Industry: Public

To address COVID-19, public procurement teams were forced to immediately adapt on the fly to ensure continued support of essential procurements and underlying processes like vendor proposal submissions, public bid openings, and scoring and evaluations. For many, three to five years’ worth of digital transformation had to happen in the span of just a few short months.

But not all digital transformation is created equal and not all public procurement teams started at the same place. Different agencies were (and still are) in different stages of digitally transforming legacy systems and paper-based processes when COVID-19 hit, and as a result, four different types of agencies emerged—the digital-first agency, the accelerated change agency, the patchwork agency, and the traditional agency. 

In this session, you'll learn:

• What the four types of digital agencies are and their characteristics
• How to determine what group your agency falls into
• Recommendations for navigating procurement's "next normal" based on where you are today
• What "procurement's digital imperative" means for you, and how COVID-19 and remote work became a catalyst for this era of procurement
• Why now is the time to re-evaluate the systems and processes put in place in the early stages of COVID-19 to implement more sustainable, long-term solutions

COVID-19 wasn’t the only major event shaping the future of government over the past year. During social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, citizens have been demanding change from their governments.

As social, environmental, and economic movements continue to gain momentum, promoting social good is a growing priority for public agencies. Procurement teams have an opportunity to level the playing field for diverse suppliers and communities through social procurement.

In the United States, new policies emerging from the Biden administration will make those efforts more important than ever, with greater emphasis placed on awarding RFPs to disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs).

With that in mind, let’s dive into the topic of social procurement – what it means for your organization and how it can drive meaningful change in your community.

Procurement for social good

As every public procurement professional knows, governments have a great deal of purchasing power. The U.S. federal government alone spends over $500 billion per year procuring goods and services, while the Canadian feds spend $18-20 billion annually. When you look at total spending across all levels of government in the United States, the number exceeds $7 trillion.

Historically, procurement’s main goal has been to stretch public dollars as far as possible by sourcing suppliers at the lowest possible prices, while achieving high quality and low risk. The movement toward social procurement, however, focuses on maximizing social, environmental, cultural, and economic value. By using government purchasing power to support local minority-owned businesses, agencies can achieve multiple valuable outcomes for communities.

As Buy Social Canada explains in their Guide to Social Procurement, “Every purchase has an economic, environmental, and social impact, whether intended or not. Social procurement is about capturing those impacts and seeking to make intentional positive contributions to both the local economy and the overall vibrancy of the community.”

By using public dollars to drive overarching goals like social equity and environmental sustainability, the positive impact on communities can be significant.

Social responsibility during the pandemic and beyond

At the same time that social justice movements have pushed governments to prioritize racial and social equity, the pandemic has increased awareness of public procurement’s important role.

For departments that, up until COVID-19, functioned mostly behind the scenes, this visibility created opportunities to rethink traditional purchasing decisions, relationships, and processes. In particular, procurement teams are making the shift toward more equitable and inclusive spending to address the social and economic disparities the pandemic has exacerbated.

Through social procurement, agencies can actively enable greater and more diverse participation in public contracts, for example, by prioritizing minority- and women-owned local and small businesses. 

As director of procurement Joel Neaveill explains, supply chain shortages during the pandemic actually created more opportunities for his organization, the Louisville Metro Government, to diversify their supplier base and bring on new local businesses.

“Our local economy, like everyone’s local economy, is just hurting so much,” Neaveill says. “Through this emergency, we’re turning to [local businesses] to help supply part of the response to the emergency… We also have a list of minority- and women-owned businesses that, as part of the incident management team, we look at through an equity lens—how are we equitably responding to this so we don’t have disparate outcomes?”

Shifting policy toward equity

Beyond the pandemic, public procurement policy has significant power to influence public services, create jobs, and drive healthy competition in the market. Recognizing this, the Biden administration in the United States has outlined intentions to “support small businesses and tackle inequities in the federal contracting system,” including tripling federal contracting goals for small, disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) by 2025.

The proposed policy directives would increase participation of small DBEs in business development programs and subcontracting opportunities, and minimize contract bundling that disadvantages minority-owned businesses in the bidding process.

