The Office of Government Commerce heralds the start of a new era in civil procurement, argues Stephen Sage
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UK purchasers lag behind their European counterparts on integrating the function into company strategy or new product plans, a survey has found. Only 38 per cent and 31 per cent of UK procurement staff were successful at these tasks respectively. The UK was second last, behind Italy, Germany, France, Denmark and the Netherlands on using supplier partnerships.
The Audit Commission has published details of its new inspection regime for best value in local government. In its Seeing is Believing report, it stated that services will be rated on a three-star scale and may be benchmarked against other departments or councils.
E-commerce consultation revenue of £500 million accounted for 16 per cent of last year’s total revenue for members of the Management Consultancies Association. This was the first year that e-commerce consulting has been calculated separately.
The Ministry of Defence has completed its first two pilot projects set up under the Building Down Barriers programme. Opened last month, the two army recreational centres at Wattisham in Suffolk and Aldershot were constructed under all-in-one “prime” contracts.
Customers and supply chain partners - those who stand to benefit the most from e-commerce - are preventing small and medium-sized manufacturing firms from developing e-commerce strategies, according to a survey released this month.
Online car retailers will need to focus on the small fleet sector if they are to survive. A Datamonitor survey, The Future of eBusiness in the Automotive Market, found that online retailers have low start-up costs. But more than half would not have “a long-term presence” in the UK, said Michael Wood, an automotive e-commerce analyst at Datamonitor.
Ministry of Defence officials will appear before a session of the Public Accounts Committee in February to explain why the National Audit Office failed to approve the MoD’s appropriation accounts for 1998/99. This month John Bourn, comptroller and auditor-general of the NAO, refused to qualify the accounts, pointing to nearly £30 million of losses on two IT projects.
Detlev Hoch et al
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