Buying Solutions Energy eZine - April 09

Welcome to our April 09 Energy eZine

First things first, you've no doubt noticed that we are now operating under a single master brand, Buying Solutions.

For customers, suppliers and staff who have often used this short form of OGCbuying.solutions in conversation, the change may appear small and academic.

But it isn't. The new, single brand also sweeps away the sub-brands of Catalist and Managed Services, cutting out the confusion they bred and eliminating any perceived overlap with OGC, increasing our relevance to the wider public sector, and clarifying our role as a major UK professional buying organisation.

Buying Solutions and OGC will remain very much aligned - in fact we're working more closely with OGC than ever before, particularly, for example, in supporting the Government's collaborative procurement agenda by which aggregated demand across the public sector translates into far greater savings in price, process and resource.

Over the next few weeks and months we are going to be busy talking to customers, in a variety of forums, about a range of new developments, not just our name and brand change, but also our much expanded purchasing window, our new Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) initiative and our new Service Level Agreements.

As well as individual face to face meetings, our year-long roadshow programme has got off to a good start, while our annual conference and exhibition, PS Live (to be held at Earls Court in June), is now firmly on the horizon. We want to take advantage of all these opportunities to meet with you, talk about these developments and how we can improve our service even further.

Roadshow and PS Live details are contained within this ezine but, meanwhile, if you would like to speak to me on any issue at all, please e-mail energy@buyingsolutions.gsi.gov.uk.

Best wishes.

Mark Robinson, Utilities Category Director