Bob Harris, an experienced adviser on commissioning, volunteered his expertise to help transform St Giles Trust's commissioning success.
St Giles could identify
many opportunities for new business in its existing prisons as well
as in new areas, and yet was not as successful as it wanted to be
in winning those contracts. Most contracts follow increasingly
demanding and formal tendering processes, often requiring
significant effort and partnering with complementary service
providers. In this environment, St Giles recognised the need to
increase its ability to select, qualify for, structure, bid and win
tendered contracts.
As part of its overall work to help St Giles to scale up, Impetus arranged support via the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants (WCoMC) pro bono scheme from Bob Harris, a founder member of WCoMC and a former Ernst & Young and Accenture partner with extensive experience in business development in the public sector. Bob (pictured above) brought his experience of how public sector organisations specify and procure service provider organisations, to help St Giles's business development and finance executives review where and how they should best "compete" and invest their efforts.
Over a fifteen-month period, Bob Harris provided 25 days of support. During this time, he helped St Giles chief executive Rob Owen and his team to craft eight specific bids and also to build their capacity for successful tendering.
As Bob was getting started with St Giles, he soon realised that they were primarily reactive in their bidding strategy. A key part of his work was advising staff at St Giles to think proactively about who might be prepared to commission their services (for example, the Ministry of Justice, the Learning and Skills Council), and encouraging them to build relationships with those groups prior to receiving an invitation to tender. Bob knew that this proactive and systematic approach to business development was the key to radically increasing St Giles's success rate.
Deciding which invitations-to-tender to bid on was another crucial area where Bob provided expertise. Public sector commissioning is a complex procurement process, and Bob explained that there are all sorts of reasons why in some instances the best strategy might be to decline. Investing resource only in the ones most likely to succeed proved to be a winning strategy for St Giles.
The result is that St Giles has won new prison contracts, and expanded the number of prisons it is working in to 24. Revenue has increased by an average of 33% a year for the past four years. Read more about our work with St Giles Trust.
Find out about the experience of strategy consultant Ditlev Schwanenflugel, who has volunteered his professional skills for a number of different Impetus charities.
We couldn’t possibly have expanded in the way we have, and with the speed we have, without support from Impetus.
Rob Owen
Chief Executive, St Giles Trust