Computer and Technology // The State of Procurement Act 2004
The State Procurement Act 2004 which established the State Procurement Board is responsible for the overseeing of the procurement operations for public authorities in South Australia. This government body formulates the Procurement Policy Framework to prescribe the necessary compliance and limitation to public authorities in terms of procurement operations. The South Australia’s Strategic Plan, on the other hand, identifies the ways on how South Australia can be successful in its undertaking, particularly in making the community grow and prosper in the economic, social, and environmental aspects.
In reviewing the two documents, it seemed that the State Procurement Policy Framework is not aligned with the discussion of the South Australia’s Strategic Plan. For one, the procurement process is a defined as a three stage process: Acquisition Planning, Supplier Selection, and Contract Management. However, any discussion of procurement process was never mentioned in the strategic plan. Second, the Plan reflect the aspirations of the community. It addresses details of leadership, accountability, efficiency, transparency, and working with the community but it is more focused on the betterment of the community but it never pointed out about the procurement governance which is referred to “how procurement is structured and organised in the public authority, including roles and responsibilities of staff, delegations, capability and localised purchasing practices.”
The Procurement Policy Frameworks focus more on the exploration and share-of-knowledge strategies which are identified to develop and leverage the higher performance of public organizations. On one hand, the Strategic Plan directs the unique characters of innovative efforts to emphasize the resources and organizations from local level, while progressively commercializing the international essence of high-technology innovation. This motivation provides central function to bring in the idea and configurations at all levels of the organization that constructively facilitates the transition of knowledge into competitive advantages.
Rapid innovations in information and communication technologies have produced escalating and radical alterations in the social media, particularly in the last decades. With the emerging times, the system of communication has been developing to hit the contemporary demand of general community, so much so with mass media. The past two decades have witnessed that people display an attitude of objectivity in identifying community’s problematic areas. Through this, they would be able to address such issues. The openness and the analysis of these issues would also prove beneficial to the establishment of a culture of cooperation in the whole Aboriginal community.
The Strategic Plan further explains that there should be a soft launch of the changes in order to weed out whatever glitches and difficulties that may be seen in the new process. This way, the process will be polished and ready for immediate use by the time that it is finally implemented. A briefing with the community would then follow to let them know about the new technologies and the changes in the old process. The plan for transition would also be made known to the people so that they are aware of the various steps in the process of integrating new program or technologies into the operations.
Deliberate efforts are necessary in order to develop the community’s culture that promotes the integration of technology that caters the need of the people. In the long run, such culture will contribute to a better reputation and performance. This will also be a good catch-phrase to better serve the individuals involve with their problems. Getting to know and understand the community is essential for this process of knowing and understanding a particular geographic area goes hand-in-hand in building of trust, confidence, and relationship with community-wide. Moreover, the intensity and intimacy of direct national service or community work or service allow the individual or group to assess the strengths and weaknesses in facilitating the creation of new groups and relationships.
2017/1093
