OSS/BSS procurement is flawed from the outset

The industry we work in is worth tens of billions of dollars annually. We rely on that investment to fund the OSS/BSS projects (and ops/maintenance tasks) that keeps many thousands of us busy. Those funds originate from project sponsors in the buyers’ organisations taking a leap of faith in kicking off an OSS project. For many of the big projects, sponsors are obliged to involve the organisation’s procurement team.

That’s a fairly obvious path. But I often wonder whether the next step on that path is full of contradictions and flaws.

Do you agree that the 3 KPIs sponsors expect from their procurement teams are:

  1. Negotiate the lowest price
  2. Eliminate as many risks as possible
  3. Create a contract to manage the project by

If procurement achieves these 3 things, sponsors will generally be delighted. High-fives for the buyers that screw the vendor prices right down. Seems pretty obvious right? So where’s the contradiction? Well, let’s look at these same 3 KPIs from a different perspective – a more seller-centric perspective:

  1. I want to win the project, but I’m up against some really strong competition, so I’ll set a really low price, perhaps even loss-leader. However, our company can’t survive if our projects lose money, so I’ll be actively aiming to generate variations throughout the project starting from day 1
  2. Every project of this complexity has inherent risks, so if my buyer is “eliminating” risks, they’re actually just pushing risks onto me. So I’ll use any mechanisms I can to push risks back on my buyer to make the balance of risk seem more fair
  3. We all know that complex projects throw up unexpected situations that contracts can’t predict (except with catch-all statements that aim to push all risk onto sellers). We also both know that if we manage the project by contractual clauses and interpretations, then we’re already doomed to fail (or perhaps more commonly, the project is already failing by the time we start to manage by contract clauses)

There’s a massive disconnect between those two ways of framing the situation isn’t there? It’s obvious that instead of forming a long-lasting relationship, it’s creating a war-footing from the time the contract negotiations begin.

Therefore, we propose 3 contrarian KPIs to request from procurement are:

  1. Build relationships / trust – build a framework and environment that facilitates a mutually beneficial, long-lasting buyer/seller relationship (ie procurement gets judged on partnership length ahead of cost reduction)
  2. Develop a team – build a framework and environment that allows the buyer-seller collective to overcome risks and issues (ie mutual risk mitigation rather than independent risk deflection). You’re all part of the one team delivering a project, not throwing hand grenades over the vendor vs customer fence!
  3. Establish clear and shared objectives – ensure both parties are completely clear on how the project will make the buyer’s organisation successful. Then both constantly evolve to deliver benefits that outweigh costs (ie focus on the objectives rather than clauses – don’t sweat the small stuff (or purely technical stuff))

Yes, I know they’re idealistic and probably unrealistic. Just saying that the current KPI model tends to introduce flaws from the outset.

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