Chapter 11 - IT Procurement Planning and Strategic Sourcing

As an IT procurement best practice, IT procurement planning has been proven to generate multiple benefits for public procurement. IT procurement planning enables agencies to implement strategic IT sourcing concepts during the procurement process. Planning will also enable agencies to leverage the Commonwealth's purchasing power to obtain lower costs and better value. Developing a thorough IT procurement plan which assigns roles and responsibilities to the procurement project team members and defines the process steps will facilitate a better-value IT procurement. The IT procurement planning process should be a collaborative and synergistic effort between procurement project team members.

Proven benefits of procurement planning include:

• Development of a strong communication framework and structure for cross-functional information sharing.
• Improved schedule success through workload and resource planning and the assignment of roles and responsibilities for each procurement project team member.
• Increased project discipline by demanding systematic documentation of business needs, timelines, and costs while providing sufficient lead time and resources in the selection of appropriate procurement types and development of innovative contracting methods.
• Requiring a baseline commitment from the supplier community to adhere to the response parameters set forth in the solicitation.
• Enhanced structure and control over the amount of time and resources required to accomplish the objectives.
• Speedier negotiations and contract execution because contractual requirements are defined at the beginning of the project.
• Reduced miscommunication and disputes during the evaluation phase.
• Improved savings and cost efficient IT assets for the Commonwealth by utilizing planning to encourage consolidation of requirements to achieve greater IT economies through innovative price reductions and/or quantity discounts.