Similar shifts toward social procurement are happening in governments around the world. Driving the evolution is a growing awareness that effective and equitable procurement systems can increase citizens’ faith in government, stimulate economic growth, and build more supportive and inclusive communities.

Are you ready for the future of public procurement? Download our eBook for more insights – The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal.

If COVID-19 has proven anything about public procurement teams, it’s their impressive ability to, in the words of Project Runway host Tim Gunn, “make it work.”

 
Of course, the high-stakes pressure of responding to a global health crisis doesn’t quite compare to the fabricated TV drama of a runway-design reality show – but the “make it work” mantra still rings true.

Making it work is how public agencies adapted on the fly when the pandemic turned business upside-down overnight. It’s how paper-based procurement teams ran more projects than ever, even as processes shifted fully online. And it’s how they delivered essential goods and services despite unforeseeable disruption across global supply chains.

But “making it work” was never meant to be anything more than a temporary fix – an agile response to a global emergency. It becomes incredibly risky when that mentality – what we call “patchwork procurement” – becomes your status quo. Let’s explore why.

How the pandemic drove patchwork procurement

Like the Project Runway designers who weave scraps of fabric into gowns worthy of the red carpet, procurement teams at the start of COVID-19 had to cobble together whatever tools and resources were available at the time to create a workable procurement process.

We refer to that approach as “patchwork procurement.” Before the pandemic, teams using a patchwork system may have been relying on manual processes supported by in-person meetings, disparate tools, and one-on-one discussions. 

In quickly adapting to remote work, patchwork agencies didn’t have a strong digital foundation to build on. Instead, they introduced a medley of digital tools and processes, from accepting emailed vendor submissions to evaluating proposals using Excel spreadsheets. 

For the most part, these changes simply replicated or even exacerbated the inefficiencies of paper-based systems.

The risks of patchwork procurement

If you belong to the 43% of agencies that made temporary patchwork changes during COVID-19, it’s time to reevaluate your tools and processes. Here are three major reasons why.

Audit trail gaps

Despite the pandemic, public procurement is still held to the same rigorous compliance standards as always. Unfortunately, the more systems you use, the more opportunities there are for audit trail gaps. And all it takes to start a lawsuit is for one vendor to challenge your process.

If you’ve been using email to receive submissions, it’s especially important that you reconsider your strategy. Not only can technical issues, such as junk mail filters, firewalls, or slow internet connections disqualify vendors unfairly, it’s also impossible to prove when emails were opened, leaving you with an incomplete audit trail. 

Inefficiency and administrative overhead

Working across disparate systems is unavoidably difficult to track, but it’s also inefficient. Patchwork processes and tools introduce overly complex workflows that only create more headaches. 

In the early days of the pandemic, getting staff, stakeholders, and evaluators up to speed on multiple systems and processes created a backlog of work and delayed progress in awarding urgent bids. On top of the unmanageable amount of training required for non-procurement users, teams face other barriers to productivity caused by siloed systems, including time wasted on searching for misplaced files, answering questions, correcting confusion, fixing human errors, and duplicating effort.

Lack of transparency and collaboration

With public sector budgets being slashed and procurement teams being called on to reprioritize projects and save costs, it’s vitally important that all stakeholders and internal clients have visibility into the procurement pipeline and timelines.

Unfortunately, this is something patchwork procurement typically can’t deliver. Without a centralized, accessible hub for tracking projects, it’s more difficult to make strategic business decisions, reprioritize projects, and collaborate with senior leaders and managers.

On the other hand, teams that have transparency into their pipeline will be fully equipped to navigate the razor-thin margins of the next few years and make smart, collaborative decisions.

What now?

For many months, your procurement team has been hustling to get ahead of the disruption caused by the pandemic. So, rethinking your processes and tools—again—is probably the last thing on your mind. The truth is, it’s the only way you can prepare for the inevitable challenges that lie ahead.

The good news? You’ve already taken steps toward digital transformation. To get support on the rest of your journey, check out our new resource, The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal, designed to help you understand and navigate the new landscape of digital procurement.

Deliver services more efficiently. Pivot responsively. Scale affordably. If your procurement team is embarking on a digital transformation journey, you know these are some of the top reasons you simply can’t avoid digitization any longer.

Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, digital transformation is the inevitable trajectory of governments everywhere. According to Gartner projections, software and IT services will account for nearly half of the US$452 billion in worldwide government IT investments in 2021.

So where does your procurement team go from here? If you’re just getting started, this video may feel (a bit too) familiar…

Ready to move from Excel spreadsheets and email to fully centralized digital procurement? Here are some questions to guide you and your team as you map your journey to digital transformation.

How do you envision your team’s role in the near future?

As the pandemic tightens public sector pursestrings, resulting in layoffs and budget cuts, agencies are looking to procurement teams for guidance on how best to rethink and reprioritize spending. Over the coming years, procurement will play an even more prominent role in strategic planning and decision-making.

With that in mind, it’s worth considering what role your team will be called on to fill in the near future. What organizational goals will procurement be responsible for achieving? How do you want your team to grow, evolve, and adapt in the years ahead?

What are your procurement objectives?

When it comes to procurement digital transformation, investing in technology for technology’s sake is bound to fail. It’s important to set your sourcing objectives first, then choose digital solutions that support those priorities.

Considering the strategic role you’ve defined for your team, what objectives will support and fulfill that vision? Think about how and where you want to grow your team’s capacity, strengths, and strategic function within the organization.

Perhaps, like many public procurement teams, you need to improve efficiency to save your agency time and money. Or maybe you want to enhance communication and relationship-building with vendors. Defining your objectives will help you determine the best digital solutions to get you there.

How well does your current toolset support your objectives?

Before investing in any new solution, you’ll want to determine if there are opportunities to leverage or scale your existing toolset to support your priorities. Is your technology sufficient? Where are there gaps in your processes and workflows? 

If your current solution isn’t robust enough to achieve your strategic objectives, it’s time to explore new options. After all, it’s more beneficial to invest in technology purpose-built for the rigor of public procurement than to jerry-rig other tools or services to fit your needs (we call this patchwork procurement, and it’s a lot more trouble than it’s worth). You’ll want to consider how you can benefit from the following:

• Using a centralized procurement platform that eliminates information silos, tightens compliance, and improves visibility into your procurement pipeline
• Leveraging artificial intelligence and automation tools that provide faster service and reduce manual effort
• Improving data capture and analysis to optimize your processes and performance
• Harnessing cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for greater scalability and affordability
• Investing in enhanced cybersecurity that keeps citizen, partner, and employee data safe

Do you have the resources to execute a forward-thinking procurement digital transformation?

What comes to mind when you think of the term “digital transformation?” Excruciatingly long timelines, pulling teeth to ensure buy-in, unforeseen complications as you try to migrate legacy systems? Here’s some good news—digitally transforming your procurement process doesn’t have to be that way. We’ve even heard stories of public agencies going from paper and email-based processes to fully online in a matter of weeks! That being said, ensuring you have the resources to ensure a smooth implementation and a sustainable plan for the long-haul are crucial to a successful digital transformation strategy.

First, do you have the budget? Although free bid management solutions may look appealing from a monetary perspective, they are hardly worth the legal risk or challenges for your vendors. Fortunately, public agencies now have a unique opportunity to use their American Rescue Plan funding to invest in procurement software, allowing agencies to invest in digitizing their operations even when resources are tight. 

Consider as well how you will obtain the buy-in of procurement and non-procurement users alike. As you’ve likely realized since the start of the pandemic, introducing new tools and processes often requires training, reskilling, and upskilling. That’s because building a digital infrastructure goes hand-in-hand with building a digitally fluent workforce. Even the most easy-to-use software may instigate pushback from your colleagues who are accustomed to a certain process or workflow. Investing in technical skills training or bringing new talent on board to execute your plan can help advance your digital strategy. 

The takeaway

Since the start of the pandemic, digital transformation has quickly shifted from a “nice-to-have” to an imperative in public procurement. Evolving from makeshift digital tools to sustainable ones, enabling a future of remote work, and continuing to drive value for your agency undoubtedly necessitates digital transformation. Ask the right questions and map out a results-driven plan, and your procurement team will soon reap the rewards of digital.

Ready to learn more about digital procurement in a post-pandemic world? Check out our eBook, The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal.

What will the future of work look like? It’s the big question public sector agencies across North America are asking right now as mass vaccination – and with it, the prospect of heading back to the office – becomes a reality. 

