Why Procurement “Fails” - And Why the Real Issue Often Starts Earlier

Across major projects, it is common to hear familiar frustrations that procurement has fallen short of expectations. The tender was overly bureaucratic or box-ticking. The process seemed to suppress innovation rather than encourage it. The winning contractor appeared stronger on written submissions than on real delivery capability. The commercial model, once awarded, proved misaligned with the risks, constraints, or outcomes the client needed to achieve.

These symptoms are real - but they rarely originate within procurement itself. More often, they stem from two upstream causes entirely within the client’s sphere of influence:

1. A lack of clarity about what the project needs, and
2. A tactical rather than strategic approach to procurement, often led by individuals without the experience to design innovative, outcome-led processes.

Procurement is frequently treated as an administrative step: publish documents, score tenders, pick a winner, move on. Yet major programmes are far too complex for this mindset. Procurement is not a clerical function - it is a strategic design discipline. It translates client objectives, constraints, risks, delivery strategy and commercial intent into a structured route to market that maximises value.

When these elements are poorly understood or insufficiently articulated, even a compliant procedure will struggle to produce the outcomes the client wants. Procurement becomes mechanical rather than purposeful. Templates are recycled, criteria are generic, and suppliers respond with safe, unambitious solutions because they have not been given a clear or compelling challenge.

Compounding this, procurement on many major projects is not always led by individuals with the breadth of experience or commercial judgement required. Designing a procurement procedure that is flexible, competitive, innovative and legally robust demands a skillset that blends commercial acumen, risk understanding, delivery expertise, behavioural insight and legal literacy. When capability is lacking, the process gravitates toward the familiar - rigid, tactical, and risk-averse - thereby closing off options and reducing the space for innovation (aka competition).

This is why the real work begins long before the first tender document is drafted. Clients must first resolve a set of foundational questions that shape every aspect of the route to market:

• What outcomes genuinely matter? Is the priority programme speed or certainty, innovation, buildability, cost evolution, operational efficiency, or a blend of these?
• What is the delivery and phasing strategy? How do development-stage constraints - such as securing a DCO, funding approvals, land assembly or stakeholder interfaces - shape what is feasible?
• Which risks can (or should) be transferred, and which must be actively managed by the client? What does intelligent risk allocation look like for this specific project? Can risks be mitigated proactively through the tender process (not just transferred)?
• What market conditions will influence success? What is the level of capacity, competition, and appetite for early involvement or integrated delivery? Can the market effectively respond to the proposed plan?
• What commercial principles define value? Collaboration, incentivisation, progressive design development, behavioural alignment, or something else?
• How much procedural flexibility is required - and for what purpose? Where will the client benefit most from dialogue, staged competition, early contractor input, or optionality at key decision points?

Once these foundations are clear, procurement can be designed intentionally. Processes become tailored rather than templated. Competitive tension is used strategically, not dogmatically. Dialogue, early contractor involvement, design-to-budget, or staged competitions become tools used deliberately rather than avoided due to lack of familiarity.

The message is simple: procurement does not create outcomes - it operationalises them. When clients invest upfront in strategic clarity and ensure competent, experienced leadership of the procurement function, outcomes improve markedly. When these ingredients are missing, even the best-run competitions can fall short of expectations.

Clients deserve better outcomes - and they are usually achievable. But they require procurement to be treated not as paperwork, but as strategy.

Under the Procurement Act 2023, the Competitive Flexible Procedure provides the freedom to put this thinking into practice. Rather than channelling every competition through a rigid, prescriptive sequence, the new regime allows contracting authorities to design a route to market that genuinely reflects their objectives, constraints and delivery strategy.

It enables clients to build structured dialogue into the process where it adds value; to maintain competition for as long as it remains beneficial; to explore alternative commercial models; to introduce early contractor involvement; and to shape evaluation criteria around the behaviours, capabilities and outcomes that matter. Crucially, it allows optionality - two-bidder finals or direct award - when framed transparently and applied proportionately.

But flexibility alone does not guarantee better results. The Competitive Flexible Procedure is only powerful when used intentionally. If the client lacks clarity about outcomes, risks, constraints, commercial priorities or market realities, the process will still underperform - simply with more options available to misuse. Conversely, when these foundations are well understood, the new regime becomes an accelerant: a way to structure competition around value, not paperwork.

The opportunity is clear. Clients now have the legislative room to design procurement around what the project actually needs - rather than forcing the project to adapt to the procedure. Those who embrace this shift, invest in strategic definition upfront, and ensure competent, experienced leadership of the procurement function will consistently achieve stronger, more aligned and more innovative outcomes.

In short, the Act gives clients the freedom to build the procurement they truly need. The responsibility is to use that freedom wisely.