Public Spend Forum: Winning meetings, winning proposals

Public Spend Forum (PSF) is a public sector procurement global community and market intelligence platform dedicated to improving public buying everywhere. GovShop is its free-to-use global government market research tool for finding and connecting with suppliers. Read more from PSF and GovShop founder Raj Sharma here: Working towards a more open and accessible public sector marketplace – for suppliers and buyers.

This week’s latest from PSF:

Buyer-Supplier Roundtable — Winning meetings, winning proposals

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs struggle with how to prepare and deliver the most value during that first, critical meeting with a potential client. Similarly, writing proposals that allow government officials to truly understand capabilities is sometimes a difficult challenge.

So how you prepare for and deliver the most value during the first meeting with a government client and how you write winning proposals that enable government officials to truly understand your capabilities will be covered on May 26.

In this roundtable discussion leaders with experience of hearing hundreds of pitches, and know what differentiates great ones from those that are forgettable, will give advice on:

• How to nail important meetings with key decision makers and leave a memorable impression
• How to read the room and unlock tricks of the trade
• Write winning proposals that set you apart from the competition

Raj Sharma: CEO of GovShop (with a 100% win rate on his bids) will be joined by Jaime Schorr, Chief Procurement Office, State of Maine, Jaime Gracia: Acquisition Manager, IRS and Ben McMartin, Managing Partner, GovShop (previously Army acquisition).

This free event is part of GovShop Market Roundtable series for the GovShop community.

Create an account with GovShop here – the free supplier directory for public sector buyers

Join the discussion here.

And in other news …

Consultation Response: Transforming UK Public Procurement green paper

Malta: The fight against collusion in public procurement – new Commission guidance

Pentagon taps Microsoft for $10b cloud contract after Trump’s slams on Amazon

Reform perspective argues that government should embrace new technologies to enable procurement data to flow more freely around government

WHO Procurement Report 2020 available for general download

HSE being sued over €12m air ambulance contract

A top procurement official at the Department of Defense says recent changes to its framework for acquiring new software are yielding results

UK’s Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea will no longer offer contracts to some of the companies appearing at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry

CIA awards multibillion-dollar cloud contract to Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Google, Oracle and IBM

Making public procurement work for women — UN guide for policymakers and procurement officers to help improve women’s participation in public procurement

UK government considering setting minimum cyber security requirements in public procurement

UK shadow education secretary takes opposite number to task over Dutch HR firm landing flagship National Tutoring Programme contract

US regulators scrutinize billion-dollar Covid-19 deal linked to Kenya

NHS Digital denies conflict of interest over Accenture contracts

In lead up to COP26, ministers need to revolutionise procurement policies to meet net zero targets

Contact Public Spend Forum

Contact support@publicspendforum.net if you’d like to understand more about public procurement, the effect of the pandemic, where to find suppliers for a specific category, or any other burning issue you have.

PSF would also love to hear from you if you have a success story within your organization you’d like to share. If you’d like to share your opinions or insight on a public-procurement-relevant issue please see the Guest Author Guidelines here.

Schedule a free GovShop demo

You can book a free consultation and demo to learn how to best leverage GovShop! You’ll learn how to build your market research skills and use GovShop to search across 2 million traditional and non-traditional suppliers, quickly generate lists and reports in minority and small businesses, and find contracts that match your needs.

Contact Frank McNally from the Government Success Team