Industry News

APM Specific Interest Groups (SIGs) offer a forum for collaboration and knowledge development in all areas of project, programme and portfolio management. They have a panel-based webinar scheduled on the 4th May from 12.40 to 13.45 to discuss practical lessons for project managers, bidders and those involved in the procurement process.

The purpose of projects is to enable or deliver benefits. The measure of benefits is value. So shouldn’t Project Managers, the Procurement function and the market (bidders) be partners in a process whose objective is to identify, quantify, and maximize Value? But how can this work?
This panel-based webinar explores how a collaborative approach to the procurement process based on contracting for outcomes, can deliver and quantify value. The three protagonists represent:

Project managers who are now measured just as much on the value they deliver, as well as against the traditional time, cost and quality.
The Procurement function, who have to demonstrate value and compliance. This becomes harder when using outcome-based procurement approaches instead of just the best economic value (lowest cost) for a given specification.
Business development who need to demonstrate value in proposals. Winning bidders are those who show superior value and can quantify the benefits supported by proofs.

The panelists are all experienced practitioners and thought leaders in their field.

Benefits of attending.

Attendees will:
• Learn about the state of the art and limitations on outcomes-based procurement.
• Hear examples of good practice from real-world practitioners.
• Learn proven techniques to identify, and quantify the value of benefits.
• Be able to recognise pitfalls and issues to address when applying these techniques at work.

The interactive agenda will include time for questions on topics raised.

Speakers:
Darren Knowd is the Chief Procurement Officer at Durham County Council who were awarded the Cabinet Office first-ever award for Social Value Leadership for an Organisation in 2016.
Darren leads all procurement activity at the County Council who spend over £500m annually in supplies, services, and works. He also represents the North East region on the LGA National Advisory Group for Local Government Procurement.
He was previously Head of Procurement at several District Councils prior to the establishment of the unitary council in 2009 and during this period he completed his MBA at Durham University Business School.

Tony Birch is Managing Director of Shipley Limited, a consultancy that provides organisations and individuals with consulting and training services focused on winning business in highly competitive environments.
He is a Fellow of the APMP and was one of the architects and creators of the APMP Certification scheme.

Hugo Minney Ph.D., is a Registered Project Professional and committee member of the APM Benefits SIG.
Hugo is Chief Executive of TyneHealth, a GP Practice federation serving two million patients. He is a Fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM) and an accredited practitioner of the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Model.

Dr. Jon Broome is the managing consultant for leading-edge projects consulting Ltd and chair of the APM Contracts & Procurement SIG.
He has hands-on experience of contributing to innovative procurements, both on the client and contractor side. Jon co-edited the soon to be released ‘APM’s Guide to the Procurement and Management of Contracts for Projects and Programmes’, which includes the trend towards outcome-based procurements and contracts.

To view our most recent vacancies for bid & proposal professionals, follow this link.

Winners of the Connect17 Awards, including global enterprises Cisco and Verizon, were announced last week at Qvidian’s annual user conference.

Qvidian, the leading provider of cloud-based RFP and proposal automation software, announced the winners of the Connect17 Awards, its annual customer excellence awards. The winning individuals were honored last week at Connect17, Qvidian’s annual user conference, held this year in Tampa, Florida.

Considering five unique categories, the Qvidian management and customer relations teams choose individual users and Qvidian champions who have driven business value and innovation in their enterprises with the help of Qvidian’s RFP and proposal automation software. Two individuals at Cisco and Verizon were repeat winners, having won Connect awards in unique categories two years in a row.

Winners of the Connect17 Awards include:

Innovator of the Year – Honors the person who has driven exceptional innovation within his or her team or organization by seeking out new and creative ways to utilize Qvidian. For the second year in a row, Qvidian honored Darrell Woodward from Verizon with an award.

Business Growth – After 40 years as primarily a provider of specialty assessments, Questar set an ambitious goal to become the premier provider of high-stakes grades 3–8 state-wide assessments. In June of 2015 — and within six months of fully implementing Qvidian — Questar won Mississippi’s state-wide assessment contract. The State of New York awarded Questar its state contract over their incumbent assessment provider shortly thereafter, and less than a year after that, Tennessee followed suit.

Business Transformation – Designed to recognize the individual who played a key role in questioning the status quo and drove transformational change and process improvements in his or her organization as supported by Qvidian. This year, Qvidian chose to award two individuals from ABM with the award, Mike Rembish, and Chloe Degen. ABM implemented Qvidian while aligning the business to different vertical markets. Mike Rembish and his team established a Centre of Excellence to more effectively cross-sell products in the vertical markets, with Qvidian as a key part of that move to a segmented approach.

Qvidian Superstar – Recognises an outstanding advocate for Qvidian, who evangelizes the role of the proposal writer both inside their organization and outside of it. Marcel Schwarz from Cisco was a repeat award winner this year. Schwarz and his group collected business requirements from different units within Cisco to determine how the services layer of the organization could help each one. Based on that research, the team developed a plan and gained buy-in from different product groups and functions across the company to fund an enterprise license. Now all of Cisco shares access to Qvidian, ensuring consistency and accuracy in selling a vast number of complex products.

Value Achievement – A special category for individuals at organizations who have implemented Qvidian within the last 12 months and in that short time have already driven ROI from usage of the software. Qvidian chose Maureen Holtzclaw from FIS for this award. Holtzclaw was part of a team that launched Qvidian to enable the organization to respond to business growth.

To view our most recent vacancies for Bid & Proposal Professionals, click here. To find the perfect bid or proposal writer or manager to join your team, click here.

Qorus, the company that helps organisations become more efficient when creating business-critical documents, has once again been listed in GeekWire 200, moving up 10 spots from last year.

Qorus, the Seattle-based company that helps organisations be more efficient when creating business-critical documents, is pleased to announce that it has placed 113th in GeekWire 200.

GeekWire 200 is a ranked index of Pacific Northwest start-ups using publicly available data to identify the tech companies most popular and trending among key online communities. The ranking is generated each month from GeekWire’s Startup List, a comprehensive directory of the region’s tech start-ups.
Qorus offers a range of Microsoft-based solutions that increase productivity when creating and collaborating on business-critical documents like pitches, proposals, RFPs, SoWs, contracts, and more. In 2016, the company released a suite of productivity-boosting add-ins for Office 365: Email Builder, Document Builder and Slide Builder, all of which are available from the Office Store.

Visit the Office store at http://bit.ly/2lIna0b

Ray Meiring, CEO of Qorus Software: “I am delighted that Qorus has been recognized by GeekWire again this year. We have been working hard on our new suite of products, and we’re pleased that this work is creating a buzz among key online communities.”

Meiring was featured on GeekWire’s Startup Spotlight in December 2016. Read the full interview here: http://www.geekwire.com/2016/qorus/

To view our latest vacancies for bid and proposal professionals, follow this link. To help us connect you with a winner to add to your team, follow this link.