Procurement: developing the profession
Seán O’Dwyer, President of the Irish Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management (IIPMM) and Purchasing Manager with Dublin Airport Authority, discusses how the profession is changing and being increasingly valued by government.
As President of the Irish Institute of Purchasing and Materials Management (IIPMM), Seán O’Dwyer sees the single biggest issue for public procurement as being the “centralisation agenda” which he says is epitomised by the development of the Office of Government Procurement (OGP).
“At a national policy level, that obviously makes a huge amount of sense,” O’Dwyer comments. “The challenge for public procurement is to balance that centralisation with the competing objective of trying to support the SME sector. The perception that centralisation and the aggregation of demand can create a situation where SMEs can feel excluded from the market.”
This issue is a big challenge for those involved in public procurement at present, particularly in the context of the new European Utilities and Public Procurement Directives.
He acknowledges that there has been much focus in procurement on how the directives will be transposed into national legislation and contends that “there is a genuine desire that this process will happen sooner than later as it is important to provide the clarity and certainty, to ensure all procurement procedures meet the requirements of the directives.”
Another significant challenge for public procurement is the risk of litigation and the costs and delays associated with any legal challenge.
One issue coming more and more to the fore is the size and quality of the procurement talent pool.
There is also increased demand from both public and private sector organisations to provide more and better procurement services – doing more with less is the order of the day and that has led to an increase in demand for procurement professionals. “There is a challenge to keep the output of qualified professionals to match that demand,” he relates. “One of the consequences of that – which may not yet have become apparent – is that good procurement people will become more expensive. A manifestation of this is that there are now legal firms and recruitment firms increasingly focused on procurement.”
Turing his attention to his own professional experience, O’Dwyer states: “In many organisations, it is recognised there is potential to make not simply savings but to make a positive impact on the business.” The procurement process has proven “a very effective gateway for the introduction of innovation.”
The profession
O’Dwyer has “thoroughly enjoyed” his time as President and says it has been a great experience for two reasons. “A greater insight and appreciation of the importance of the procurement education and how the whole education process is delivered,” he says firstly. Secondly, he has had the opportunity to engage with procurement colleagues on the international stage “which has been important from a benchmarking perspective and also for affirming Ireland’s relative sophistication in terms of procurement.” A manifestation of this is the fact that Ireland has the only procurement professional body in the world with its own degree programme.
Asked about the issues that the institute is addressing, he replies: “We have to keep our education programmes relevant and to continually develop them. We also look to constantly improve the way we represent the profession across all sectors of the economy.”
O’Dwyer believes that the standing of the profession has improved over recent years and some of the evidence for that is the development of postgraduate masters programmes not just in Ireland but internationally. “Organisations now accept the need for procurement professionals,” he comments. “Many professional service firms are now pushing into the procurement space which reflects the professionalisation of the procurement function.”
Looking to the future, O’Dwyer sees the profession becoming more and more relevant and also increasingly sophisticated. One of the growing areas in procurement is risk analysis and mitigation through the procurement contract.
“There has been an ever-present focus on value for money and the procurement profession has meant that it is not just about cheaper, but we have got organisations to focus on concepts like whole-life costing – taking a more holistic approach to procurement,” he states. “The profession has been successful in raising the awareness of such an approach. Procurement has also allowed managers to manage demand by cost avoidance. The stronger synergies between organisations and procurement mean that they should focus on real demand as opposed to apparent demand.”
O’Dwyer advocates a centralised category management type approach to procurement. When pressed on whether taking a standardised approach to procurement leads to inflexibility and too much homogeneity, he replies: “Part of the challenge is not just to take a blind bureaucratic approach to procurement but procurement has to be able to articulate the benefits of what it does so that CEOs and CFOs will see the benefits.” He concludes: “The old approach of ‘here is the standard process, take it or leave it’ has been replaced by a much more sophisticated approach of ‘here is best practice and let me explain the benefits of such an approach.’”
Profile: Seán O’Dwyer
Seán O’Dwyer is President of the Irish Institute of Purchasing and Material Management and a procurement manager with Dublin Airport Authority. Originally from Tallaght, Co Dublin, he started in the medical records department in the old Adelaide Hospital. He got into procurement when he worked in a tertiary hospital in Baghdad for five years in the late 1980s.
“It was a challenge to get medical supplies through the airport or from government stores” and entailed Seán learning Arabic. On his return to Ireland, he worked in an IT role supporting procurement in Beaumont Hospital. In 1998, he moved to Dublin Airport as a business analyst and migrated into the procurement function. He is now category manager for IT, telecoms and security equipment and acting head of department. Married to Helen, they have two children: Diarmuid aged 16 and Caoimhe aged 14. Interests revolve around family life and “music forms a big part of my life”.
