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Delivery Partner Procurement
Each year hundreds of organisations seek to procure or select a partner to work alongside them on the delivery of major projects. The research shows that the majority go on to experience problems that damage project deliverables and that the main causes centre on ‘people issues’. Largely undetectable through conventional procurement selection methods, the B2B Soft Issues Assessment Centre (SIAC) approach is a reliable and objective method for testing these key areas and is designed to predict future performance and highlight potential pitfalls and risks that could jeopardise project delivery.
The B2B Soft Issues Assessment Centre (SIAC) has a proven track record in evaluating these aspects within some of the largest and highest profile procurements in UK history.
Why SIAC?
70% of partnering relationships fail or experience problems that impact performance. The majority of causes relate to ineffective collaboration and problems in partnering behaviour or other ‘human factors’.
Traditional procurement evaluation methods are limited and, at times, ineffective in objectively answering questions such as – ‘can we work with their team’, ‘can we trust them’, ‘how will they behave in a tight spot’ or ‘how will our different values work together? ‘are they competent in key ‘soft‘ skills such as effective team work?’
Research Proven Evaluation Methods
When it comes to testing individual, team, or organisational competence in ‘soft issues’ evaluating written answers within tenders, or scoring rehearsed presentations has all the obvious limitations that would apply to evaluating job applicants based on their CV and an interview presentation alone. Fig 1 shows that traditional evaluation methods fail to predict future performance.
Imagine hiring someone to a senior position based on their CV alone. Who is to say that the individual can do what they claim to be able to? The same is true when procuring a delivery partner, where the consequences of under-performance may only become apparent after the contract is signed!
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Fig 1
When to use SIAC
Where there is a need for close collaboration and partnering working between client and contractor
Where project challenges are complex and require on-going mutual problem solving
Where management, leadership and team-working competence is a critical success factor
Where the contractor interfaces with the clients customers and/or key stakeholders
Where organisational cultural differences could impact project delivery
Where high levels of trust is essential for operations
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How SIAC Operates
SIAC works by bringing together key personnel from the bidding organisation and the client team, simulating realistic future project/contract challenges within authentic future operating conditions, and it assesses performance against pre-determined robust behavioural measures. Importantly it controls the assessment environment to comply with UK, and international, assessment centre best practice.
Bidder performance within the SIAC is a contract award evaluation criterion that can attract between 15-20% of the overall award marks dependent upon the importance to project success.
Calculating Best Value
The SIAC process provides the potential to estimate the full value for money of bids when performance in the SIAC is projected into a project steady state. The chart (Fig 2) shows an example of the performance of several bidders and shows the potential risk areas to the project where even the ‘best’ bidder only achieves 60% average against the pre-determined behavioural measures.
Fig 2
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The SIAC process provides the potential to estimate the full value for money of bids when performance in the SIAC is projected into a project steady state. The chart (Fig 2) shows an example of the performance of several bidders and shows the potential risk areas to the project where even the ‘best’ bidder only achieves 60% average against the pre-determined behavioural measures.
It is well documented that poor performance in a range of ‘soft issues’ e.g. collaborative working, team working, change management etc. damages project delivery performance.
Selecting the SIAC Specialist
We have been delivering SIAC since 2000, and our team members have designed and delivered SIAC within many procurements valued collectively in excess of £30 billion and across a range of sectors which includes diverse assignments in Defence, Construction, the London 2012 Olympics, Government IT, Nuclear and Estates & Facilities management.
Delivering a robust and reliable SIAC is a specialist activity. The key factors that need to be considered in selecting a provider are:
Track record in delivery within OJEU competitions
Compliance with national & international standards
Demonstrable reliability in the assessment & scoring approach
A quality assured process
Take the SIAC Readiness Test
Government Procurement Service Approved
Working with our partners Quatrosystem, the B2B SIAC is available through a Government Procurement Service Framework agreement for Procurement services – providing a compliant and rapid route to our services.
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