The ultimate goal of procurement planning is to pursue a coordinated and integrated action to fulfil a need for goods, services or works in a timely manner and at a reasonable cost.
Early and accurate planning is essential to avoiding last-minute, urgent or ill-planned procurement, which is contrary to an open, efficient, effective and transparent process.
Proper planning also contributes to achieving efficient procurement, which again leads to savings in resources and improved programme implementation.
In certain circumstances, measures to speed up the procurement process may be applicable.
Most potential savings in the procurement process are achieved through the proper definition of requirements and the identification of potential risks in the planning stages.
In summary, procurement planning is important as it:
- confirms need
- helps define objectives, time frames and performance indicators
- identifies potential risks
- helps optimize the use of resources
- determines the correct procurement method
- determines the appropriate selection criteria
- provides a better service to the programme’s partners
- provides an overview of overall UNAIDS needs
- enables needs analysis that identifies ways to consolidate needs in order to achieve economies of scale
- alerts potential vendors.
UNAIDS, through the UBRAF, should ensure that effective procurement planning is in place at the corporate, regional and country levels. In addition, planning individual procurement actions, especially those of a complex nature, is of paramount importance to ensuring the timely and cost-effective acquisition of goods and services.
Planning as a management tool
Procurement and requisition plans can help identify periods of time during which a significant percentage of procurement actions are required. This information can assist in the planning and distribution of workload between various operational units, as well as the consolidation of multiple procurement needs into a single procurement process.
Procurement plan
The procurement plan is the consolidation and formalization of procurement needs of the organization at corporate level.
Based on aggregated requisition plans, the procurement plan is built at least once a year by the Procurement Coordinator. It is used for procurement recommendations at the corporate level, and it is published on the UNAIDS public website to provide potential bidders with advance notice of upcoming procurement activities, thus enhancing the transparency of the procurement process.
Since some procurement needs cannot fully be anticipated, the procurement plan is always based on estimates of procurement operations to be carried out in the specified period. Procurement Plan therefore should be reviewed and updated on a semi-annual basis.
Requisition plans
Requisition plans are the basis of the corporate procurement plan. They must be developed by each unit in support of the activity work plans when they are providing budget estimates.
Requisition plans have a simpler format than procurement plans, and they are developed by each country office and division for aggregation by regional offices and departments.
Requisition plans are submitted to the Procurement Coordinator for consolidation during an annual exercise and are reviewed mid-year.