Throughout planning and implementation of Contractor Central, the managed service program for Transport of New South Wales, Director of Sourcing Wayne Giddings leveraged his background of procurement, procurement consulting and the labor market.

He believes his background helps him see things differently from many procurement specialists. “I think that makes a difference between successful implementations and unsuccessful implementations.”

All of which comes as a tremendous asset for TfNSW, a government agency formerly comprising distinct organizations that have been brought together under one umbrella.

“When you have distinct organizations working like that with different policies, procedures, different requirements — it is harder to do an implementation for a CW base,” Giddings says. With different stakeholders and territories, “you don’t even have a definition of a labor hire or the definitions of the contingent workface, and all these concepts need to be worked through with business as best you can to do the implementation.”

Creating smarter technology-enabled systems for the Contractor Central program, removing time-consuming paper processes, and delivering on improved time-to-fill, better compliance, and reduced risk helped Wayne change the face of the program. Time-to-fill has dropped to 6.4 days compared from about 20+ where it could even be tracked; realized savings of 6.23% in the 3 quarters; and now has real time visibility of recruitment supplier performance.

He also ensured an increased focus on diversity, with gender-balanced candidate shortlists and a commitment to aboriginal talent and suppliers a key part of his ethos. In the last quarter alone, spend through aboriginal-owned businesses has increased from zero to A$6.4million under his guidance, with five indigenous-owned suppliers now supporting TfNSW.