Supplier and contractor selection – how to get it right

A one-day workshop

Choosing the wrong supplier can be disastrous (as anyone knows who followed the Post Office scandal).

It’s also inexcusable, given that Dr Ray Carter’s famous 10 Cs Model for successful supplier selection has now been around for thirty years and is as valid today as when it was first published in 1995. It’s long been the accepted model, adopted by the CIPS and various university syllabuses around the country.

And who better to take your team through it than Ray himself?

Learning objectives

This highly practical one-day course will help procurement and contracting professionals work more effectively with key stakeholders (and vice versa).

It will help participants undertake effective and robust evaluations of potential and existing providers.

It will help them understand and apply the 10 Cs model.

And it will help them reduce the risk of ‘sub-optimal’ outcomes.

Who should attend?

This course is designed for all those who have direct or indirect responsibility for the effective selection and evaluation of suppliers and contractors and who need to reduce the risk of linking with providers who are not fit for purpose. This could include procurement staff, end-users, project managers, technical experts, proponents, finance, internal customers, and other key stakeholders who need to collaborate with procurement and contracting to develop robust selection and evaluation systems and templates. This could also include those seeking a refresher in this subject.

Format

This one-day programme can be delivered on-site or virtually. The expert trainer takes a proactive, participative, and participant-centred approach with an emphasis on the practical application of the tools, techniques and templates discussed. The creation of Action Plans by the participants is a key element in the experiential dimension to all our courses. The learning needs to be embedded into the fabric of the organisation and the trainer uses context-based case studies and other tasks to achieve this.

Special features

The content of this course has been cross-mapped with established competency frameworks and other international standards.

Certificates of attendance are provided on request (for CPD purposes: the programme qualifies for six hours, which for most professional bodies translates as six points).

The majority of the training we deliver is either tailored or completely bespoke. This workshop can therefore be delivered entirely as advertised, or it can be tailored to your particular requirements, or we can simply take it as a starting point for a conversation with you before we draft a completely bespoke programme for you – the choice is yours.

Expert trainer

Dr Ray Carter runs his own international training and development consultancy, specialising in procurement. The author of Practical Supplier Selection, his now-famous ‘10 Cs’ of supplier evaluation model, first published in 1995, has become an accepted model for the evaluation of suppliers and contractors and has been adopted by many organisations. It is also part of the CIPS level 3 syllabus. A prolific author, his books include Practical Procurement, Practical Supplier Selection and Relationship Management (with Sharon Croome), Practical Contract and Commercial Negotiations (with Kenny Campbell) and Practical Contract Management (with Steve Kirby, Alan Oxenbury and Geoff Kontzle). He has also had numerous articles and papers published in journals such as Supply Management and the Centre for Advanced Procurement’s Praxis publication. Ray is Chairman of the Procurement Best Practice Forum, which is made up of many large blue-chip organisations, the purpose of which is to identify and disseminate supply chain management best practices. Ray is an external examiner for Salford University and a Fellow of Leicester University.

In recent years, he has undertaken training and consultancy assignments across the UK and around the world for organisations such as Prudential, Virgin Media, Cobham, The Home Office, Ministry of Justice, Low Carbon Contracts Company, IBM, Ministry of Defence, NHS, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Bapco, AA, Coca-Cola, Foster Wheeler, Pfizer, British Nuclear Group, Honeywell, Total, Qinetiq, John Lewis, DeLaRue, Serco, Wiliams F1 Team, Hitachi Rail Europe, Rolls-Royce, Boots, RBS, DWP, NHS, Lucas Engineering and Systems, Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ZADCO), NDC, Ericsson, BAe, Marconi, BBC, Magnox, Ordnance Survey, Chevron, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Tengzichevroil Company, Coca-Cola, Shell International BV, IMechE, African Development Bank, United Healthcare, MLM, SEPA, Yorkshire Water, East Lothian Council, Medway Council, Wigan Council, National Grid, City of Bradford MDC, London Fire Brigade, etc, etc, etc.

1 Introduction

  • Learning outcomes
  • Learning styles
  • Plan for the day

2 Understand the importance and value of selecting appropriate and fit-for-purpose providers

  • Reliability
  • Quality
  • Fit-for-purpose relationships.
  • Innovation

3 Appreciate the risks and consequences of sub-optimal selection of suppliers and contractors

  • Late delivery
  • Poor service
  • Poor quality
  • Disputes and litigation

4 Understand Carter’s 10 Cs model and its applications

  • The 10 Cs model provides a framework of selection criteria
  • Leads to the appointment of suppliers with the necessary expertise
  • Appropriate resources
  • Sustainable source of supply
  • Effective relationships – avoiding the ‘blame game’, disputes and variations

5 Apply the 10 Cs model

  • Competency
  • Capacity
  • Control of process
  • CSR
  • Cost
  • Communications
  • Cash and finance
  • Consistency
  • Commitment to quality
  • Culture and relationships

6 Differentiate between the different methods of selection

  • Lowest price technically acceptable
  • Most economically advantageous tender
  • Most advantageous tender

7 Develop robust evaluation templates to ensure consistency

8 Appreciate the need to develop select criteria in cooperation with key stakeholders

  • Engineers
  • Technical
  • Service users
  • Internal customers
  • External customers

9 Reflect criteria for the selection and evaluation of suppliers

  • In the tender process
  • RFPs
  • Seeking quotations
  • Soft market testing

10 Manage and mitigate the legal and contractual risks

  • Scope creep
  • Liabilities
  • Indemnities
  • Guarantees
  • Liquidated damages

11 Conclusion

  • Further information
  • Open forum Q&A
  • Action planning
  • Summary

Any questions? Please just give us a call on 01582 463463 – we’re here to help!