Case Study ASM652/OSM652 MARCH – JULY 2020

BUSINESS PROCESS/OFFICE BUSINESS PROCESS

(ASM652/OSM652)
JUNE 2020

CASE STUDY: Bristol City Council

Procurement and Time Saving through E-Trading

Bristol City Council (BCC) is a unitary authority in the South West Region of England. The
Council serves a population of 400,000 and has an annual budget in excess of £724m. BCC,
as one of the largest unitary authorities is the country, spends over £300m a year on goods and
services. Bristol an early adopter of e-procurement and uses an electronic marketplace through
a process known within the Council as e-Trading as well as using the Government Purchasing
Card.

As a result of this initiative the Council has created significant procurement and time savings,
resulting in a reduction of 3 FTE (full time equivalents – measuring a worker’s involvement in a
project), the reallocation of 4 FTE and a cost reduction of £160,000. These savings were made
in one Department which was keen to embrace the technology. The implementation across the
rest of the council has been harder to achieve. The Corporate Finance and Procurement
division (CF&P) were keen to review the benefit being achieved by e-trading and the effect e-
procurement was having on the purchasing process as a whole.

Brief

The CF&P decided to review the use of e-Trading in one Council department to see if there
were any time savings to be made in the department. Focusing on one department would make
the project manageable, cost effective and if successful, would provide a model which could
easily be replicated in other departments. The department chosen for the initial study was the
Central Support Services (CSS).
The project was guided by the following three questions:
1. Can the way we purchase be made more efficient?
2. If we can improve our purchasing process, what time savings will we make?
3. How are we able to realize the time savings?

Approach
The review of the department was structured as a short project. Due to the nature of the project
(undertaking a review of an exciting process), it was decided that the project would benefit from
an objective viewpoint. To ensure the success of this project, BCC invested a large amount of
money in getting specialist to work with the state-of-the-art equipment. BCC sought to partner
with an external consultant for this project which is to be completed within 6 months. They
selected a specialist procurement consultant so that the project would also gain from specific
procurement expertise.

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Case Study ASM652/OSM652 MARCH – JULY 2020

Can the way we purchase be made more efficient?

The answer to the first question required the consultant to first acquire a comprehensive
understanding of the purchasing processes in CSS. In order to build a picture of the purchasing
process, buyers and managers within the department were interviewed by the consultant.

Staff was asked to detail how they purchase goods, how long it takes to complete a purchase,
which suppliers they use frequently and how the process could be improved to make it easier
from their perspective.

This consultative phase highlighted the following:

 Work was being duplicated. It was possible for an order to be raised using paper order
and approval process before being raised again on the e-trading system.
 E-Trading is easy to use. Staff using the e-Trading process finds it simple and
convenient to use. Ease of use or lack of training should therefore not be accepted as
excuses for not using the process.
 Orders were being managed divisionally. The handling of orders was being dictated by
the division they were being raised in. This division of labor was preventing orders being
handled in an efficient manner.
The current double approval process is preventing the following time savings from being
achieved:
 Mandate the use of e-Trading.
 When e-Trading is used properly a time saving of 13 minutes can be made against the
current process.
 When orders are raised using the Council finance system a time saving of 4 minutes can
be made.
(Adapted from Ticon, 2006)

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Case Study ASM652/OSM652 MARCH – JULY 2020

QUESTIONS (70 marks)

Read and understand the attached case study and answer the following questions. Your
answers must be in-depth and relate to the case.

1. List SIX (6) warning signs of trouble that indicate the need for reengineering.
(6 marks)

2. Briefly explain with examples TWO (2) of the most significant warning signs of trouble
that indicate the need for reengineering in BCC.
(10 marks)

3. List and describe FOUR (4) issues that BCC must address in properly sizing the project

(8 marks)

4. Explain the THREE (3) significant business process redesign principles that might have
been considered as guidelines to redesign the processes at BCC. Provide an example
from the case for each answer.
(15 marks)

5. Describe TWO (2) critical success factors BCC might have used to guide through their
business reengineering project. Cite example from the case.
(10 marks)

6. Identify and write TWO (2) excellent criteria, current benchmark and vision goal for the
restructured processes for time savings.
(9 marks)

7. Discuss FOUR (4) characteristics of success of the reengineering project.

(12 marks)

END OF QUESTIONS