No payrises in benchmarking ? "Shock"

leghorn said:
Yeah, yeah... Or just don't bother with tenders and make a profit on every sale (like what we do now anyway).
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So what's your problem? Whenever any company in any sphere tries to break into a new market they have to take some chances and/or make some initial losses. If you're happy in your current niche why are complaining that there are barriers to entry when it's your own lack of ambition that is the real barrier?
 
If you're happy in your current niche why are complaining that there are barriers to entry when it's your own lack of ambition that is the real barrier?
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It isn't a lack of ambition that is the barrier, it's all the barriers mentioned in this thread. Lack of ambition wasn't one of them.
If we lacked ambition, we would have failed our current, extremely competitive, niche.
 
Pique318 said:
TBH, I would suspect that tendering processes have been highly influenced by who plays golf with who, backroom deals and personal opinions/favouritism rather than the 'best, most cost-effective and efficient' bid.
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I can only speak from personal experience but this is almost certainly not true.

leghorn said:
It isn't a lack of ambition that is the barrier, it's all the barriers mentioned in this thread. Lack of ambition wasn't one of them.
If we lacked ambition, we would have failed our current, extremely competitive, niche.
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So, many companies are willing to incur a loss in order to secure a public sector contract but your company is not. Fair enough, but how does this highlight a flaw in the tendering process? If anything it highlights its unique strength. The prestige of winning the contracts is such that companies will price below cost in order to obtain them.
 
So, many companies are willing to incur a loss in order to secure a public sector contract but your company is not. Fair enough, but how does this highlight a flaw in the tendering process? If anything it highlights its unique strength. The prestige of winning the contracts is such that companies will price below cost in order to obtain them.
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The flaw in that argument is that the lowest price always wins the tender, which certainly isn't the case.
Lowest price isn't always the best, either.

So, many companies are willing to incur a loss in order to secure a public sector contract but your company is not.
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In reality, our company probably won't get the tender no matter what we quote for the cost. Therefore, why bother?
 
leghorn said:
The flaw in that argument is that the lowest price always wins the tender, which certainly isn't the case.
Lowest price isn't always the best, either.
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I'm not advocating that the lowest price bidder should always win the tender and from my own experience this would not be the case. If companies are willing to cannablise their profit margins to win public sector contracts, then this can only be a good from the prospective of the taxpayer. However, this should not be taken to imply the best tender always wins or that the process cannot be improved upon.

leghorn said:
In reality, our company probably won't get the tender no matter what we quote for the cost. Therefore, why bother?
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Again, I ask why? You began with the proposition that the public sector tender process is designed in such a manner as to preclude indigenous companies from winning the contracts. You have ended with the rather lamer assertion that the process specifically excludes your company from winning contracts it could not be bothered to bid for and would prefer not to win in case it would prohibitively dent your profit margin.
 
Quote leghorn: In reality, our company probably won't get the tender no matter what we quote for the cost. Therefore, why bother?



the successful tenderer is supposed to be the

'Most Economically Advantageous Tender' - MEAT - cost is treated proportionately to time, method of approach to project, how project will be completed, quality & skills of staff on the project etc..

obviously, you are not trying to be the 'most economically advantageous' so you are not offering value for money.. you need to look at the quality of your tender - AND make sure you get feedback on your tender and an explanation of why you didn't get it..
 
Completely contradicting everything I said before and repeating, almost verbatim, leghorn's points is this release from the Irish Software Association.

[broken link removed]

Have always held the ISA in low regard as their ISA company of the year has invariably tanked soon afterwards but it does appear that leghorn's views are the common consensus.
 
Howitzer said:
Completely contradicting everything I said before and repeating, almost verbatim, leghorn's points is this release from the Irish Software Association.
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To be fair, their demands don't seem unreasonable either:

"The ISA is calling on the public sector to engage more fully through an enhanced 'Technical Dialogue' procedure in advance of the tender being awarded, thereby enabling both parties to fully clarify requirements of the tender," Mr Dempsey said.
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Howitzer said:
Completely contradicting everything I said before and repeating, almost verbatim, leghorn's points is this release from the Irish Software Association.

[broken link removed]

Have always held the ISA in low regard as their ISA company of the year has invariably tanked soon afterwards but it does appear that leghorn's views are the common consensus.
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Actually, I think the ISA are making a different point to leghorn. You could paraphrase the ISA blurb as follows;

It's just not fair. For years, we used to get away with pushing technology solutions to non-existant problems into the public sector. Just flash a few buzz-words and a Gartner 4-quadrant graph around, and they'd buy anything. But now the cheek of them - they actually tell us what they want, and we have to compete on price with the others. How degrading for us. It's just not fair.​
 
dodo said:
I am so delighted with this outcome, I really am and my wife works in a semi state job. They are spoilt, they had a xmas party and it cost the company 150.00 euros a head.
That is tax payers money. Six months of sick fully paid, unbeliveable if you ask me.
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I'll bet your wife works for the ESB! They have some astonishing perks.
You can't compare semi state employees to public servants.

