adr international Procurement consultants

South Africa on the move

John McCleland reports on a project to change the way a major municipality uses its purchasing power

Fundamental change is continuing to tackle the daunting economic problems remaining from South Africa's apartheid era - and procurement is playing a crucial role.

The key is to ensure transparency and probity in the procurement process. This requirement at the heart of a project led by ADR International at a major South African metropolitan region.

Right at the start we identified that procurement was viewed by internal stakeholders as an obstacle to providing efficient service delivery, reflected in a large percentage of spend by-passing the competitive bidding process.

One of the aims of our project is to raise awareness of the benefits professional procurement can bring and improve the profile of procurement specialists.

So far we have developed a robust category management process to maximise value for money. This includes reducing costs and containing price rises, increasing supplier value delivery and improving management of suppliers to deliver continuous improvement in performance.

In the first of a series of workshops procurement staff have been given a wide range of tools and techniques and a best practice procurement manual is being developed to support the category management process.

Pilot sourcing projects using the new and standardised ways of working have begun, and progress is supported by highly enthusiastic staff.

Added to this, regular stakeholder communication is starting to change the way people see supply chain management - and how it can help drive South Africa's transformation.

John McCleland is Managing Consultant for Australia and South Africa at ADR International

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