London Borough Of Bexley Takes Next Step In ‘Future-Proofing' Its Procurement Strategy With Proactis

Proactis, the global spend management company, has announced that the London Borough of Bexley has extended its Proactis solution to include contract management and deliver organisation-wide contract efficiencies.

“We take a long-term view of our procurement strategy to not only ensure we’re improving efficiencies for today, but that we’re also ‘future proofing’ our operating model. And we see technology as a core building block to that, so chose a provider that can grow with us,” stated Caroline Allen, Supplier Relationship Manager / Purchasing Manager at the London Borough of Bexley.

"Having already implemented Proactis’ sourcing tool we undertook a deep dive review around our contract management processes and the outcome was that we needed to drive forward efficiencies and consistency with our current contract management.”

There was a lack of visibility into the 233 contracts that are managed by the 90 Contract Managers across the Authority.

“We needed something to not only give us visibility, accountability and flexibility to manage our contracts, but that can integrate with our existing systems and evolve with our requirements,” continued Caroline.

The aims of implementing Proactis Contract Management were to increase visibility of supplier contracts and contract details, keep up with contract dates and events, reduce risk, and maximise awareness and usage of contracts across the Authority.

Through the solution, the Authority has set up a central electronic repository for all types of supplier contracts, to standardise organisation-wide contract storage and management for all Contract Managers. All contract data is now visible by the relevant Contract Manager, as well as management across the Authority, and an audit trail is created.

“As an Authority, we are challenged with becoming self-sufficient so using a contract management solution is a really good mechanism to minimise the time and effort within that particular process. Proactis has been a real driver for us to ensure that we capture all the data we need and making it transparent within the system,” concluded Caroline. “The solution has the flexibility to change with our needs.”