The Digital Strategy for Wales sets out how public sector procurement has a real opportunity to support and grow Welsh businesses and digital skills.
In this blog, we provide an update on how the ‘Procurement Centre of Excellence’ is developing and shares some findings about what it could be called going forward.
In October this year Rebecca Evans MS, Minister for Finance and Local Government, announced that a supplier had been appointed to support a pilot for creation of a ‘Procurement Centre of Excellence’ . In our first blog we talked about the background and approach to this work and how commercial and procurement communities in Wales can get involved.
Choosing a name
One of our first tasks has been to think about the name. Naming something is always hard. It’s like naming a child. Everyone has slightly different preferences and everyone has a view! So it was important we stepped back to follow a logical process and think about the concepts. Our first considerations were:
- Meaning: what does the name tell us?
- Sentiment: how does it fit with naming insight?
- Pros and cons: what should we consider?
We knew we then needed to look at the logistics
- Companies House/ Trademark checks: are these clear and is the name available?
- Online search checks: does anything come up? If so, what is the level of risk?
Getting insight and feedback
We wanted to get insight and feedback to help us understand what best to call it. In addition to the findings of the Discovery, our survey at the Procurex Wales Conference, told us that some people felt the name ‘Procurement Centre of Excellence’ could be perceived as elitist and not community focused. Given that this is all about community, we wanted to create a name that is more collaborative and inclusive and reflected the sentiment we were getting through the feedback.
Concepts
We also had to look at what was already out there. We didn’t want a name that was already in use or had different meaning based on historical connotations. A review of the landscape ruled out some of the descriptive names that might otherwise have been in the running such as Procurement Service or National Procurement Services. Even Procurement Centre of Excellence was already used by the UK Home Office!
What became apparent was that we wanted to find a name that signifies a shift to something new. A move away from old ways of doing things. We need it to reflect the sentiment of the new community, and be adaptable for use with straplines and sub-brands.
Welsh first
We wanted to make sure the Welsh language led rather than followed in the creation of this new supportive community. We wanted to find a name that would work in both languages, but was derived from Welsh. A brand that was created with Welsh at its core rather than retrofitted once decisions were made.
We were looking for a Welsh word that represented the sentiments of the commercial and procurement community, that was easy to say for non-Welsh speakers and that hadn’t been used by anyone else recently. After trawling through Welsh dictionaries and a thesaurus, we agreed on a name that we all felt worked well:
cyd1
1. a Uniad, cydiad, cyplysiad, cyswllt; undeb, cyfuniad:
a joining, a coupling, junction; union, combination.
A concise, conceptual word that would work well with a strapline such as ‘Bringing commercial and procurement communities together’ / ‘Yn dod â chymunedau masnachol a chaffael ynghyd’.
It also lends itself well when used as a prefix to develop sub-headings around the name, that will work for collaborative spaces we’ll be creating as part of the project (more on that in future posts!).
What’s next?
We’re now working up the branding concepts that will bring the name to life. We’ve shared the brief and background with the designer and we’re looking forward to seeing what our new name will look like as a brand to reflect a new, collaborative way of working for commercial and procurement communities in Wales.
Victoria