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Bad Buying

How organizations waste billions through failures, frauds and f*ck-ups

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When in Rome – watch out for potholes!

When I lecture on Bad Buying, as I do at the Skema business school in Lille, I ask the students to think about what sort of procurement related fraud or corruption is particularly difficult to protect against or detect – and why. Certainly…
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Musk to address US government spending – what fun awaits!

In the legendary Philip Green review of 2010, the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron asked the retail entrepreneur to take a look at government procurement. Some years later, the rumour spread that Cameron actually wanted the Philip Green…

Peter Smith’s Bad Buying Podcast

The Bad Buying Playlist

With this Bad Buying website we aim to shine a fearless spotlight on the things that go wrong with corporate buying and procurement – failures, frauds and f**k-ups, as I like to say. That does also mean highlighting and celebrating some of the positive ways in which organisations can avoid Bad Buying, as well as sticking the boot in when criticism is deserved. Fraud and corruption are also prevalent in the world of buying, and too often public and private sector bodies globally get away with some truly awful buying processes, practices and decisions that rarely get exposed and analysed. We aim to address that, and as any entrepreneur will tell you, we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. So we hope Bad Buying can help in that way too!

(Picture courtesy Justine Stoddart)

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