Author Archives: Ross Mulkern

The Afghan Procurement Crisis – “buy local” issues on a world stage

Ross Mulkern - May 16, 2012 4:37 AM | Categories: Current affairs and general interest

(We’re pleased to feature another guest post from Ross Mulkern, writer, procurement commentator and heavy metal guitarist…) After over ten years of conflict, it seems there are few aspects of Afghan society which haven’t been affected by the war. Under NATO occupation, procurement guidelines were put in place which sought to focus sourcing locally in a bid to defibrillate the flatlining Afghan economy. As Barack Obama commits to a final and complete withdrawal, however, the vast industrial districts of outer Kabul show very few signs of life. So what went wrong? Certainly for a time the western-led vision for the economy seemed [...]

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How’s the UK government IT strategy going from a procurement perspective?

Ross Mulkern - February 23, 2012 1:30 PM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

(We’re pleased to feature another post from Ross Mulkern, our resident expert on Finland, heavy metal guitar, and government IT strategy…) The NAO recently released its six month review of progress for the new Government ICT Strategy. “The Strategy” as the report rather ominously refers to it, was drawn up with the intention of reducing waste and project failure in ICT via a series of reforms across procurement, project delivery and ICT, culminating in the creation of a common ICT infrastructure across government as a whole. The report points to changes in procurement as being crucial to the effective achievement [...]

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Spend Matters Yearly Round-up: Part 4

Ross Mulkern - December 30, 2011 4:58 AM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

This last quarter began with Gartner’s eProcurement report, which rated 32 P2P technology firms against a set of 11 criteria. The report showed strong performances from the likes of Coupa and Periscope Holdings, who shared the highest aggregate score between them, in addition to impressive results from B-Pack, Sci-Quest and Veritan Technologies. Hot on the heels of our first White Paper on the subject of Advanced Sourcing, October 5th saw the release of our follow-up, “Marked Informed Sourcing: A game-changer for Procurement”. The paper expanded on the themes of its predecessor, suggesting in particular that the advent of recent technologies [...]

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Spend Matters Yearly Round-up III: Back With a Vengeance

Ross Mulkern - December 29, 2011 4:42 AM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

Welcome from me, Ross Mulkern, to part 3 of my review of the Spend Matters year. Parts 1 and 2 are here and here.. July 2011 brought us… nothing. I mean, I’m sure it brought us some stuff, but according to my notes, nothing of any particular significance happened in July. Ho hum. August, however was a veritable firecracker of a month. For a start, our article on the controversial MOD/Alix Partners deal was featured in The Times. I know I’ve mentioned that in every instalment of this round-up so far, but when was the last time you were published [...]

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Spend Matters Yearly Round-up: Part 2

Ross Mulkern - December 28, 2011 5:00 AM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

Welcome to the second instalment of the Spend Matters yearly round-up, (the first is here), your faithful retrospective guide to all the important Things Which Have Happened in procurement this year. This April saw the election of “Highland Hero” John Collington to the post of Government CPO after a hotly contested race to the finish, leaving fellow front runner “Guitar Man” David Smith to join him as Deputy Chief Procurement Officer. My money was on Seabiscuit personally, but whatever. It was also around this time that we published our article (later to be featured in The Times) reporting the controversial [...]

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Spend Matters Yearly Round-up: Part 1

Ross Mulkern - December 27, 2011 10:30 AM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

(While we were busy consuming turkey and champage, we asked our guest writer, Ross “Milkki” Mulkern, to look back over the Spend Matters Year, and pick out some highlights… here’s his first quarter review. More through the rest of the week). And so the time has come, once again, to sit back with a well earned tipple and get all misty eyed and nostalgic over the various procurement happenings of the past twelve months… There have been good times, like Spend Matters getting into The Times with our article on the controversial MOD/Alix Partners contract, and there have been bad, [...]

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A New Delhi Counter: Uproar over 51% FDI in Indian Retail

Ross Mulkern - December 9, 2011 5:39 AM | Categories: Current affairs and general interest

(We’re pleased to feature another guest post from our roving reporter, Ross Mulkern) Over the past week or so, the issue of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Indian retail has become something of a hot topic – encapsulating, as it does, many of the prominent arguments both for and against strictly localised procurement. I discussed the issue at large last week, with regards to an article by South African economist Jasson Urbach, in which he asserts that “buying local” can, in fact, be harmful to local economies, inflating prices, cutting jobs and possibly resulting in an inferior end product. This [...]

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Not From Round Here: The Problem With Buying Local

Ross Mulkern - December 1, 2011 4:34 AM | Categories: Procurement Commentary

(We’re pleased to feature a Guest Post from Ross Mulkern, a business writer and analyst, who previously contributed his thoughts here on heavy metal band “Trouble”! Today he addresses a somewhat more serious subject…) A number of local councils across the North East and Cumbria have come under scrutiny recently regarding the contractors they opt to employ. The BBC reported recently that the likes of Carlisle and Middlesbrough Town Councils were sourcing less than 50% of their contracts from within the area, in the case of Carlisle, only 37%. The implication of the study is that focusing procurement in one’s [...]

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