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Procurement Best Practices and Strategies, Exams of Advanced Education

A range of topics related to public procurement, including the purpose of a procurement department, strategies for meeting cost savings goals, steps for changing organizational culture, developing productive teams, defining performance standards, promoting the procurement function, engaging disadvantaged businesses, ensuring compliance with contracts, handling client complaints, and implementing strategic sourcing initiatives. It also addresses issues such as intimidation by clients, inventory management, contract compliance, client satisfaction, leadership strategies, and continuity of operations planning. Insights and guidance for procurement professionals on various aspects of their role and responsibilities within public entities.

Typology: Exams

2024/2025

Available from 09/23/2024

professoraxel
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Download Procurement Best Practices and Strategies and more Exams Advanced Education in PDF only on Docsity! NIPG-CPP Exam With 100% Correct Answers 2023 Sandra is devising a list of "Procurement Truths" for adherence by her department staff. Which truth should she include? - Correct Answer-procurement is a customer service oriented function for the entity Which of the following statements best describes the purpose of a public procurement department? - Correct Answer-to maximize the value of taxpayer dollars and maintain public trust Carlos' team recently released a process for pCard approvals. What challenges should he anticipate? - Correct Answer-resistance by other members to complying with the new process requirements What type of data can Nailah use to determine if her procurement department is meeting cost savings goals? - Correct Answer-spend William may make changes in the Procurement Department. What is his first step when considering a new process? - Correct Answer-identifying a need for change What is an appropriate first step for Stacy to take to change her organization's culture? - Correct Answer-Have one-on-one meetings with her staff Angelica's team is creating steps for requisition processing. Which of the statements describe why implementing processes is important? Use of processes promotes: - Correct Answer-efficiency, fairness, and transparency Sean is reviewing is organization's values, customs, and beliefs. Which of the following is Sean reviewing? - Correct Answer-culture How can Cynthia successfully develop entity staff to work more as a productive, cohesive team in the future? - Correct Answer-recruit for skills and hire for suitability in the office As a procurement manager, which strategy can Fatima employ to encourage a good perception by the office stakeholders? - Correct Answer-create a fair balance between internal customers and suppliers The Chief Procurement Officer has asked Cicily to define standards for next fiscal year's performance. What is she describing? - Correct Answer-benchmarks Shawn's colleagues have very little confidence in her staff's abilities. Which is the best strategy for Shawn to use to bein creating change? - Correct Answer-promote the procurement function A school district buyer has a mandate from the Board to increase SWMBE (small, woman-owned, minority-owned business enterprise) opportunities. Which of the following would be the best step for her to take in order to do so? - Correct Answer- engage disadvantaged business enterprises (DBE) in procurements, which require little to no competition A Construction Manager is developing plans to ensure the project is LEED Certified. Which of the following is among the 8 categories should she consider? - Correct Answer-water efficiency A procurement specialist in a large city in the planning stages of a waste management contract in a municipality in which labor unions are prevalent. Which is a concern that may be addressed in the solicitation? - Correct Answer-worker safety in the supply chain An entity would like to invite more participation by local businesses. Which strategy may the Procurement Officer use to do so? - Correct Answer-speaking at local Chamber of Commerce meetings A buyer must consider traditional labor priorities in his scope of work. Which of the following should be considered? - Correct Answer-wages What is the purpose of a government compliance audit? - Correct Answer-it determines he degree of adherence to laws, regulations, policies, and procedures What is an effective way to prevent bid rigging? - Correct Answer-be familiar with and report indicators of price fixing and other forms of collusion One of the Department Directors wants to make changes to the software and then provide the modified software to other public entities free so they can all use the same data. The Procurement Director has advised the Department Director that she cannot do this without the express permission of the software provider since the software is protected under an intellectual property right. Which intellectual property right applies to this scenario? - Correct Answer-copyright The Manager has been invited to join the Offices R US account representative for golf to discuss the performance of the contract. What should the manager do? - Correct Answer-decline the supplier's offer and suggest a meeting in the office A procurement professional has only been in their new position for a short time when they receive a call from an individual requesting information about a particular solicitation award based on Freedom of Information. The procurement processional is The procurement professional for Tidewater Transit is working with members of the leadership team to reduce the inventory of material items. Across all departments, however, there is a reluctance to dispose of warehoused items because of the initial cost of the material. Which of the following statements would best help the procurement professional convince leadership to dispose of warehoused items? - Correct Answer- there are additional costs associated with holding inventory, and capital items are at risk of depreciation. The strategic goals of the city include cost efficiency, quality of life, and environmental awareness. An important new initiative started by the CPO to train buyers in negotiation for increasing cost savings is well underway. Ben, a buyer who has received the training, is negotiating an energy contract that has the potential for another $1 M in savings in addition to the $5M savings offered by the supplier; however, the supplier has offered the city access to land and assistance for building bikeways and green areas that the community can enjoy. The deal would benefit the environment as it will increase the use of LED lights and improve the position of the Procurement Department by securing the additional savings. Ben presents the situation to the CPO. How should the CPO respond? - Correct Answer-Accept the deal The county is undergoing an efficiency audit and Procurement has been directed to address end user complaints on the length of the procurement process. The Procurement Dept. has put in place multi-year and cost effective county-wide contracts, but department end-users still solicit quotes from suppliers outside the contracts for small purchases, claiming it is faster to go through the quote process. This is causing additional work for buyers. Without a good way