View in browser

Keep up to date with conversations that are happening across the public sector that focus on procurement. We welcome your feedback and suggestions for stories to include in upcoming editions.

December 2024

In this newsletter:

• Kia tau te aroha mo te wā, best wishes for the season!
• Procurement platform update
• Finalised trade deal good news for procurement
• Refreshed Demystifying Procurement course available now
• Graduate programme
• Procurement Capability Community of Practice
• Knowledge Hour recap – ACC: artificial intelligence and machine learning
• GETSmart with GETS
• GETS - publishing a tender over Christmas

Kia tau te aroha mo te wā, best wishes for the season!

This year has been another big one. Fiscal headwinds and pressure on the public and private sectors. Someone once said that the strength of professions and organisations is most clearly revealed when under pressure. As we close out a year of pressure, I think we are doing relatively well.

Incentives to band together and come up with better collective approaches are the natural habitat of tough times – but the challenge is to translate those ‘tough-time’ wins into real and lasting, systemic improvements. Positive system change enables greater resilience.

I’d like to shout out a couple of stars in our procurement system. 

Firstly, a big shout out to Aditi Cook at the Ministry of Education. Aditi is a long-term champion of procurement and of using data to make better strategic decisions. Congratulations on taking out the Leadership in Procurement and the Supreme awards at this year’s New Zealand Procurement Excellence Awards. She is also championing the continuation of our wonderful Procurement graduate programme as a host agency representative.
 
And secondly, thank you to Liz Palmer who took the NZGP reins while I was on extended leave. She did a brilliant job. 

During my time away I had some time to reflect on my role here at NZGP and I’ve decided to step away and hand the reins over. The last 3 years has been a real honour and privilege. I am incredibly passionate about the purpose of our work, making every tax-payer dollar spent with third parties work as hard as possible for Aotearoa. Ultimately, time with my family is where I need to be, and that has led me to this decision.  

I’m proud of what the branch has achieved and excited about the new chapter and opportunities that lie ahead for government procurement as a whole – NZGP and our very important system stakeholders. Liz Palmer has again agreed to step in as Acting GM when I leave.

New Zealand Government Procurement is here to help with collective contracts, smarter supplier relationship management, advice on procurement and more. Please never hesitate to contact us.

Have a wonderful summer break, all the best to you and yours. I look forward to the journey next year.

Noho ora mai,

Laurence Pidcock, General Manager NZGP

Procurement platform update

Earlier this year we had hoped the Procurement platform would go live by the close of 2024, but as we have signalled before, the platform is a big project, and we’ll achieve things in stages.

Chris Woodbridge Senior Procurement Leader and business owner of the platform project, NZGP says, “In October we launched an easy-to-use tool – NZGP Ready Buy. The tool is the first deliverable of the Procurement platform project. It directs people to the information they need about doing procurement, helping people find collaborative contracts and procurement information. As we develop and deliver panels to the Procurement platform, NZGP Ready Buy will be the key tool to make sure people are always in the right place.”

The project team are currently working on functional testing of the platform. Phase one of the Procurement platform will initially enable users to complete secondary procurement activities and will launch with the External legal services contract panel.

“This is a really big task. We’re planning for user acceptance testing in the new year with a range of potential users, testing new functionality which will streamline and improve their procurement activities. Learning collateral and the Procurement platform itself will support users to drive efficiencies, value for money and better commercial outcomes.”

Look out for more on the platform next year, including a launch date for the External legal services panel.

Finalised trade deal good news for procurement

New Zealand Government Procurement is welcoming a new trade deal between New Zealand and the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) that will deliver new opportunities. Most media coverage of this agreement highlights the immediate benefits for exporters. They'll save on goods tariffs and get support to grow and diversify. But this agreement also gives New Zealand businesses the chance to bid for contracts in the GCC government market. GCC is made up of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. 

Karen English, NZGP’s Director International Procurement and Trade, has been a part of the long-term negotiation team, led by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade. She explains the significance of the agreement for the procurement community: “It's important that New Zealand businesses can access and compete on an even footing in global government procurement markets. A high proportion of jobs in New Zealand come from exporting. Exporters being able to bid for government contracts represents new opportunities.”

