Procurement achievers honoured

Australasia’s top procurement performers were recognised at the 6th Annual Procurement Professional Awards held in Melbourne on Wednesday night.

Qantas Airways picked up the award in the Best Infrastructure and Capital Works Project category, with judges noting the entry’s “excellent demonstration of innovation, speed execution and the key role played by procurement”. The Queensland Government’s Department of Public Works received a special commendation for successfully executing a high-profile project which balanced the diverse needs of many stakeholders.

Westpac and Fiserv Solutions Australia took the accolade in the Best Supplier Partnership category, cited for their industry-first collaboration which demonstrated industry-wide innovation and was an object lesson in managing a supply partnership.

The New Zealand Ministry for Economic Development (MED) won the Best People Development Initiative award in what judges described as the most difficult category to adjudicate, with the strongest quality of entrants. They noted, however, that the New Zealand entry stood out because it demonstrated “an incredible range of procurement-led achievements in a very short period of time”. George Weston Foods was highly commended for its effective use of every-level education, training and development to reinforce the shift to strategic procurement.

The New Zealand Government was also recognised in the Most Improved Procurement Operation category, picking up the award for its outstanding example of transformation of procurement, responding to the skills shortages and developing and implementing procurement reforms across government.

Commendations in this category were awarded to Railcorp and George Weston Foods – the former for demonstrating best procurement practice within a large corporation and the latter for the scale and complexity of implementing strategic procurement.

No award was made in the new category of Most Innovative and Effective Use of Technology. The judging panel pointed out that while the standard of submissions was high and the judges were presented with good projects which were well executed, there was no stand-out example of true innovation for the profession.

Commonwealth Bank subsidiary BankWest won the Best Process Improvement Initiative award in recognition of an outstanding approach to process improvement of critical business processes with a significant contribution from procurement.

Judges also commended PBL for its great achievement of a new procurement team which set out to improve processes and change the entire procurement system.

The Best Cross-Functional Teamwork Project award was shared by New Zealand’s MED and Woolworths. In the case of MED, the award recognised the successful execution of a complex, large-scale project with procurement leadership of a diverse body of stakeholders.  Woolworths, meanwhile, was acknowledged for creating an excellent example of demand management, cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.

NAB won the Best Example of Socially Responsible Procurement award for demonstrating industry leadership in setting minimum Socially Responsible Procurement standards for its suppliers across all areas of supply.

The Queensland Government’s Chief Procurement Office received special mention for its leadership in Socially Responsible Procurement with an innovation that will have implications for all public sector agencies nationally.

Susannah Malcolm of the Queensland Government Chief Procurement Office was named Young Procurement Professional of the Year.  It was pointed out that the category attracted nominations from a number of very good, young procurement leaders. However, Susannah proved her extensive contribution to procurement within the Queensland Government Chief Procurement Office by demonstrating leadership and excellence across each facet of this award.

The awards ceremony also included the results of the CIPS Australasia Essay Competition co-sponsored by Curtin University and Rio Tinto. The competition was won by Suzanne Little, whose essay will be published in the next issue of Procurement Professional, while another entrant, Tom Russell, was also commended for his submission.

The prestigious CIPS Leadership Award was presented by David Noble, chief executive of CIPS, to Railcorp’s Kevin McCafferty. McCafferty joins former winners like Papua New Guinea’s Central Supply & Tenders Board, Rio Tinto Procurement, John Tondut, from the department of treasury & finance in Western Australia and the APCC Skills Development Group, Phil Weir, Senior Procurement Advisor in New Zealand Government, and the inaugural winner of the CIPS leadership award, Bill Aukett, the former President of the AIPMM and subsequent chair of the CIPSA Steering Group and the Award judges.

CIPSA Managing Director Jonathan Dutton says this year’s awards attracted a record number of entries.

“It was a tough job for the judges as the calibre of entries was exceptional,” he says. “The level of professionalism reflected by the submissions improves each year and we’re extremely proud to honour some significant achievements.

“This year, we can truly acknowledge exemplary work among the winners and many of the other nominations which were commended by the judges,” he says.

CIPSA would like to thank the sponsors of the awards and all of those organisations who submitted entries.