- Navigation:
- About Marc1 Ltd
- About Colin Cram
- In The News
About Marc1 Ltd
Marc1 Ltd is recognised internationally for its thought leadership in procurement, shared services, outsourcing and efficiency generally. A regular adviser to government committees and other bodies, Colin Cram, its managing director, is well known in many parts of the world as a conference speaker and chair and for his journalism, broadcasting and workshops.
Marc1 Ltd has established itself as a first choice consultancy for many private and public sector organisations. It has access to an exceptional range of consultants, dedicated to delivering outstanding and on-going results for its clients.
About Colin Cram
Colin M Cram FCIPS
Managing Director, Marc1 Ltd
Present Positions
- Managing Director of Marc1 Ltd, which is recognised internationally for thought leadership, consultancy, conference and training services. Clients have included major UK and international public and private sector organisations.
- Contributing Editor, Guardian’s Public Leaders Network (National UK newspaper)
- Associate Fellow at Manchester Business School (University of Manchester)
Career Résumé
- As Creator and Director of leading edge joint and collaborative public sector procurement organisations for the past 30 years, Colin was responsible for securing efficiency improvements from third party spends of up to $10bn a year. Cash savings from his initiatives exceed $1.5bn pa. He has been responsible throughout for initiating and implementing innovative strategies for procurement, shared services, outsourcings, tackling monopoly supply situations and cartels, trouble-shooting and organisational re-engineering. He was a pioneer of ‘Lean’ procurement.
- His teams provided contracting support for major projects, including the 4th most powerful computer in the world and a specially constructed Antarctic research ship. His breadth of experience of UK public sector procurement is unrivalled.
- In the early years of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, Colin initiated the drive to improve UK public sector procurement. He initiated the pan-public sector procurement training programme.
- Colin pioneered public sector outsourcing policy in the 1980s, which has led to the UK government being at the forefront of service outsourcing.
- A trained fraud investigator, one of his initiatives in the 1990s led to the continued drive to address UK benefits fraud. Since then, savings have run into many $billions.
Major Reports
- Colin co-authored in 1984 the first report on government procurement and the second report in 1985 was largely based on his work and reviews.
- In 2010, Colin wrote the internationally acclaimed ‘Towards Tesco’ report for the Institute of Directors, which demonstrated how public sector procurement should be structured in order to enable the effective management of this huge spend, deliver the huge savings that are needed and implement procurement related government policies. http://www.marc1ltd.com/downloads/articles/Towards%20Tesco,%20IOD%20Article.PDF The principles in the report are applicable equally to private sector organisations.
- In October 2012, Colin wrote a paper for the USA on “Generating Economic Growth through Smarter Public Procurement” http://www.cut-the-deficit.com/, which received positive coverage by Forbes and the US Taxpayers Protection Alliance. http://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/index.php?blog&action=view&post_id=263 http://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2012/10/08/dumb-practices-why-american-tax-dollars-are-wasted-and-where-to-find-the-solution/
Adviser to Government and Public and Private Sector Bodies
Colin has been a member of EU working groups on innovation, procurement and sustainability, has been an ‘expert witness’ to UK Parliamentary committees and has advised on various reviews of public sector procurement. He has been consulted by politicians of main political parties and has advised the team reviewing National Health Service procurement and the Cabinet Office on central government procurement. Recent published reviews on which he provided advice include:
- House of Lords Science and Technology Select Committee enquiry in 2011 into the use of ‘Public Procurement as a Tool to Stimulate Innovation’. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201012/ldselect/ldsctech/148/14804.htm
- Office of Fair Trading report, ‘Commissioning and Competition in the Public Sector’ (issued on 15 March 2011 http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/comp_policy/OFT1314.pdf ).
