UK RAIL INDUSTRY AWARDS 2014
Keeping procurement on track
Gavin Shepheard, sales director at QinetiQ Commerce Decisions, whose AWARD solution was used by the judges at the UK Rail Industry Awards 2014, explains more about it.
S
trategic procurements involve multiple stakeholders, significant budgets and have
substantial impact on business performance. Whilst only representing 5% of procurement transactions, they account for 90% of procurement risk and 50% of annual spending.
The issues faced by procurement professionals are common throughout the world – the process can be daunting and mistakes can be costly.
QinetiQ Commerce Decisions (QCD) delivers a proven evaluation solution, AWARD, together with best practice knowledge and expert services to assist sourcing projects. QCD ensures businesses have the tools to make the best procurement decisions in high risk situations, throughout the procurement lifecycle. They have a solid record in the rail sector and strong relationships with notable rail clients such as Crossrail, Transport for London and the DfT.
The largest infrastructure project in Europe, Crossrail has reached the midway point of construction on a cross-country rail line from Maidenhead and Heathrow Airport to Shenfield and Abbey Wood. This £14.8bn development has wide-reaching implications, not just for Crossrail, but for all of London and south-east England.
The AWARD procurement solution has underpinned a transparent, defensible and robust decision-making process across the programme. In addition, QCD has also provided embedded procurement support and advice on best practice. AWARD has been deployed by Crossrail on all projects over £10,000 since
2008. During this time, it has supported the evaluation of 1,500 bidders by 790 users on 250 projects, and has stored 50,000 documents and recorded 110,000 scores.
To date, the programme is on time and to budget, with the National Audit Office reporting that “Crossrail is on track to achieve value for money” in one of its most positive analyses of a major infrastructure project.
Since 2005, TfL has used AWARD to support the delivery of its multi-million transport development works across London. AWARD has enabled TfL to achieve key milestones and to ensure projects are kept on track.
One aspect of AWARD that has been highly valued is the ability to clearly identify any problems as they occur during an evaluation process, enabling swift action to be taken where needed. Using AWARD has allowed a small team with a large number of stakeholders to effectively process large and complex procurements. To date, close to 2,000 evaluators have evaluated almost 2,800 bids on over 200 projects – all under significant time pressure.
Not only has AWARD supported the ability to work effectively and collaboratively, it has also supported the generation of detailed debrief reports for bidders. On the occasions where TfL has been challenged, TfL has been able to demonstrate to the challengers exactly why they were unsuccessful, drawing on the qualitative data pulled from AWARD. To date, no challenge has been pursued further than this point, saving TfL the time and effort of defending legal challenges. In fact, to date,
there has not been a successful challenge to a procurement that has deployed AWARD.
AWARD from QCD is a collaborative web- based software solution designed specifically to support the strategic procurement process. It is proven to deliver robust and defensible procurements, with an extensive client base across central and local government, utilities, transport, healthcare, aerospace and defence. It reduces time to contract, improves value for money and reduces risk, and has been used on a wide range of procurements of differing sizes and complexity, collectively worth over £80bn.
About the author
Gavin Shepheard is sales director for QinetiQ Commerce Decisions. Starting out in the telecoms software industry in the US in 2001, he has a comprehensive background in software sales. Since 2004, he has built up an impressive sales track record with QCD, primarily selling across the public sector.
Appointed as sales director at the end of 2012, he is focusing on retaining and growing existing core markets, including rail, as well as developing new business from international markets and partnering. During his time with QCD, Shepheard has acquired extensive experience and knowledge of both the procurement industry and software sales.
Gavin Shepheard FOR MORE INFORMATION
T: 01865 781350 W:
www.cd.QinetiQ.com
rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 14 | 61
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