to disseminate contract information attempts to enforce the use of established contracts have failed. Procurement is ready to implement a system that will increase compliance with current contracts, reduce work for Procurement staff, and enable the county to realize negotiated savings upfront. To get buy in and align this change with organization goal, Procurement's communication regarding this system should focus on which of the following? - Correct Answer-the enhanced procurement experience for end users, due to the implementation of a user- friendly system that allows end users to significantly cut down on the time that they spend trying to purchase the items they need. One of the goals of the city is to improve its processes to be more environmentally- friendly and be a leader in automation. The Procurement Department developed written policies, forms, and self-help guides for end users. All of this material is available on the intranet. However, all requests must be submitted in hard copy to the procurement department because a wet signature is required in the existing procedures. The forms need to be updated to reflect some changes that have been made in the last two years. Jim was assigned the project of improving the form submission process. Jim knows that no money will be made available for the implementation of a system that would enable greater automation; therefore, Jim should recommend which of the following? - Correct Answer-recommend streamlining the process by maximizing available technology and updating the written procedures to enable the process change Pam's group has been receiving a high number of requests for urgent solicitations. Many of those requests have incomplete scope/specification descriptions. This has caused them to fall behind on their workload. She came up with a triage strategy, but it will require the team to shift some project assignments within her team. What step should Pam take to increase the chance of buy-in? - Correct Answer-invite feedback and critique Which statement below best describes a practice a leader can use to become more innovative? - Correct Answer-suspend the belief that there is only one answer to any question Which of the following is NOT a strategy that leadership should use the improve performance of a team? - Correct Answer-refrain from recognizing individuals for success Hedgeworth Housing Authority is updating its website. They have asked the Procurement Dept. to identify what it would like to highlight on the primary website, where citizens and business owners in Hedgeworth visit to learn about the Authority. You can only highlight one thing. You are tasked by your supervisor to come up with ideas for the best information you could share you decide the best information to share on the website is: - Correct Answer-How to do business guide for selling goods and services to Hedgeworth The Procurement team at Wrightstown Parish has recently revised their policies and procedures, ten years after their last update. Last time updates were made, Procurement uploaded the new documents, added a "last revised" date and removed the old documents. The team is discussing approach and most feel this is all that is needed. You are new to the team and much younger than the rest of the team. You feel the website is in need of improvement. You also feel there is an opportunity to market these changes beyond uploading them to a website. While you hesitate to speak up, you decide your best argument to advocate for doing something beyond a website upload is to suggest: - Correct Answer-Given the years since the last update, and the changes in technology , there are numerous additional ways in which the updates could be marketed, including advocating for a summary of what changed. You are leading a team creating a Marketing Plan for your Procurement Dept. One area of opportunity discussed was how best to share policies and procedures. Through the brainstorming session, there are various arguments about what to share, who to share with, how to share, and when to share. These documents are large and there is a lot of information covered in them. The group is struggling. You should encourage the team to focus on opportunities that: - Correct Answer-Maximize the level of engagement opportunities with clients to share the policies and procedures, making all policy and procedure available, but targeting key relevant information through training, "quick reference" guides and tutorials. Which scenario below best represents a symptom in a problem? - Correct Answer- because of complaints on the lack of responsiveness by various departments, the entity conducted a client satisfaction survey, the Procurement Department had the lowest score. Which scenario below best represents a cause in a problem? - Correct Answer-to increase the pool of suppliers, measures are implemented to increase transparency Which of the following best describes a root cause analysis? - Correct Answer- determines what happened and how it happened The Procurement Dept. issued an IFB for the purchase of boxes to store court files. All bids are higher than expected. Lisa was asked to come up with a solution, and she has developed various alternatives to acquire the boxes. What step should Lisa take next? - Correct Answer-determine the benefits and disadvantages of each option Doug is assigned the project of analyzing the best course of action to improve the performance of the contract compliance group. The group is doing many good things, but there is room for improvement. Which tool is the best option for Doug to use to improve the performance of the contract compliance group? - Correct Answer-SWOT analysis You are telecommuting from home during a national emergency. Your entity provided you a laptop and monitor for your use while working from home. Your high school student asks to use the equipment to connect to a study group. What do you decide? - Correct Answer-deny your student use of either equipment or account Sabrina is your procurement colleague at Denali County. You are both Procurement Managers and have both been with Denali many years. Sabrina manages contracts for goods and services. Sabrina is a good friend, an excellent manager, and well-liked by staff. During a series of conversations with Sabrina about her new personal business startup, you begin to learn that Sabrina has been using an IT contractor who has a large contract with Denali. In fact, Sabrina has shared what an excellent rate she got for the services, given her close working relationship with the IT contractor. Sabrina is doing the work on her own time with her own money. You decide: - Correct Answer-You need to approach Sabrina and discuss the matter with her directly to ensure you have the facts. This is possible a violation of the procurement ethics policy Meredith is a newly promoted procurement manager at Hillside University over a team of twelve procurement professionals. Her office is extremely busy and staff is stressed due to the workload. Also, they are complaining about their colleague Joe and the time it takes him to process their solicitations. Joe is a longtime procurement employee, a former colleague and you know, as a former peer, he wasn't viewed as someone who "pulled his weight on the team. Non of the previous managers have addressed the issue with Joe. What should Meredith do? - Correct Answer-Work with Joe to create a Work