The Government has been working to promote the achievement of its cleantech objectives through public procurement. However, new types of cleantech acquisitions involve the risk of failure. In order to ensure that the opportunities created by the acquisitions can be exploited, public-sector organisations must have the capacity to tolerate and manage the risks arising from them. This can be achieved through a variety of means.
Writer
Matti Vedenkannas
Principal Legislative Adviser, LL.D., trained on the bench
Audit
The organisations responsible for public procurement can improve risk management in cleantech procurement in a number of ways. Procurement organisations can, for example, work to improve their operating cultures and management models, make their stakeholder groups more committed to cleantech, assess the profitability of the acquisitions and encourage companies producing cleantech solutions to offer them to the public sector.
The purchasing contract creates the framework for cooperation and risk management between the parties. Interactive operating models used as tools in the planning of acquisitions, procurement procedures and purchasing contracts help to create more opportunities for innovative solutions. Interaction also provides an instrument for managing procurement-related risks.
In an advanced procurement strategy, the objectives of the procurement unit and the ways to achieve them are made visible. Risk-management operating models are part of a strategic toolkit used in the carrying out of complex acquisitions.
An innovation-oriented procurement strategy demonstrates that the purchasing operations are supported by the management. The strategy and the support provided by the management serve as a backbone for managed risk-taking. At the same time, the strategy helps the organisation to examine the situation from an overall perspective and use it as a basis for its acquisitions.
However, an organisation needs more than a procurement strategy. The procurement organisation must know how to implement an advanced strategy. Developing a procurement strategy and expertise are closely connected.
Recognising acquisitions as strategically important also allows organisations to channel sufficient expertise to them because important matters are usually given a high priority when resources are allocated. At the same time, when procurement expertise is developed it may also release resources to complex acquisitions. When routine acquisitions can be carried out without problems, more expertise resources can be allocated to strategically important cleantech purchases.
