Public Procurement: A Profession in Its Own Right? – Brice Malm, Director of the Procurement & Supply Chain Practice

The procurement function, as we know it in the public sector, has evolved in recent years and continues to develop to align more closely with professional standards. Indeed, leaders of public organizations have every interest in optimizing the procurement function, which represents a significant portion of their operating and investment expenditures. Public organizations, however, are only gradually and partially moving toward an innovation-driven approach. From this perspective, enhancing procurement performance in the public sector becomes essential. Public procurement represents a way to leverage the skills assigned to the public “buyer” in the best conditions, always in the logic of serving the public interest.

Despite motivation, initiatives to improve procurement performance remain limited and highly heterogeneous across public organizations.
Barreyre (2010) provides a relevant illustration of the evolving context in which public buyers operate:
“In public organizations, much remains to be done, but progress has begun. While no social revolution occurs without a transformation of intellectual frameworks, the real world of business interacts with that of ideas, with no clear primum means in an iterative process. Thus, the morphogenesis of procurement organizations presupposes that companies find, in their socio-cultural environment, the incentives and resources that catalyze change.”
Although many practices have been recorded in various contexts, the evolution of the Public Procurement Code, recruitment of buyers from the private sector, multiple innovations, and the legal security context—which often relegates efficiency and economic performance to the background (Desmazes, 2001)—all complicate the professionalization of public procurement. In some cases, the delay is such that one may question the very existence of public procurement as a discipline and of the public buyer as a profession.

The reason is simple: public organizations today struggle to highlight the different levers of procurement performance due to a lack of focus on procurement maturity. Hospitals, local authorities, and the State should rely on a common framework and a set of procurement best practices. Yet, unlike other functions, there is, to our knowledge, no public procurement leadership model applied in France.

Thus, it appears urgent to develop a leadership and professionalization program to achieve a more mature public procurement function, enhance the image of public procurement within the procurement community, and strengthen the attractiveness of the public procurement sector, which is still often perceived as less prestigious than its private sector counterpart.
In practice, mature procurement organizations are those that rely on top professionals, know how to implement such strategies, and create overall organizational value. Procurement maturity should first reflect the level of professionalization, development, and expertise of the procurement function. It should also reflect how a procurement function organizes its resources, tools, practices, supplier panels, and communication to generate innovation at controlled costs and improve existing services.

Regarding skills development, practical measures include integrating more public procurement training into higher education programs, involving public procurement professionals to share the reality of procurement practices, which are engaging and complex in many respects.
The active involvement of public authorities is essential to transforming the culture of performance in public procurement, including national promotion initiatives for the procurement function within public organizations, associations of elected officials, DGS associations, Legal Affairs Departments, and other relevant bodies.

Article by Brice Malm, Director of the Procurement & Supply Chain Practice, for the special issue “Achetons Public” n°14 of the National Procurement Council (available for download on the CNA website in the media library under the journals section).