Outcomes

Lanarkshire Meet the "Real" Buyer Final Report

The Supplier Development Programme has published the final report for Lanarkshire Meet the "Real" Buyer 2021.

North Lanarkshire Council and South Lanarkshire Council, in partnership with the Supplier Development Programme (SDP) jointly hosted the Lanarkshire Meet the “Real” Buyer event. This live virtual event held on 30 November 2021 allowed businesses to meet the procurement teams from both Lanarkshire Councils and the “real” buyers who commission the contracts and identify the need for procurement works and services in the first place. On the day of the event, in total there were 108 participants and of these, 63 were unique SMEs/supported businesses based in Scotland. Post-event feedback highlighted that 95% of Scottish SMEs responding to the survey said they were more likely to bid for public contracts after participating in the event.

All presentations along with the live Q&A session can be found on the SDP YouTube Channel.

Meet the Buyer North 2020 Final Report

The Supplier Development Programme has published the final report for Meet the Buyer North 2020.

Meet the Buyer North 2020 was held on 2 September and was the first fully-virtual 'Meet the Buyer' type event that the Supplier Development has ever organised. The Scottish Government was a headline partner of this event. On the day, there were 825 actual attendees on the day, which was made up of 684 suppliers (from 590 unique businesses) and 141 buyers/exhibiting staff. There were 30 virtual stands, and through the 1-2-1 exhibitor meetings on the portal, we collectively achieved 11,000 minutes of video interaction. The post-event survey also highlighted that 90% of Scottish SMEs responding to the survey said they were more likely to bid for public contracts after participating in the virtual event.

All presentations and Q&A sessions from the Meet the Buyer North 2020 event are available on the SDP YouTube Channel.

Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event Final Report

The Supplier Development Programme has published the final report for the Meet the Buyer 2020: Live Virtual Event.

Due to restrictions imposed by the Scottish Government’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, the physical Meet the Buyer event was postponed from 2 June 2020 to 8 June 2021. However, on 2 June, the Supplier Development Programme (SDP) organised virtual activities to mark the occasion of what would have been the 12^th annual Meet the Buyer event.

"Responding to the Coronavirus Outbreak: What’s been your experience? Supplier Views" Final Report

In July 2020, the Supplier Development Programme, with the support of the Scottish Government, published a report on suppliers’ views from a survey on the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak on Supplier Relief, furloughed staff, access to free online training and capacity to bid for public sector contracts.