Tenders Direct Blog

Comment from the experts at Tenders Direct.

Archive for October, 2010

Sir Philip Green’s Efficiency Review ‘Stating the bleeding obvious’?

Posted by Tim Williams on October 14, 2010

This week saw the publication of Sir Philip Green’s ‘Efficiency Review.’ My favourite response, apparently made by a Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman was ‘Most of it, to use Greenspeak, is a statement of the bleeding obvious.’

As Nick Timmins commented in the Financial Times this week:

‘We have been here before. They all found the same. And it must be said, much of their analysis, and some of their prescriptions, were a good deal more profound than Sir Philip’s somewhat glib 33-page PowerPoint-style presentation. Same analysis. Great headlines. Not a lot of detail on how to tackle it all.

The FT hits the nail on the head, we don’t need some non-dom, tax-exile, retail tycoon to identify the problems, the problems are comparatively obvious. Indeed the way to achieve improvements in the way things are currently done that would save billions are also fairly obvious. The hard part is implementing the improvements, in making sure that any initiatives are communicated all the way down to the frontline staff actually doing the purchasing and then monitoring their behaviour to make sure they are following the new policies.

Sir Philip Green


Posted in General Procurement, Politics of Procurement | 3 Comments »

Just what can you do with a CAN?

Posted by Jill Watson on October 11, 2010

Hands up who has heard of the Contract Award Notice (shortened to CAN for those with a particular love for procurement and tendering jargon like us)?

If you have heard of it, then you will know that the CAN is the official notification which must be published in OJEU by the contracting authority AFTER the contract has been awarded.  It details the name of the winning bidder, duration of the contract and the value (if the authority has played ball and included that).

When you receive your tender alert emails, remember to look at the document type in the top left hand corner first to check what kind of notification you are dealing with.  You don’t want to go asking the authority for contract documents for an opportunity which has already been awarded!  The different notice types are automatically organised into separate folders on Tenders Direct to avoid any confusion.

Whether you have or haven’t heard of the CAN, you might be wondering at this point how it can be of any relevance to you unless it has your name down as the winning bidder!?

Well don’t dismiss the CAN straight away as it does have its uses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Tender Tips | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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