Is there a theme emerging ?

I did a talk tonight to the Pimento agencies. They are a network of individual and specialised agencies who run separately and also together under the Pimento umbrella - expertly managed by Stephen Knight and Isabelle Beauquin.

They were really interested in hearing about the role of client procurement and I got onto my favourite soapbox of the month, please support / accept and work with client procurement.

The main two issues that they raised (and I think that they have a point) is:

• All too often in tender processes, procurement are faceless and you cannot interact with them (this was brought up at the Iris procurement breakfast as well)
• Does an e auction work for marketing services ? (I like e-tendering as it reduces the amount of paper used in a RFP process but think it is very hard to use e -auctions for services - goods with a fixed specification - yes)

I know it is hard to talk to suppliers during any procurement process but in an area such as the one that we work in (marketing), as Bob Hoskins used to say in the old BT adverts "it is good to talk". Positive client - agency - procurement dialogue is productive when it works well.