Post Office procurement – best practice with SMEs

Brian Deveney, Head of Managed Service & Sourcing

Today’s Post OfficeMore than 11,500 branches

93% of people live within 1 mile of a Post Office

14p in every £1 through our cash network

20 million customers – and half of the UK’s SMEs - visit our branches every week.

Modernising to remain relevant to communities in the digital world

Modernising the branch network

Post Office main branch, Falmouth

Post Office local branch, Aldershot

Refreshing around 6000 branches over the next three years

Brighter, more modern branches

Increased automation and longer opening hours

Significant investment into SMEs the length and breadth of the UK

Post Office network largely a collection of SMEs

Seeing it from both sides• Post Office is caught by full PCR Regulations for Procurement

• We are also expected to act and respond in the same manner as commercial organisations who do not have these restrictions

• Main challenges we face:

– Understanding future requirements (you don’t know what you don’t know)

– Engaging with, understanding and utilising innovation in the SME market

– Speed of delivery against non-restricted organisations

Small building works in 6000 Sub Post Offices over the next three years

10 new-style branches going live each working day

Carried out in the main by local independent businesses

Engaging with SMEs through our supplier strategy

This Investment is for the community, in the community, by the community

Competitive and Controlled

Major part of the spend (IT, Regulated Products, Security etc) is carried out by Post Office under existing frameworks

Transforming the Post Office network

IT Transformation project

Establish competitive frameworks across products and services

Enables speed to market and flexible response to tenders

Establish run towers to provide Prime suppliers and Sub-Contractors

Incentivise and target Primes around the use of SMEs

Create an “Agile Innovations” framework with SMEs to look at the future

Challenges and OpportunitiesThe mindset around Risk Averse Public Procurement needs to change

Remove the fear within the process and understand how to manage risk

How do we positively reinforce procurements focus on SMEs

Removing the process constraints but keeping the good practices

How do we incentivise larger prime suppliers to use SMEs

Encourage SMEs to create bidding consortia to provide the required scale

The Government needs to continue to demonstrate clear leadership in this area