The specific chapter on Government Procurement “…provides New Zealand businesses with guaranteed access to GCC central government procurement opportunities on a reciprocal basis, for five of the six GCC member states (with Saudi Arabia not part of the government procurement outcome). The chapter includes commitments to fair, competitive and transparent procurement processes, aligned with international good practices in procurement.”

Karen says, “The next step is to ratify the deal which enables it to come into force. Exact dates are also subject to GCC processes which will be more complex due to the multiple GCC Parties.

Refreshed Demystifying Procurement course available now

Whether you’re a seasoned procurement professional or a new starter, take a look at the updated Demystifying Procurement course.

To keep the course relevant to current times and changes in government procurement, we’ve modernised the e-learning suite to accurately reflect the current public sector procurement context. We’ve also added two new modules: one emphasising the value of procurement and the other explaining the role of NZGP as system-lead.

Demystifying Procurement is available online via Hīkina, our e-learning platform, and as an in-person course around the motu.

Read more about how we’ve updated the course

Graduate programme

Earlier this year, we transitioned the management of the graduate programme over to Expert Procurement Solutions Limited (EPS). Our graduates are now halfway through their current rotation and busy at their host agencies. We’ve been really pleased with how EPS has been working with us to deliver the programme.

We’ve established a governance group for the programme to provide governance around policy and strategy considerations, review the design of the programme and oversee the current operations. The group will report back to NZGP regularly and includes representatives from NZGP, EPS and a host agency representative, Aditi Cook, Chief Procurement Officer, Ministry of Education.

We continue to review the graduate programme to ensure it meets the needs of the procurement system. For information about the graduate programme, please contact our Workforce and Capability Development team.

Procurement Capability Community of Practice

The Procurement Capability Community of Practice (PCOP) pilot has reached its 6-month milestone.

To date we have:    

• over 40 agencies engaged and participating, discussing a wide range of procurement capability skills and insights
• established Te Tira Hapai (advocacy group) established – informing topics and themes for discussion
• established a CoP hub established in Hīkina enabling secure access to a discussion forum
• carried out a CoP engagement evaluation to help inform ongoing evolution and refinement of the CoP.

In 2025 you’ll see:

• transition to BAU and campaigns for wider membership
• reinforcement of CoP ethos and benefits
• the community taking a bigger lead in guiding and shaping the CoP.

Knowledge Hour recap – ACC: artificial intelligence and machine learning

For our last Knowledge Hour of the year, we were joined by Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). They shared with us their journey of using artificial intelligence (AI) and what they’ve learnt so far.

A key principle underpinning their AI strategy is identifying opportunities to solve business problems by leveraging AI technology as the primary driver, with a technology agnostic lens to ensure the most suitable solution is identified. 

The benefits ACC have seen:

• Time saving - streamlined processes and administrative tasks now completed with AI.
  
• Increased productivity – the team is free to focus on strategic matters and other activities.
  

Thank you to ACC for sharing your experience with AI. It’s great to hear directly from an agency the potential benefits we can achieve using this technology.

You can watch this Knowledge Hour, and previous Knowledge Hours, in the Hīkina video library.

Keen to present in 2025?
This year we’ve been fortunate to host a range of agencies willing to share their procurement stories with the system. Thank you again to all of our 2024 presenting agencies. If your agency would like to present in 2025, email us. 

GETSmart with GETS

We've had another busy year on GETS!
 
Across government in 2024, we posted 3,023 open tenders (and counting…). Of these tenders, 1,081 tenders opened at 9am and 1,419 closed at 5pm. One early starter closed a tender at 4am!
 
The most popular date to post tenders was 15 November. 33 tenders were advertised on this busy Friday.
 
You can find more GETS statistics in the GETS dashboard.

Do you have a helpful tip about GETS to include in the next instalment of ‘GETSmart with GETS’?
Email the Business systems team. 

GETS - publishing a tender over Christmas

The Christmas season is nearly upon us! Please consider this when publishing your tender, or if it can be delayed until the New Year. 

If you’re unable to delay the release of your tender, we recommend you allow additional time for respondents. 

The GETS help desk will be closed from 3pm 24 December 2024 until 8.30am 3 January 2025.