Procurement Group X Innovation Exchange: ‘The Art of the Possible’

The Art of the Possible Report

The Art of the Possible report focuses on the part procurement plays in innovation across the industry through two different lenses:

1. how you procure innovative solutions in a particular sector
2. how you use the Procurement Reform to procure innovatively, i.e. how can we use the new flexibility under the rules to procure in an innovative way, which might unlock value or improved outcomes.

The Challenge

Innovative procurement is a challenge because the majority of clients, when procuring an innovative solution, will not know what they are procuring because it’s in a new market/ they’ve never procured it before.

This means that everybody’s learning at the same time, which is difficult in relation to regulation. How do you go out to a market and what market do you go out to when looking at something completely new/different?

How Do We Do Innovation?

Innovation can be incremental, a supply-led change where the market indicates a need for a solution and the supply chain delivers.

However, for real, genuine innovation, we need collaboration and change in the way we contract and in the regulations that drive contracts.

For this, construction needs to change its mindset. Supply-led innovation is a start but requires the right people with the right culture e.g. suppliers selected not just on technical capability, but on alignment,

This will allow the formation of genuine partnerships where this alignment enables mutual benefits to all parties.

Innovation in the procurement process is happening but progress is slow. However, there are some good examples from a range of industries, find out more from 4C Associates’ website.

Moving Forward…

The higher the maturity of the procurement capability, the greater the levels of innovation.

Innovation isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ it’s a ‘must’ if we, as an industry, are going to tackle some of the UK’s biggest challenges. We can’t bring about change by doing the same things that we’ve always done, we need a change in mindset.

Legislation alone will not enable us to achieve innovation. To do that, we need strong commercial leaders who embrace and champion innovation and create a culture where it’s OK to move away from the norm.  We need to create a culture where we enable people to try new things and if they don’t work out perfectly first time, that’s OK and we learn from it and try again.