Procurement Track

Last Update: 29 March, 1999

SAVING AND GAINING
The ASSIST Best Practice Workshop for IT Procurement Professionals

• Learn and apply new techniques in enterprise IT procurement
• Get up to date with the latest best practice news from 35 major organisations
• Network and share experience with your procurement peers in IT and purchasing

Enterprises recognize that improving procurement techniques offers a major new source of competitive advantage.

 They can save cost, risk, and time to deployment, and gain earlier advantage from new enterprise systems and technologies.  

This new workshop provides a set of practical and proven techniques for better managing IT procurement activities and ensuring new systems deliver their intended gains.

The Open Group has championed the benefits of a best practice approach to IT procurement, in integrating technology with business processes and in how professionals from IT, Purchasing, and other functions can collaborate to achieve superior results.

The ASSIST Workshop

Bringing together the latest techniques and best practices the workshop uses best-of-breed resources developed in partnership with major IT users during the last 12 months

• Recommendations and best practices taken from 12 of the most popular best practice guides guidebooks
• Practical experience from identifying improvement actions proven to lead to better financial terms, improved supplier performance, and increased user satisfaction
• Interactive PC software package for each participant to benchmark current IT procurement activities and develop improvement actions

The ASSIST workshop normally caters for a small number of participants who are asked to provide input prior to the workshop and whose specific needs are discussed on a one-to-one basis. At Copenhagen the workshop will reflect the nature of the audience and will focus on providing information, tools, and general guidance.

Each participant will receive a personal workbook to assist them in developing an improvement plan specific to their organisation with step-by-step action plans.

WHAT WILL I LEARN?

• How to organize IT purchasing to obtain better pricing from suppliers, and to purchase systems and software that better meet the needs of your IT users
• How to better manage purchases of popular business solutions that involve tailoring of standardized software packages
• How to reduce conflicts with your suppliers, and increase the quality of purchased systems and software
• Which IT procurement practices lower costs, and increase the success of new systems and software
• How your IT procurement practices and projects compare with European averages and other organizations
• Which popular procurement methods and guidebooks provide best value for your organization
• Which specific improvements can really increase the value and benefit from your IT purchases

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

All managers and executives involved with external suppliers and other parts of their organization to introduce new systems and software.  They will have identified the need for better value and service from their IT systems and suppliers, and for more effective internal processes and projects. Typically they will be

• Involved with major IT procurement projects at enterprise level
• Determining requirements for systems and software being purchased
• Selecting IT technology and suppliers and approving IT expenditures
• Negotiating contracts with IT suppliers, ensuring deliveries, and bringing purchased systems and software into operation

WORKSHOP LEADERS

Scott Hansen has spent 20 years as a procurement specialist focused on managing IT systems and software projects involving external suppliers. He has worked with user organizations with most of the major hardware suppliers. More recently, he has provided IT procurement consulting services across Europe, and co-ordinated the European Commission SPRITE Procurement Best Practice projects where this workshop was developed.

Graham Bird is Director of Branding for The Open Group and responsible for procurement programs.  He has worked in a senior role for major IT vendors in sales, marketing, and account management and has founded and run technology businesses himself.  Graham is an experienced workshop facilitator.

AGENDA (subject to amendment)
09:00	Workshop Introduction
09:15	Techniques for improving IT Purchasing
09:45	Best Practices for IT Procurement - what works, and what hurts
10:30	Coffee Break
11:00	Procurement Methods and Guides – which one and when?
11:30	Self-assessment of purchasing practices with the ASSIST Tool
12:45	Lunch Break
13:30	Improving Preparation and Planning
14:15	Improving Purchase and Delivery
15:30	Coffee Break
16:00	Improving Management and Organisation