Rather than returning to pre-pandemic norms, many organizations are planning for continued telework or a hybrid work environment. A recent survey of 300 federal government executives found that 82% of respondents expect to continue working remotely at least three days a week once the pandemic ends. 

For procurement teams, the task of facilitating sustainable remote-ready operations for the whole organization falls squarely on your shoulders. Here’s what you need to consider as remote work becomes a fixture of day-to-day operations.

“You’re on mute!”

While our collective digital literacy around virtual collaboration tools like video conferencing has increased exponentially over the last year, the unavoidable frustrations of communicating and working together online can’t be denied. This video gives a glimpse into those frustrations — can you relate? 

All joking aside, this video highlights that issues like poor connectivity, a lack of training on virtual tools, and the very real phenomena of “Zoom fatigue” will continue to be challenges for work-from-anywhere teams. 

Addressing and easing those frustrations will be central to maintaining productivity and employee satisfaction. Connecting employees to the three T’s – the right technology, relevant training, and new teamwork strategies for hybrid work – will be key to delivering public services securely, productively, and with your sanity intact.

1. The right technology

While many public sector organizations made an impressive pivot to digital operations in a matter of days at the outset of the pandemic, that makeshift approach – what we call patchwork procurement – isn’t sustainable over the long term.

Agencies that will succeed in permanent remote-ready operations are now strategizing about how to leverage their accelerated digital transformation to make real gains in infrastructure, security, connectivity, cloud services, and virtual collaboration platforms. 

Forward-thinking procurement teams are using that momentum and internal buy-in to make long-term sustainable changes to their tech stack and processes to ensure teams have the tools and resources to work efficiently from anywhere.

2. Relevant training

The rapid shift to remote work meant that employees with less technical knowhow were (and still are) facing serious frustrations and barriers to productivity. They had to discover tricks or invent workarounds for making their tools work for them (some of which raise serious compliance issues).

A 2020 study on digital inclusion from the World Economic Forum reports that while 62% of the population of higher-income economies has basic digital skills, that number drops to 44% for standard skills like using formulas in a spreadsheet or creating presentations.

Simply put, having the right technology is only half the battle. Making sure everyone understands how to use it properly is a make-or-break factor. Going forward, consider how you can implement training programs that meet team members where they are and help them learn new software and processes in a safe, accessible, jargon-free environment.

3. Teamwork strategies

Collaboration between home- and office-based employees will be more prevalent in the coming years as employees leverage flexible work arrangements. With that in mind, organizations are developing strategies in two key areas to ensure everyone has the same experience, no matter where they’re working.

The first is the hybrid meeting scenario, in which some employees are working at home and others are in the office. Agencies should consider their strategy for implementing collaboration technologies to foster inclusion and participation.

The second is digital workplace culture. As McKinsey notes, traditional office environments establish workplace culture through ways of working and standards of behavior that build social cohesion and shared trust. That’s harder to achieve in online settings where remote workers can easily become “isolated, disenfranchised, and unhappy.” Agencies should look at creating deliberate strategies and implementing tactics for replicating the positive elements of co-location and in-person collaboration in digital settings.

The takeaway

By investing in the right technology, implementing relevant training programs, and developing a strategy for remote employee engagement, procurement teams can support agencies in making the shift to sustainable remote-ready operations. These efforts will ensure your teams have the right tools and resources to work efficiently and cost-effectively going forward.

It’s safe to say that telecommuting in the public sector is here to stay, and procurement will no doubt be called upon to source the products and solutions needed to build that infrastructure securely. Learn more about how your procurement team can support your agency’s remote work plan by downloading our eBook, The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal.

Procurement isn’t an easy job—so sometimes we just need to laugh at the pet peeves and mishaps that drive us all crazy.

Do your colleagues believe that a conversation at the water cooler is a totally adequate way to submit a procurement request? Ever get a bid protest because the vendor lost a thumb drive between their car seats? We have a feeling you’ll relate to these “day in the life” videos. 

Procurement Pet Peeve #36: The Bid Protest

Even for those of us who have been in public procurement for years, we still have those “haven’t heard that one before” moments when dealing with a bid protest. What’s the craziest excuse you’ve heard from a vendor who wasn’t able to properly submit their bid or RFP response? 

