Get your procurement strategy approved

Bring clarity despite complexity

Tender documentation can be complex for both buyers and suppliers to navigate. This is even more true when buying innovation because the buying team is asking for approval to start the process of buying something, without knowing what the end solution is.

Clear communication to stakeholders

The Test and Buy Innovation guidance helps buying teams capture complex information in ways their most important stakeholders can understand. It provides templates, pro-forma wording and tips that help buying teams explain a complex procurement process to approvers and suppliers. It also helps buying teams give those stakeholders confidence that uncertainty will be managed responsibly.

The innovation challenge guidelines document is an important part of both internal and external stakeholder communication. It provides a plain English, visual outline of a complex process in a consistent format, capturing the most important procurement settings that approvers and suppliers want to understand quickly.

Plan your approach

The innovation buying strategy, or procurement plan, captures important decisions like buying category and form of contract. These sorts of decisions help manage risks, comply with policies, create leverage and protect outcomes. Since they can't be locked down while the end solution is unknown, buying teams face the challenge of planning for and documenting them in a way that still protects outcomes. Test and Buy Innovation guidance helps buying teams tackle these sorts of decisions and document them for buy-in and approval.

Planning the approach for categories and contracts should happen during the Plan phase after the Statement of Requirements and evaluation criteria have been documented. This step sets up the procurement strategy to be approved and transitioned into the Source phase. Approvers and suppliers require information about the buying category and form of agreement (contract) that will be used in a procurement. For this reason, it is important to determine the procurement strategy early and communicate what is most important to key audiences at each step of the multi-stage approach.

Carefully considered, clear and concise procurement strategy and challenge guideline documents are key to getting a strategy approved. The guidance below will help you plan and create these documents.