All consortia will in time want to promote their vision, viewpoint and the adoption of their standards to the user community.  They do this:

• directly - to architects, strategists and procurement  people
• indirectly - through vendors and industry communications channels

The Open Group has always been concerned with strategic procurement – setting and maintaining policy and process, rather than the day to day activities of purchasing – negotiation, contracting and installation.  A number of different terms get used interchangeably:

• ‘Procurement’ – originated with major military and government contracts and projects; now widely used in business
• ‘Acquisition’ – originated in the military, less frequently used now
• ‘Sourcing’ – strictly speaking the identification and selection of suppliers and products, especially at a strategic level.  Used by at least one global bank to describe their strategic approach to procurement
• ‘Purchasing’ – strictly speaking the lower level task of buying routine and non-strategic supplies.  Used by at least one major bank for their procurement activities
• ‘Buying’ – the most basic activity.  This is the only one I’ve never come across it in IT procurement, although it is used by one outstandingly successful retailer to describe their strategic sourcing of product lines!

Up to the mid-1990’s procurement strategy and projects were driven largely by IT functions, with ‘purchasing’ providing quite narrow commercial and contract advice and services at the ‘doing it’ stage.

Since then leading firms have moved to a much more strategic approach. They recognize the high expenditure, greater complexity and risk and strategic impact of enterprise information systems and the need for a quantum improvement in procurement management skills.  Best practice firms have exceptional, commercially astute people leading IT procurement, located in either IT or business functions, and reporting one or two levels from the executive board.  They recognize the importance of standards and maintaining vendor choice – by design, and are as such are key constituency for Consortia to engage now.

The following table provides a summary of The Open Group's activities and experience in this field.