Procurement Benchmarking: Google Can Solve It!

If you were to look back at your Google search history, how often have you had to search “RFP templates for…”? Don’t worry, you’re not alone (which is why we designed Bonfire so users can access crowd-sourced templates directly within the platform). 

Procurement’s New Normal: Pandemic Life

Ah, early quarantine…so many memories…watching Tiger King, transferring bid openings and consensus meetings to Zoom, scrolling for hours to find PPE and hand sanitizer suppliers that had available stock…unfortunately that’s still the reality for many of us (well, maybe not the Tiger King part). 

Want to watch more videos like these ones? We’re dropping new videos every week on our website, or follow us on LinkedIn to see new ones as they’re released!

Procurement teams play a valuable role in helping public sector agencies thrive with limited resources. If you follow our blog, you know we’re pretty big fans of everything you do to make citizens’ lives better and communities stronger.

In the near future, procurement’s capacity for agility and strategic thinking will be put to the test even more, as agencies across North America face mounting economic fallout from COVID-19.

To survive and thrive, organizations will increasingly turn to procurement to guide cost-cutting efforts and make smart decisions that support the bottom line.

Is your team ready to step up and address the unique financial challenges of the coming months and years? Let’s look at how you can manage costs, optimize your spending, and strategically reevaluate budgets in 2021 and beyond.

Ensure projects support new priorities

One of the most important activities procurement teams are undertaking in 2021 is reevaluating budgets to ensure spending aligns with new priorities driven by the pandemic and (eventually) post-pandemic recovery.

For some agencies, that means deprioritizing capital projects and focusing on digital initiatives that help them work efficiently and deliver services from anywhere. The exact priorities will differ from one agency to the next, but the role of procurement is clear. Your team is best positioned to apply a bird’s-eye-view as budgets feel the strain of COVID-19.

Put current contracts under the microscope

Reevaluating budgets inevitably means scrutinizing current contracts to identify which ones should be cancelled or renegotiated. This includes weighing the potential financial impacts of altering project timelines or switching vendors.

Consider taking a deep dive into existing contracts to see if there’s scope for revisiting payment terms, changing purchasing frequency, leveraging volume discounts, or bringing prices in line with market competitors.

If you have access to up-to-date procurement data, you can review past purchases and supplier performance to identify opportunities to save money and renegotiate contracts.

Build partnerships that make you stronger

Although it may seem counterintuitive, cutting costs in the post-pandemic economy could require strategic investments in pricier vendors and new digital platforms that streamline processes. (More on that in the next section.)

While cost is still one of the most significant factors in purchasing decisions, your team will also need to weigh criteria like supply chain agility and organizational resilience more heavily when choosing suppliers and prioritizing projects. 

Having strong, high-quality relationships with reliable, established (and, yes, sometimes more expensive) vendors will be crucial to preventing unexpected costs down the road.

Go digital to boost efficiency

In 2021, procurement leaders are also looking to save money in the long run through upfront investments in digital solutions that improve relationships and communication with vendors, reduce administrative burden, increase compliance, and streamline workflows.

When it comes to managing costs, communication is especially important. Having strong relationships with suppliers helps procurement teams collaborate to keep costs down and make partnerships more sustainable. Centralized information-sharing and communication in real time will be crucial to navigating disruption now and into the future. 

Keep leaders in the loop

A centralized procurement approach can also drive significant savings for public agencies by eliminating overlapping supply requests across business groups and ensuring your procurement pipeline aligns with key priorities.

A unified process gives you greater visibility into purchasing across the organization, helping you work more collaboratively with senior managers to understand where and when departments are planning to spend their budget. In turn, leaders can forecast spend and reprioritize as necessary to make it through financially demanding periods.

Get creative to maximize budget

Your procurement team has lots of tools under its belt – not least of which is creative thinking. Exploring innovative, non-traditional approaches can help you unlock significant cost savings. 

Consider alternative supplier structures and purchasing strategies, including co-ops, best and final offers (BAFOs), invitations to negotiate (ITNs), and split award notices, which can drive competition and give you access to better pricing.

