Research Report

Introduction

Procurements are the most challenging buys for any project to manage. By their nature they usually represent high risks to the project’s quality, technical, cost and schedule. In order to be managed properly these items require that the project specify precisely what it needs, typically taking the form of specifications, drawings and often include a comprehensive statement of work.

The needs of procurements

Every project whether is providing a service, a product or a business solution has resources requirements that must be purchased. All of these resources can be sourced internally, bought or leased. It is very often when the project team needs the services of outside organizations or people to supply specialist services or equipment or to cover a temporary shortfall in the organization’s own resources. As the business continue to grow and to become more and more competitive project managers realize that obtaining goods and services from third parties provides several advantages over producing them inside the organization, and helps keeping project costs down while still achieving the company's planned objectives. Project procurement management is about purchasing the required resources on time and in an appropriate cost to meet the needs of the project scope.

Project Procurement Management

The PMBOK Guide - 5th Ed. defines the Project Procurement Management as “the processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results needed from outside the project team. “ To procure something means to acquire it. In the context of the project the process of procurement means buying or getting resources needed to perform the project work. Project procurement management includes contract management and change control processes needed to develop and administer contracts and purchase orders (PMI, 2012). The Project Procurement Management processes involve the extensive use of contracts, which are legal documents, used in project procurements, between a buyer and a seller, and depending on the context or situation can have a number of names as agreement, understanding, subcontract or purchase order. So procurement management is the process of creating or selecting, managing, and controlling these contracts. Whatever is the name of the contract it’s important to remember that it is a legally-binding document. If one of the parties fails to perform according to the contract, the consequences could be severe. For this reason contract are often subject to a much strictly review process than other project documentation. This is to ensure that the contract clearly describes the products, services or results required so parties know exactly what is expected of them and each other.