Procurement of IS/IT/Comms

We believe that procurement must be considered in terms of business needs and encompass all lines of development (business process change, training, premises etc) and an understanding of procurement risks and their mitigation.

We provide client and supplier-side support from the early stages of establishing clear business needs, developing and reviewing procurement strategies and eliciting system requirements, through to operational analysis, architecture studies and tender assessment, or complete project and programme management. We provide support through both independent advice and interim management.

	Case study 1: We led the general security advice and support for a major operational command and control system project. The support included developing the security aspects of the User Requirements Document (URD) and the System Requirements Document (SRD) and writing additional security documentation required for the system's procurement.

Challenges

The trend towards outsourcing and the increasing importance of IS, IT and communications networks, has meant that acquisition of goods and services has become more complicated and risky. Consequently, good procurement practice is increasingly being seen as crucial to business success, warranting stronger senior management attention as a business critical feature of operations, rather than as a peripheral necessity. Organisations have to be able to:

• define clearly the business need to be met by new goods or services;
• establish strong business cases;
• define clearly the business need to be met by new goods or services;
• conduct a clear and transparent tendering process;
• monitor and scrutinise contracts and supplier relationships to ensure business objectives and value for money are achieved.

	Case study 2: We developed a customer-supplier relationship between two Government departments to deliver new information assurance capabilities. This included articulating the business need and developing mechanisms for liaison with end users and for conflict resolution.

A major obstacle to procuring goods and services is failure to express the business need, or the user requirements and subsequently the system requirements, adequately. It is essential that organisations get input from all relevant stakeholders, and do not rush the requirements capture process.

Developing an appropriate procurement strategy is complex, requiring difficult decisions and a range of skills. For example:

• The costs of the procurement process must be weighed up against the value of potential contracts.
• Innovation should often be encouraged whilst ensuring the best value possible.
• The nature of customer-supplier relationship should be specified and reflected in the design of contract which should be well specified and cover incentives, conflict resolution and auditing procedures.
• The strategy should encompass whole life planning and all Lines of Development even when these are uncertain and/or currently unspecified.