Emergency Procurement and Procedures as a Purchasing Policy (Part 1)

Authored by Azra Sultan

Any organization’s general concern, especially from any service industry, is to cater for emergency requirements. During the course of consulting it is often observed that in order to achieve this, procurement departments find it difficult to operate through normal procurement policies. Contracts from existing contractors often stand ineffective based on immediate needs and depending on the severity of a disaster incident. It is therefore important to establish an emergency procurement and purchasing policy prior to emergence of such situations to ensure that the cost spent on such commodities is reasonable and procedures are well followed. While establishing a procurement policy, it is also essential to clearly define the criteria for situations requiring prompt and immediate action to limit or avoid damage to person, property or service standard of the organization.

 

A clear guideline to define the nature of emergency procurement and procedures to be followed should also be available in an organizations' procurement policy which may help the department to determine the best possible actions to mitigate the risk. But firstly, a verified method needs to be defined for acquisition of goods and services for emergency procurement: 

• Issuance of items from existing product stock 
• Procurement through standing Purchase order from contracted vendor 
• Cash purchases 
• Ordering from a single source or multiple sources to fulfil the requirements 
• Request for urgent quotation from local source with an assurance of immediate delivery 
• In case of non-availability of items in the local market, identify the source from other regions or in specific scenario from different geographical areas may be suitable. 

Stay tuned for the second part on the strategies used to implement Emergency Procurement.

 Tweet