GO Awards Wales 2016 Review

goawardswales16
Making history, the inaugural GO Awards Wales debuted at Cardiff’s Marriott Hotel on 6 October 2016, to celebrate the people behind the country’s procurement success. Here BiP Solutions journalist Julie Shennan reports from the night.

Among the guests were public sector buyers and their suppliers, continuing conversations that started earlier in Wales’ Day of Procurement celebration at Procurex Wales Live 2016, held in Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena.

Speaking at Procurex Wales Live, GO Awards judge and Welsh Government National Procurement Service Director Sue Moffatt said:

“This is the first annual GO Awards in Wales; it is something that we are hugely proud of. There has been a really high calibre of entries; it never ceases to amaze me how public sector procurement people care passionately about what they deliver.”

After an early-evening drinks reception, the chatter subsided as guests took their seats to enjoy a three-course meal and await the Awards results.

Hosting the GO Awards Wales 2016/17 ceremony was BBC Wales’ radio presenter Roy Noble.

Mr Nobel paid homage to the hard work of the judging panel: Welsh Government National Procurement Service Director Sue Moffatt; NHS Wales Director of Procurement Services Mark Roscow; Cardiff Business School lecturer Dr Jane Lynch; CBI Assistant Director Ian Price; Scottish Government Head of Scottish Procurement Policy and Strategy Nikki Bell; WCVA Chief Executive Ruth Marks; DVLA Commercial Director Andrew Falvey; ONS Director of Service Centre and Chief Procurement Officer Scott Howell; PASS Principal Procurement Consultant Eddie Regan; and Government Opportunities Managing Editor and Lead Judge Grahame Steed.

Speaking before the Awards ceremony, Mr Steed said:

“This year the standard of submissions was so high that we decided to make a significant change to our GO Awards process: whoever wins in their categories tonight automatically pre-qualifies to be a finalist in the National GO Awards next March. Thsi is a real testimony to the quality of submissions we have received this year.”

With this promise in the air, Mr Steed and Mr Noble proceeded to announce the 2016 winners and highly commended runners-up.

The first to receive their awards were GO Sustainability featuring Community Benefits and Joint Bidding Award winners South Wales Fire & Rescue Service along with Vale of Glamorgan Council, highly commended in the same category.

Also taking the stage were GO Collaboration – Central Government and NHS Award winners South Wales Police, Dyfed-Powys Police, Gwent Police; as well as the runners-up from NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership.

GO Collaboration Award – Local Government and Housing winners were then announced as Carmarthenshire County Council, with City of Cardiff Council highly commended.

Then the GO Best Service Award prize went to NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership & NHS Wales Informatics Service, with New Directions highly commended.

Next to take the stage were GO Innovation or Initiative of the Year Award – Central Government and NHS winners, the Welsh Government/National Procurement, with the Driver & Vehicle Licensing Agency as runners-up; they were followed by GO Innovation or Initiative of the Year Award – Local Government and Housing winners City of Cardiff Council, with Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd taking highly commended.

The penultimate category of the night, the GO Procurement Team of the Year Award, was won by Wales & West Utilities with NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership receiving highly commended.

With the Awards drawing to their conclusion, GO Procurement Leadership of the Year Award winners NHS Wales Shared Services Partnership took to the stage, preceded by highly commended runners-up Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd.

Accepting their second award of the night Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd spokesperson said:

“We have done a lot of work in the past 12-18 months, raising the awareness of procurement in the organisation, fine-tuning our procurement strategy and just getting people on board with the changes. This isn’t just an award for procurement; this award reflects the achievements of our entire organisation.

“It also feels twice as good knowing that this is the second trophy we have received tonight; so we will need to celebrate twice as hard!”

Echoing this sentiment was GO Awards Lead Judge Grahame Steed.

Mr Steed said: “This truly was a celebration of Wales’ Day of Procurement! From a hugely successful Procurex Wales Live event during the day that saw over 1000 delegates in attendance, right through to this stunning finale that is the very first GO Awards Wales, this has been a spectacular day! Well done to all the Winners and Highly Commended; your success is well deserved and I urge you to go on and represent Wales by entering the National GO Awards 2017/18.”

To enter the National GO Awards National 2017/18, visit The GO Awards website.

