Planning improves management of procurement

Procurement planning is much more important than before. The approach to planning is more strategic, and the fact that high-quality planning also supports the organisation in the achievement of other goals is understood. Hansel’s goal is to make government procurement units more systematic not only by developing procurement expertise, but also by offering electronic tools to support planning.

“Procurement planning is one of the most important factors that influence the success of an organisation’s procurement. With a functional procurement planning process in place, the organisation will be able to plan and prioritise its future procurement needs and procurement experts will be able to anticipate their future workload,” summarises Mika Hänninen, development manager.

Hänninen works in Hansel’s procurement development unit which offers customers the expertise and support they need to determine the current status of their procurement and to plan and implement their development actions.

Tendering calendar and procurement roadmap show the way

Central government agencies annually upload their procurement plan data for the next few years to an electronic tendering calendar maintained by Hansel. With the tendering calendar, which was launched in 2017 and is open to anyone, agencies interested in the same or similar tendering processes can cooperate and potential suppliers can obtain information about future tendering processes.

In the years to come, procurement planning will be closely connected to the Hilma service that is currently being renewed to ensure that single procurement needs included in the tendering calendar can be used as advance notices of future tendering processes. The practical implementation method was discussed with the different cooperation partners at Hilma workshops arranged by Hansel in 2018.

As one of the key development projects related to project planning, Hansel has been involved in the KEINO project, creating ideas for a concept that would allow creating a shared roadmap for all public sector procurement projects.

“The procurement roadmap is a tool for the strategic management of an organisation that visualises procurement projects, their goals and their appropriations during the years to come. It allows the organisation to discuss with its internal stakeholders how and why it should invest in procurement in the years to come,” Mika Hänninen explains.

The procurement roadmap also allows identifying procurement projects that are relevant for innovation or sustainability.

Data available in several formats

Hansel’s selection of analysis tools was supplemented in April 2018 with Hankintapulssi, which offers organisations an opportunity to study data collected from procurement in more detail. Government procurement data service and Tutkihankintoja.fi, which were made available to the customers before, show group-level data, but Hankintapulssi allows you to drill down to the accounting office level.

Hankintapulssi collects purchase invoice data of the accounting offices and information on joint procurement in a format that is easy to handle. The visualised service shows what was purchased, from which supplier and when. Hankintapulssi serves organisations included in the scope of the state budget, the procurement data of which is available in the Government procurement data service.

The analysis tools are continuously developed. The goal is to supplement Hankintapulssi with content on procurement planning and electronic tendering. The government procurement data service was also renewed in 2018 to better respond to the needs of the users. The reform standardised government procurement data service and Hankintapulssi in terms of appearance and user interface.