By Steve Ranger, 24 August 2006 12:30
NEWS
St Mary's NHS Trust aims to save £4m over the next five years after becoming the first hospital to sign up for a new government-sponsored online marketplace.
It is the first trust out of a consortium of 17 to connect to its suppliers via the OGCbuying.solutions Zanzibar Managed Service, an online procurement marketplace.
Mansel Chamberlain, procurement director of the Northwest London NHS Procurement Confederation, said that with the 17 trusts in the group spending almost £1bn per year on supplies, and the potential for savings "is enormous".
He said five of the largest trusts - accounting for more than 50 per cent of that expenditure - are now committed to rolling out Zanzibar, which he said will save St Mary's alone "more than £4m over the next five years".
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Zanzibar is a hosted procurement system tailored to meet the needs of the UK public sector. It provides a data warehouse, a single point of access to the government marketplace for both buyers and suppliers, and access to hosted supplier catalogues as well as handling non-catalogue transactions.
It also offers integration facilities to allow public sector organisations to integrate their existing e-procurement, finance and sales order systems with Zanzibar.
The service is available to all public sector organisations in England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
The St Mary's e-procurement project went live at the end of June, and was implemented by CedarOpenAccounts, OGCbuying.solutions and PA Shared Services.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I beleive these e-procurement systems whilst potentially giving initial savings do not necessarily serve the best interests of the purchasing organisation and stifle innovation.
Organisations using these systems get sold what they ask for and not necessarily the best or even the cheapest option.
Here is an example from my own industry:packaging. Through various technologies and techniquies we can produce packaging which contains less raw material and gives an all round win because it is cheaper, lighter, produces less waste and out performs the traditional equivalent. However on all the e-procurement projects we have been involved in, there is not the option to offer this alternative product, only to supply what has been specified. The purchasing company ends up making some saving becuase suppliers will cut their prices to get the business, but what they don't get is the better, cheaper alternative.
This might sound like a case of sour grapes but I truely beleive that the issues we see as an innovate packaging manufacturer can be extrapolated accross many industry sectors.
2. misceng
Such contracts can make great savings but only if they are run by people with expertise in what is being purchased. The comment by the packaging supplier is correct that inexpert procurement will not get all the possible savings. I spent time in charge of a team of engineers organising supplies for engineering work in the Property Services Agency. We saved a fortune by knowing what was available at the right price. The government knew better and disbanded the PSA so that they could buy a poorer service at greater cost from private industry.