Share This Post

More To Explore
Blogs

Spotlight on…Fraser Haddow

This month’s spotlight turns to our IT operations and development department with Fraser Haddow.  In what capacity did you join BiP? What role did you start in and what role do you have now? I joined BiP in the role of Scrum Master, but have recently transitioned to Platform Success Manager. Whattakes up the most amount of your time in your day-to-day?  Azure DevOps! It’s the platform that allows us to track progress on our product development and keep track of any issues, so it’s use forms a large part of the role. What do you like most about your job?  I like seeing a product improvement travel through all the stages from idea to implementation and then deployment, overseeing the journey to completion provides a great sense of satisfaction. What do you like most about working at BiP?  I like interacting with lots of people that span multiple departments and roles, this keeps things interesting, and it always helps to see things from other people’s perspectives. What does a great day at work look like? It always starts with coffee – then a day with a few meetings (not too little or too many!) and some time to get some work done. Ideally, right now a good day also involves bugs being closed and no new ones being opened. Do you have any unusual hobbies? I’m a big movie nerd and am very into low budget/indie horror which is maybe unusual! Music wise, I also am very into death metal and New York hardcore which is a little unusual. Been anywhere strange? (country/place/bar/tourist attraction?!) The most fascinating place I’ve been is a city called Varanasi in India – would recommend to anyone, it’s super interesting. Blow your own! … what do you excel at? Work or leisure I like to think I’m quite good at guitar and drums. Work wise – I think I’m pretty good at being organised, but my colleagues can tell you if that’s true or not! Quick fire:  Coffee or tea – Coffee Book or film – Film Cat or dog – Dog (I have a Spanish greyhound) Hot or cold – Hot Salty or sweet – Salty Tattooed or not – Not Night out or night in – Night in  Email or meeting – Depends on how many other meetings are on! Teams calls: video call or audio? – Video Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Usually al-desko Mountain or beach – Beach

Vicky Maggiani 19th July 2023
Blogs

Spotlight on…David Stewart

This month’s spotlight falls on our BI Sales Division and David Stewart. A relatively new member of the team he has been at the company for just over a year, joining in May 2022 as a Business Development Manager for Tracker. Thanks for joining me, David. How are you enjoying life at BiP? I really like it, even though it’s taken a while to get to grips with B2B. I came from B2C, so I‘d never done business sales before, but the rewards are starting to come through. I managed to do 175% of my target last month and I’m on track for target this month – if everything goes to plan! What did you do before coming to BiP? I had a seven-year career at EE, starting as a part time sales advisor through to managing a couple of shops and being a sales manager for them. And what would you like to be in the future is there a dream job or a dream position? Aspirational goals? I’d love to get to director level at some point within a company. So be that Sales Director, Operations Director, that’s my goal What takes up the most of your day-to-day? Most of my day is genuine client interaction, customer interaction and reaching out to new prospects. Understanding what their challenges and struggles are to work with the public sector. And what sort of challenges do your customers have? what sort of challenges can you help solve for them? The challenges I’m hearing are that they don’t understand how to build the relationships with the public sector buyer before the tenders are published. They need to get in there as early as possible, to develop these relationships and we really are making a difference to their business because they’re not just running a tender, we’re helping them build a relationship for future business. It’s actually good to know you’re making a difference to somebody when you’re selling something. Do you prefer to be Working from Home or in the office? I like being in the office. I like having an atmosphere around me and the support network, your manager and your teammates. I’ve always thrived off a good atmosphere, so I prefer to be in the office than work from home. Are there any sort of changes or initiatives you’d like to implement into BiP? I ran a couple of charitable events at EE before, Charity 11 aside football matches and things like that. There’s a lot of buildings around, there’s the BBC, The Village hotel, big corporations, big businesses that I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t want to get involved in charity stuff like this. It’d be great to implement something like that. What the biggest challenges you have in your role? Managing customer timelines and managing my own pipeline. That’s the hardest part of this job. Not knowing when something’s going to come in and when something’s pulled out from under you. My colleagues and my manager Chris help me regularly with this and are extremely supportive. What do you like most about your job? The interaction with people, I’m a big people person. I really enjoy speaking to people in different industries, different businesses and just learning more about what they’re doing for two reasons. It builds up my knowledge of the market in general and lets me understand what businesses are really struggling with. Speaking to people and making a difference is the thing that makes a big difference to me. Speaking to someone about the challenges they’re having, and if I can genuinely fix it for them, that’s what I like most. What do you like most about working at BiP? The culture is very good so far and very much gives back as well and looks after its employees. The support and the culture in the business to make sure everyone succeeds is incredible. What does a great day at work look like? A great day looks like this: seeing my name up in that sales board a few times on one day. As soon as a deal comes in, but also coming in to a reasonably filled diary. Do you have any unusual hobbies? I’m a very keen badminton player. I’ve been playing for years competitively. I had my own deejaying business for a couple of years as well. Quick fire. Coffee or tea – Coffee Book or film – film Cat or Dog – Dog, I have a dog. Hot or cold – I prefer being cold Salty or sweet – Sweet Tattooed or not – tattooed Night out or night in – Night out. E-mail or meeting – Meeting Teams call video or audio – Video, always video. Lunchtime: Al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Break out altogether, I like sitting in the breakout zones. Mountain or beach – Beach

Vicky Maggiani 23rd June 2023

Do You Want To Boost Your Business?

drop us a line and keep in touch

Contact Us