Best Value Procurement - The Practical Approach In The Netherlands

Abstract

Traditional procurement methods leave much room for improving risk management and value creation. However, Best Value Procurement (BVP) is designed to increase project value by mitigating risks and increasing the transparency by underscoring the pre-award phase. This shift in paradigm is reached by following a sequence of elements with the principles of transparency, performance information measuring and contractor clarification.The BVP philosophy is developed in the USA. Following is the Netherlands which has practiced it in many projects. Suggested is to follow firmly the method for obtaining the enhanced yields. However, little research has been done on the alignment of the practice with the original philosophy. The purpose of this paper is to fill part of this knowledge gap by identifying process elements from the theoretical versions and examine the extent of practice in real projects. The findings form the foundation for recommending elements to be used in practice.The chosen approach for this research was a literature study and an eleven-project study. The case study was carried out by conducting interviews with key persons including clients, vendors and involved experts in a range of market sectors.The findings show that the proposed core elements of the theoretical processes are indeed in-line with most of the practiced processes in the projects. As reflected by the case study, using the BVP principles and the elements sequentially has secured use of expertise. Consequently, an increase in quality and transparency whilst decreasing price of projects were achieved.