Adam and Steve recently attended the Land Environment Working Group. It was overdue and welcome to see this event in the calendar again. Afterall it is "teamwork that makes the dream work" right? - business is at its core formalised relationships between people.
"A good contract doesn't guarantee a good outcome, but a bad contract guarantees a bad outcome."
MAJGEN Andrew Bottrell
For the past few years we have been working on a longitudinal analysis of data on government procurement, industry capabilities and changes at the SME base. It is encouraging to hear from Werner Lausberg, Andrew Bottrell and David Creagh AM, CSC that AHQ has also identified some trends of concern, perhaps amplified by the recent economic and global freight impacts of the COVID pandemic.
Video courtesy of The Decisive Point - an Aussie SME success story
Issues of provenance, ownership and control, capacity and access all feed into the age old challenges of defining value for money and good for Australia. It is through closer relationships that these elements can be observed, understood and influenced.
The need to increase agility and scale to support mobilisation, capability acquisition and sustainment is well understood, reading the Industry Statement, it appears also clear to reinforce and energise the SME base in a coherent and deliberate manner.
"We need to innovate at the speed of relevance"
MAJGEN Simon Stuart
We are one very small piece in this complex puzzle and are encouraged to see some clarity, strategy and commitment. Perhaps we are seeing a deliberate pivot from tactical procurement to a strategic model of lean, agile procurement. Time will tell.