The best procurement is not merely a transactional function focused on purchasing things or shaving costs off a bottom line. Procurement can be a strategic enabler that underpins efficiency, compliance and innovation.
Healthy and sustained relationships are the real infrastructure that supports procurement success. Relationships take time, trust, communication and empathy. Without them, procurement is reduced to paperwork and policy compliance. With them, it becomes a driver of strategic outcomes.
It’s not the rules or frameworks that make procurement work; it’s the people who understand how to use them effectively in collaboration with others. Value for money, a cornerstone of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules, cannot be achieved in isolation. It emerges from early engagement, proactive collaboration and deeply cultivated relationships – both internally with agency teams and externally with suppliers and stakeholders.
Elevating procurement to the executive table
This starts with engaging senior executives through data. Presenting a consolidated view of procurement expenditure – current, future and committed – transforms procurement from an invisible overhead to a strategic imperative.
Agencies often don’t realise how much of their budget flows out through contracts until the numbers are put in front of them.
A focus on relationships inside the organisation
Internally, procurement plays a critical role in delivering the strategic goals of every business area. But too often, procurement staff behave like passive administrators, simply guiding others through a process.
Procurement professionals must lead with insight, help define outcomes and understand the business well enough to challenge assumptions and improve approaches.
Likewise, procurement’s relationship with finance shouldn’t be siloed. They share natural overlaps, from budgets and approvals to governance and audits. These are not just points of compliance, they are opportunities for efficiency, risk reduction and better financial decision-making. Similarly, procurement’s alliance with legal teams should begin earlier, especially for high-risk procurements, not just when the contract needs to be signed.
And it’s not only about collaboration during active procurement. A proactive procurement team must work with the business areas before procurement begins. Early engagement helps shape requirements and timelines, preventing unrealistic expectations and last-minute compromises.
Nurturing supplier relationships in both sickness and in health
A well-managed supplier relationship can drive continuous improvement, innovation and risk mitigation. Yet many government contract relationships follow a predictable pattern: intensive involvement during the procurement phase, followed by diminishing engagement after contract execution.
This “set and forget” mindset is not only wasteful, but it’s also dangerous. Good supplier management requires a cadence of engagement, clear roles, escalation pathways and long-term planning. Strong relationships help suppliers anticipate agency needs, respond to challenges and even invest in their own capabilities to better serve.
When supplier meetings are skipped because “everything’s fine,” early warning signs are missed. When they’re avoided because things aren’t fine, the problems only fester. Regular, structured, data-informed dialogue should be the norm, not the exception. And when things are going well, that’s precisely the moment to reinforce relationships, not retreat from them.
Beyond the contract – thinking systemically
Engaging with the broad base of suppliers outside of active contracts, especially in sectors with scarce or highly specialised capabilities, is crucial. Government procurement can’t afford to be reactive. Building understanding and visibility with key suppliers, even before tenders are issued, ensures capability and readiness when the time comes.
We also need stronger collaboration with industry bodies. They offer early insight into market shifts, insurance trends, workforce shortages and technology innovation. Without this engagement, procurement runs the risk of designing processes that are out of step with market realities, unintentionally locking out vital suppliers or missing opportunities for better outcomes.
Collaboration beyond walls
Finally, procurement leaders need to look sideways. Inter-agency collaboration remains underutilised and it’s a missed opportunity.
Sharing supplier performance data, standardising templates and policies, learning from audit findings, or even pooling workforce training can prevent duplication, reduce risk and improve capability across government.
Crisis response, as we saw during COVID-19, showed just how siloed agencies can be when it comes to procurement, but also how they can move towards more collaborative, innovative procurement when a crisis demands it. Inter-agency collaboration should be built into our everyday processes, not just triggered by disaster.
Relationships don’t build themselves
Procurement professionals need to ensure that a part of their time each week is allocated to relationship building. To lead conversations and invest in the relationships that will carry agencies to better outcomes. Because in procurement, as in all of government, people (not paperwork) make the difference.
In this article, Sean King and Andrew Stephen explored and summarised the insights raised in a discussion they presented at The Day Out, an annual professional development day for public sector employees hosted by SPA Australia. The topic was around Building and Sustaining Key Relationships for Procurement Success. To watch the full conversation, the webinar can be accessed here.
About the Authors
Andrew Stephen
Andrew is an Expert Advisor and a Team Lead in the Commercial Group at SPA Australia. He’s a highly experienced project manager and procurement and contract management specialist.
Andrew has managed major acquisitions in the Defence portfolio and was responsible for overseeing an annual procurement budget exceeding half a billion for Services Australia. He was also responsible for the Commonwealth Procurement Framework while in the Department of Finance, including leading the rewrite of the Commonwealth Procurement Rules in 2012.
Andrew has also undertaken reviews of procurement frameworks for both government and private sector organisations. He sat on several cross-government and private-sector procurement steering committees, including the Department of Finance Centre of Procurement Excellence, the National Indigenous Australia Agency Cross Agency Working Group and Supply Nations Leadership Round Table.
Sean King
Sean King is the National Lead, Defence and Analytics providing strategic leadership across SPA Australia’s procurement, contracting, commercial advisory and data- driven decision-making services. In 2012 he co-founded Proximity and played a pivotal role in its growth into a market-leading professional services business. In 2025, Proximity was acquired by SPA.
Sean has worked on some of Australia’s largest projects, including multi-billion dollar deals and significant national programs. These have included assisting the Australian Government to purchase the largest ships ever owned by the Australian Navy, major technology projects such as Defence’s next-generation desktop upgrade and high-frequency communications, whole-of-government technology arrangements for the DTA and establishing the National Centre for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.
Sean is recognised by Best Lawyers for Commercial Law and Government Practice and Doyle’s Guide for Corporate, Commercial & Procurement.
