely source of savings is going to come from.

Surprising facts

Some surprising facts from our 2018 Procurement Study

Our 2018 procurement study “Eight savings myths debunked” was expected to stir the pot. It’s easy to allow assumptions and preconceived ideas about finding cost savings to influence where to look and what to expect.

Eight savings myths debunked

Every year Grosvenor conducts a research study focusing on a specific area of procurement practice. These insights are used to inform our industry by aggregating real world experiences from Australian organisations and turn them into strategies that allow us to share knowledge and drive change within our own organisations.

Fantastic On Four Fronts

Levers provide you with efficiencies that help move otherwise impossible loads with ease. As a user of these levers, it’s important to be aware of what levers exist and when to use the right lever at the right time. You’d never use a crowbar, for example, to lift the lid on the Milo tin, just like you’d never try to shift that pile of bricks with a pair of tweezers.

Eight steps to drive more savings

Do you maximise your savings across your suppliers? How do you know which contract to tackle next? How do you prioritise your supply base and identify where the biggest savings potentials are?

Category management: Why bother?

Does category management deliver benefits beyond just doing good procurement practice? Does it involve new techniques or practices? Or worse, is it just a fad word to make procurement practitioners or management consultants sound cutting edge?

Pay Less, Buy Cheaper, Buy Less and Buy Smarter: The 4 Spend Levers

When we think of generating savings, many of us automatically think of simply paying less for goods and services: whether we’re talking about tenders, volume aggregation or minimising contract leakage, this tried and tested method of using spending power to beat down prices has delivered significant savings over the years.

What Category Management tells us about the future of procurement

It’s been called a lot of things: strategic procurement, Category Management, strategic commissioning and customer centric procurement. What it really should be called is “good procurement practice”.

Are you a savings champion?

In 2015, Grosvenor collaborated with PASA to survey hundreds of top procurement professionals in Australasia. Why? Because we wanted to identify the most effective savings tactics in use, and understand who was using them to the best effect. What we discovered might surprise you.

Webinar – Procurement Systems that Fire on all Cylinders

A pre-recorded webinar on how to get the most of your upcoming or current investment into procurement technology

Advanced Spend Analytics to Drive Procurement Reform – A Webinar

Watch our Procurement lead, Dr. Stefan Gassner talks through our work with a past client of ours, City of Sydney, around ‘advanced spend analytics to drive procurement reform’.

Why you are not happy with your eProcurement system

Often the answer to why your existing system is not firing from all cylinders can be found in our previous article. It’s likely that your implementation project skipped one of those lessons-learnt and you have consequently ended up in a situation where the uptake of your system is poor, end users complain about the usability, manual workarounds are in place, suppliers are unhappy and most of the benefits from your business case have gone out the window.

Choosing a suitable eProcurement system: What others had to learn the hard way

Unfortunately, not all procurement teams get to enjoy full benefits from their technology solutions. Why is that? Learn how to avoid missing out these crucial benefits.

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a Contingent Workforce Management solution: 1. Are you paying the same rate for the same type of employee across the whole business?, 2. Do you know what technology solutions the market offers?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you’re thinking about getting a procurement system: 1.  Do you know the current procurement technology market and capabilities?, 2. Are your procurement processes fit for purpose and ready to be supported by a system?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a Contingent Workforce Management system: 1. Are your processes now faster and more efficient? All of them?, 2.  Is everyone happy with the system and consistently using it?, 3. …

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system

Ask yourself these 5 questions if you have a procurement system: 1. Are you realising all the expected benefits?, 2. Are your processes now faster and more efficient?, 3. ….

5 ways to ensure procurement stays relevant

Are you struggling to extract further savings through the application of spending consolidation and market testing? Are most of your spend categories now mature and behave predictably?