Embrace procurement’s next normal

As we’ve discussed, cutting costs in public procurement isn’t just about finding the best value. It’s also about mitigating risk to avoid negative fallout and unplanned expenses. Procurement teams are delivering that strategic leadership to help agencies manage today’s economic challenges through better sourcing, purchasing, and negotiation.

Looking for more guidance on how procurement teams can guide agencies through a post-pandemic world? Download our eBook, The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal.

When COVID-19 forced public procurement teams across North America to go virtual, it set off a chain reaction of quick, knee-jerk technology investments.

Public sector institutions had to attend to urgent health and safety needs. Employees were sent to work from home—some for the first time ever. Procurement teams faced the challenge of rapidly sourcing suppliers amidst global supply chain disruptions. And traditionally in-person activities, like proposal submissions, public bid openings, and evaluations were no longer possible.

Particularly for agencies that hadn’t started (or finished) making the switch to digital platforms and processes, it became necessary to adopt or scale-up digital tools, virtually overnight.

Now, as we enter the second year of COVID-19 with the promise of mass vaccination in sight, many procurement teams find themselves asking: How well are our pandemic-driven digital solutions actually working?

Here’s why your team should be asking the same question, and how you can begin to reevaluate and future-proof your digital transformation approach.

Reconsidering ad-hoc solutions

If your team had to adopt new tools and processes in a short timeframe to deal with the COVID-19 emergency response, there wasn’t much time to strategize about the best approach for digitizing legacy systems and paper-based processes. 

Your goal was to address urgent needs as efficiently as possible using ad-hoc solutions to run essential processes. You may have initiated software trials or pilots, and now it’s time to ask: Do these tools have a place within our tech stack and processes?

For the most part, band-aid fixes won’t be the ideal solution for your agency, nor will they be sustainable over the long term. As McKinsey observes, many procurement departments “are trapped in pilot purgatory, making small investments in select use cases that never scale up to achieve real business impact.” That’s because, rather than driving better results, multiple, disconnected systems tend to introduce these and other problems:

• Higher costs
• Increased human error
• Workflow inefficiencies
• Data silos
• Misplaced files
• Audit trail gaps

If you don’t take the steps to evaluate your current technology and introduce a unified solution, there’s a risk that strung-together tools and processes – and their associated inefficiencies – could become permanent.

Meeting compliance standards

Are there any compliance shortfalls in our digital tools and processes? It’s a critical question public procurement teams need to consider at all times – but especially when evaluating new (and rapidly) adopted solutions.

Despite the emergency measures COVID-19 introduced, public procurement continues to be bound by pre-pandemic compliance standards. Without detailed audit trails to justify evaluation conclusions, you could be forced to reconsider proposals and decisions – a situation that came up multiple times in 2020 by order of the US Government Accountability Office.

When measuring new digital solutions against compliance capabilities, your procurement team should ensure they provide purpose-built tools that ensure state and federal law compliance.

With the right digital platform, you can minimize legal risk and ensure you meet all required standards, without relying on the knowledge and expertise of transitory subject matter experts.

Driving post-pandemic digital strategy

The ultimate question to answer when evaluating your digital tools is: Will they support our post-pandemic digital transformation? 

Although meeting the challenge of COVID-19 has depended on agile decision-making and a make-do approach, going forward, your technology investments will need to support your long-term growth and innovation.

In order to evaluate sustainability over the long haul, it’s worth considering how well your technology helps you do the following:

• Connect, digitize and manage your operations end to end, from intake to contract management
• Centralize your project pipeline, so everything is easily accessible in one place
• Make processes intuitive and easy to use for all internal clients
• Accelerate, rather than impede, project lifecycles
• Support decision-making with an airtight audit trail
• Provide full project transparency and robust reporting

By securing future-proof software solutions that meet the needs we’ve discussed, your procurement team can satisfy your constituents and stakeholders as you chart a path to digital transformation based on efficiency, compliance, and vendor engagement.

Most importantly, a strong digital strategy will ensure your team is equipped to play a central role in driving economic and societal recovery beyond the pandemic.

Procurement teams have a lot to consider when navigating digital transformation during and after COVID-19. Our latest eBook is here to help. Download The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal today.

