Procurement Unlocked: Enabling Innovation
How can we make procurement and vendor onboarding better enable the implementation of innovative solutions?
Procurement and vendor onboarding play a vital role in ensuring water companies can work with the right suppliers, manage risk, deliver value for customers and uphold high standards of governance and assurance. They are essential processes for a sector that must spend efficiently, operate safely and deliver better outcomes for customers, communities and the environment.
However, innovators, suppliers and water companies frequently point to procurement and onboarding processes as a barrier to implementation of innovation in the sector. These processes are often designed around larger, established contracts and may not always be well matched to smaller-scale, fast-moving or innovative solutions. This can make it difficult for promising suppliers to move from early engagement, trial or pilot into wider adoption.
For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and start-ups in particular, unclear routes into water companies, complex pre-qualification and compliance requirements, rigid legal frameworks, long decision times and extended payment terms can create real commercial pressure. This makes it difficult for smaller innovators to remain engaged long enough for their solutions to be properly tested or scaled.
Once past initial commercial hurdles, vendor onboarding frequently prioritises administrative compliance over operational integration. Standard requirements can be applied uniformly, often without addressing gaps in an innovator's understanding of UK utility regulations and industry standards.
These restrictions are not limited to new market entrants. For larger suppliers and longer-term contracts, existing terms can inadvertently lock in traditional delivery methods and may not always create the right conditions for innovative solutions to be developed, delivered and improved over time.
As the sector faces increasing pressure to improve performance, reduce costs, build resilience and deliver better environmental outcomes, the ability to engage with innovative suppliers quickly, fairly and effectively is more important than ever. Solving this challenge is critical if we want to turn promising ideas into implemented solutions. We must work together to understand where procurement and onboarding processes slow innovation down and identify practical changes that can help the sector move faster without compromising fairness, value or assurance.
- A prioritised and targeted list of the key procurement and onboarding barriers slowing down innovation implementation.
- A shared understanding of where current processes work well and where they create unnecessary friction.
- A range of practical ideas and solutions for making procurement and vendor onboarding more accessible for SMEs and innovative suppliers.
- A consortium of interested parties who will progress activity after the Innovation Festival
- A clear prioritisation of challenges and solutions that could be taken forward through the Water Innovation Implementation Programme Enablers Stream.
- Hear from experts and practitioners on how procurement and vendor onboarding currently works across the sector.
- Map the end-to-end supplier journey, from first engagement through to contract award, onboarding and wider adoption.
- Explore the specific challenges faced by SMEs and fast-moving innovators.
- Identify where current processes create delays, duplication, uncertainty or commercial pressure.
- Learn from good practice inside and outside the water sector.
- Work together to co-create practical options for improving the journey through innovation procurement and onboarding.
- Select the most promising ideas for follow-on development after the sprint.
- Create an ongoing stakeholder group to continue tackling this barrier together.
Procurement and commercial professionals, innovation leads, water company representatives, SMEs, innovators, suppliers, legal and contract specialists, regulators, sector bodies and anyone involved in moving innovative solutions from trial to adoption.