- New Local Government Network publication on shared services, ‘Shared Necessities’. http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2011/shared-necessities-the-next-generation-of-shared-services/
- Reviews by the National Audit Office, which is the UK Parliament’s value for money ‘watch-dog’. http://www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/research_councils.aspx
Broadcaster, Journalist and Business Awards Panellist
Professional Journals. Colin is a regular contributor to professional journals and web-sites including:
- Guardian’s Public Leaders Network (45 articles) http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/colin-cram
- Supply Management http://blog.supplymanagement.com/author/colin-cram/
- Procurement Insights (‘Google’ ‘colin cram procurement insights’)
- Public Servant articles in 2012 include: Ministry of Defence Procurement Outsourcing, Managing Public Sector Procurement, Income Generation, Clinical Commissioning, National Health Service Procurement, Lean Government and Realising Community Wealth.
- Professional Outsourcing http://www.purplecowmedia.net/site_content/proout/issue_feature_pdf/strategist38-41.pdf
- Financial Times: Colin was recently interviewed by this global financial newspaper..
Broadcaster. He has been interviewed several times for BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) Radio 4 and 5 Live and Procurement Insights (Canada).
Awards Judge. Colin is a regular judge on awards panels for business and the public sector including for the Health Service Journal, Municipal Journal and National Business Awards.
Conferences and Workshops. Colin is a sought after speaker, chair and programme designer for UK and international conferences, seminars and workshops.
UK Conferences, Events and Workshops in 2012
- Lean Government
- Income Generation
- Hospital Directions
- Association of University Administrators Wales Network Conference
- Institute for Public Policy Research
- Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Round Table Debate
- Government Computing Round Table Debate
- Procurex
- Procurement for Housing
- NHS (National Health Service) Procurement
- Local Government Procurement Network
- eWorld Purchasing
- Shared Services
International Conferences, Events and Workshops in 2012
- Transforming Procurement (Singapore)
- Creating World Class Procurement (Singapore)
- Strategic Procurement and Contracting (Dubai)
- Public Sector Procurement (Dubai)
- Combating Procurement Fraud (Dubai, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg)
- World Class Procurement (Jakarta)
- London School of Economics Strategy and Management Consulting Conference
- Bangor University: Procurement Week 2012
- University of Manchester Business School: ‘Underpinn’ Conference
Other conference topics for which Colin has chaired and put together programmes in recent years include Managing Public Sector Procurement, Local Government Procurement, Greening the Supply Chain, Outsourcing, Managing the Deficit, Efficiency and Reform, Operational Efficiency Programme.
You Tube. See Colin on YouTube.
Past Positions
- Director (and founder) of the North West Centre of Excellence. This led the drive for efficiencies through collaboration, joint procurement and better practice across 47 local authorities. Its scope included procurement, construction, shared services, health and social care and the English lead for local passenger transport.
- First Director of the North Western Universities Purchasing Consortium, increasing membership from 13 to 22.
- First Director of the Benefits Agency Contracts Organisation (which he created and where he pioneered a category management approach to central civil government procurement).
- First Director of the Research Councils’ Procurement Organisation (which he created and which was the first procurement organisation in the public sector to provide a complete procurement and contracting service to independent bodies).
- Head of the Research Equipment Affinity Group (which he created), a collaboration of universities to reduce the costs of research equipment.
- Founder Member of ProcHE - to develop strategies to address UK higher education’s $6bn annual procurement spend.
- A founder member of the Central Unit on Purchasing, created as a result of his procurement reviews and reports to secure much better value for central government procurement.
- Senior Adviser to the Office of Government Commerce.
- Member of the Advisory Board for the University of Glamorgan Business School.
- Chair: Information Society Alliance (EURIM) Procurement Committee.
- Member of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS).
- Trustee of the CIPS pension scheme.
- Fraud Investigator with Customs and Excise
Qualifications and Professional Membership
- Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (FCIPS).
- Member of SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives).
- Member of IACCM (International Association for Contract and Commercial Management).
- Honorary Associate Fellow in the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research in Manchester University.
- Associate of ResPublica.
- Member of the Society of Purchasing Officers.
- Associate Member of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE).
- Royal Military College of Science (now Cranfield University): Diploma in Management Services and O and M