When COVID-19 threatened to send the world into chaos and confusion over a year ago, procurement teams sprung into action. In stepping up to protect the safety of communities and citizens, you could say they’re a lot like the heroes of everyone’s favorite Star Wars movies. 

In that spirit, let’s take a look at six ways public procurement teams are like the Rebel Alliance in empowering agencies to respond to and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Like the Millennium Falcon, they move at light speed.

During the initial response to the pandemic, procurement teams had to nimbly adjust their processes, timelines, and priorities to source goods and services as quickly as possible. Like the Millennium Falcon evading the evil Empire, they’ve been on an urgent mission ever since to keep essential processes like vendor proposal submissions, public bid openings, and evaluations running. 

More than any other government function, procurement departments have adapted to meet constantly changing needs and troubleshoot ongoing supply chain disruptions while moving most of their processes online. For many agencies, that meant compressing three to five years’ worth of digital transformation into just weeks (or even days). Now that’s moving at light speed.

2. Their team is small but mighty.

Just as Luke and Han Solo team up to destroy the Death Star, today’s small-but-mighty procurement teams are well-accustomed to running lean and doing more with less. That challenge has only been exacerbated by the pandemic’s impact on public sector finances. In the near term, procurement will be tapped to support strategic decision-making around cost cuts and budget reprioritization.

At the same time, procurement teams will face the growing challenge of helping agencies meet stakeholder expectations with fewer resources. That puts even more pressure on their ability to be like C-3PO and speak every department’s language. It’s a lot to ask considering many procurement teams are a solo operation. Going forward, procurement will rely on more efficient tools and processes to respond to the skyrocketing demand for their expertise and services.

3. They’re the unseen hero in times of crisis.

From rapidly supplying the frontlines with PPE to navigating international supply shortages of hand sanitizer, procurement is, and continues to be, a driving force for creating safe living and working environments during COVID-19. 

Remember how Princess Leia protected the stolen plans to the Death Star? Procurement teams have been the custodians of crucial plans, too—in this case, to keep communities protected throughout the course of the pandemic. While COVID-19 is shining a spotlight on their important role in crisis response and recovery efforts, they’re not in it for the glory. (Though a thank you is always nice.)

4. Just as the lightsaber is the weapon of a Jedi Knight, they have their own secret weapons—data and digital tools.

Not unlike Jedis who wield their lightsabers to fight the powers of evil, today’s procurement professionals summon their own version of the Force: smart, automated tools. And while the evils they’re fighting – process inefficiencies and time-wasting manual effort – aren’t exactly threatening to obliterate the galaxy, they do compromise the best interests of citizens.

Through the pandemic, procurement teams have used data-driven processes and insights to drive bottom-line impact. From expediting information gathering and reducing manual steps to supporting faster decision-making, technologies like eSourcing and community-aggregated templates are all helping procurement teams get critical projects off the ground faster.

5. Their ultimate goal is to protect the forces of good.

Above all else, the rebel alliance is fueled by the forces of good, just like forward-thinking procurement professionals who strive to advance social good through government purchasing power. As citizens demand action to fight racial injustice and governments are being called on to advance equity and diversity in their decision-making, procurement departments are in a position to lead the way by creating a level playing field for diverse suppliers. 

Equitable, inclusive spending policies can direct a larger share of the billions of dollars governments spend on procurement goods and services toward local, minority- and women-owned businesses. That, in turn, drives economic and social value and addresses disparities that have only been worsened by the COVID-19 crisis.

6. Even in trying times, they have a bold vision for a better future.

When dark forces threaten to take over, the Rebel Alliance mobilizes to defend against Imperial troops and protect the future of the galaxy. High-performing procurement teams are visionaries, too, when it comes to the fight against COVID-19. Focused on the big picture, they work to build innovative, future-proof approaches to serving citizens and employees. 

Public agencies will face many challenges in the coming years, including cost-cutting measures and reprioritization that will test their ability to think creatively, collaborate, and integrate new technologies. In facing an uncertain world, procurement teams have hope, optimism, and confidence in the power of public services to make people’s lives better.

COVID-19 has transformed the path of procurement forever. How can procurement teams embrace and define the next normal to thrive during the pandemic and beyond? Check out our latest eBook The Rise of Procurement’s Next Normal to learn more.