Meet the buyer 2017

Over 150 businesses attend Stockport’s ‘Meet The Buyer’

More than 150 businesses participated in Stockport Council’s popular ‘Meet the Buyer’ event, attending 315 appointments throughout the day.

Over 150 businesses attend Stockport’s ‘Meet The Buyer’                    

This year’s event, organised in partnership with Rochdale and Trafford Councils and held at the Stockport Town Hall on 20th June, gave local companies the chance to promote their goods and services to buyers acting on behalf of the borough’s largest public sector organisations.

Purchasing teams included Stockport Homes, Stockport College, Stockport NHS, STAR Procurement (the shared procurement service for Stockport, Trafford and Rochdale Councils), Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, Transport for Greater Manchester and Solutions SK.

Councillor Alex Ganotis, Leader of Stockport Council, said: “We’ve always been very keen that the Council and other public sector organisations purchase more goods and services from locally based businesses, which is why since 2008 we’ve been organising ‘Meet the Buyer’ events. Supporting and encouraging businesses to develop has always been a key priority for the Council as well, so I’d encourage businesses to seek the wealth of support that is available from us and partner organisations.”

Businesses also took advantage of free tendering workshops where they received tips and guidance on how they can become bid-ready – the workshops were delivered by STAR Procurement.

Lily Shippen, Account Manager at Hatters, added: “Meet the Buyer was a well organised event and a great opportunity to meet prospective clients. We met with a few organisations and look forward to hopefully working with them going forward and using The Chest+ during the tender process.”

As well as having a huge amount of useful supplier information on their website, STAR Procurement will be piloting a ‘buy local’ campaign in the Autumn of 2017, which will eventually be rolled-out across all three STAR Council boroughs during the next couple of years.

They are also embarking on a simplification campaign to ensure that interaction with SMEs across the STAR Boroughs is made easier and that SMEs find it easier to do business with STAR Councils.

For further information on how to tender with Stockport, Trafford and Rochdale Councils please visit www.star-procurement.gov.uk

The Chest is the North West's Local Authority Procurement Portal.

Read original article

Posted on Thursday 29th June 2017