Procurement Function Benchmarking

Each university was invited to participate in benchmarking its procurement processes. This involves the provision of organisational, financial and purchasing data as agreed between the Advisory Group, interested universities and Purchasing Index.

Phase 1 started in June 2007 and was completed in December 2007. The data gathering period included interviews with key university officers and the completion of an extensive questionnaire.

A pre-start workshop for Phase 1 was held on 18th June 2007 and was attended by representatives from all the participating universities. The workshop was very successful in identifying how to achieve value from the benchmarking and the Survey Tool was amended accordingly. A second workshop was held in January 2008 for the universities who took part to share knowledge gained during the benchmarking and recognise best practice to support the aim of structural reform and workplace productivity improvement.

The benchmarking template was reviewed during the second workshop to ensure possible improvements were identified and incorporated into Phase 2.

Phases 2 and 3 were combined to allow a greater number of universities to be benchmarked in a single exercise. This was aligned with the schedule for Phase 3 so those universities who had already taken part would have the opportunity to repeat with a sufficient time lag to be able to see the benefits arising from Phase 1.

Seventeen universities attended a workshop held in September 2008 to review the survey tool and make amendments and collectively agree on their understanding of the requirements. The final reports were delivered on the 12 Jun 09; the review workshop iwas held in June 2009 in Sydney with 34 attendees.

Further information relating to universities participation in the procurement function benchmarking in Phases 1 or 2 is available from the Project Director (ANHEPBP)