My wife worked in the private sector for many years then took a job in the civil service. Took a drop in wages for the security it offered. With decentralisation and all that if it was a private company you'd get something for moving down the country but with the civil service you get nothing.

Regarding productivity....having checked the times of posts I've noticed that most of the people who ***** about goverment service do this during office hours, I'm sure their bosses would like it if they concentrated on their jobs instead of doodling on computers during work hours.
 
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S.L.F said:
You can't compare semi state employees to public servants.
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This is very true. The commercial semistates are part of the public sector but not part of the public service. The commercial semistates were not a party to the Benchmarking process. The terms and conditions of the commercial semistates vary very much and in some respects resemble the arrangements in the private sector than the public service.

aj
 
ajapale said:
This is very true. The commercial semistates are part of the public sector but not part of the public service. The commercial semistates were not a party to the Benchmarking process. The terms and conditions of the commercial semistates vary very much and in some respects resemble the arrangements in the private sector than the public service.

aj
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But the commercial semi-states get pay increases at or above the benchmarking rates so for the private sector guy or gal who is paying for the whole thing it makes no difference.
What “commercial” semi-state body operates in a fully open market and still makes money? As far as I can see the only thing that differentiates them from the rest of the state sector is that their inefficiencies are (mainly) paid for directly by the people whom they charge rather than indirectly through general tax revenue. The ESB being a case in point.
 
S.L.F said:
Regarding productivity....having checked the times of posts I've noticed that most of the people who ***** about goverment service do this during office hours, I'm sure their bosses would like it if they concentrated on their jobs instead of doodling on computers during work hours.
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I have no doubt their bosses would but at least their "doodling" isn't paid for out of your taxes.
 
I have no doubt their bosses would but at least their "doodling" isn't paid for out of your taxes.
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Yes. In addition, many posters may be working for themselves.
 
Bad example; who are the NSAI's competitors?

Mind you, they presumably have counterparts in other jurisdictions and the comparisons should be fairly close to like for like; Assuming the data are available, it should be possible to benchmark some\most\all of their performance indicators in a fairly objective way.
 
As with many areas of the public service there is huge variation both within in and between such organisations.

In the case of NSAI there are some sections that operate in highly competitive areas and others that a old fashioned state monopolies.

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The National Standards Authority of Ireland is, Ireland's Standards body. NSAI facilitates the development of voluntary standard documents.

No competitors that I know about.


[broken link removed]

Certification is the process by which a body, e.g. the NSAI, certifies that an activity or process conforms to standards laid down for the markets in which that process takes place or into which resultant products may be Sold.

Several competitors SGS for instance


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A statutory body within the NSAI, (Metrology Acts 1980 to 98) LMS exercises regulation making and control functions with regard to measurements, mainly for the purpose of trade.

This activity was taken over from An Guarda Siochana Weights and Measures. No competitors


[broken link removed]

Agrément certification is specifically for new building products and processes that do not have a long history of use and for which published national standards do not yet exist.

No competitors

[broken link removed]

Thousand of competitors

NSAI Inc

A full service registrar providing ISO certification to clients in all industries from small enterprise to Fortune 500 companies.

Many hundreds of competitors
 
ajapale said:
As with many areas of the public service there is huge variation both within in and between such organisations.

In the case of NSAI there are some sections that operate in highly competitive areas and others that a old fashioned state monopolies.

[broken link removed]

The National Standards Authority of Ireland is, Ireland's Standards body. NSAI facilitates the development of voluntary standard documents.

No competitors that I know about.


[broken link removed]

Certification is the process by which a body, e.g. the NSAI, certifies that an activity or process conforms to standards laid down for the markets in which that process takes place or into which resultant products may be Sold.

Several competitors SGS for instance


[broken link removed]

A statutory body within the NSAI, (Metrology Acts 1980 to 98) LMS exercises regulation making and control functions with regard to measurements, mainly for the purpose of trade.

This activity was taken over from An Guarda Siochana Weights and Measures. No competitors


[broken link removed]

Agrément certification is specifically for new building products and processes that do not have a long history of use and for which published national standards do not yet exist.

No competitors

[broken link removed]

Thousand of competitors

NSAI Inc

A full service registrar providing ISO certification to clients in all industries from small enterprise to Fortune 500 companies.

Many hundreds of competitors
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Great post AJ and good exapmles.
We are currently moving from the NSAI to a UK company for our ISO registrations. They are less than 30% of the cost and much better to deal with.
 
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