Public sector procurement is under growing pressure to deliver better outcomes with fewer resources. Buyers also often face complex decisions spread across multiple teams, budgets, and priorities. Category management provides a structured way to begin bringing this complexity into focus. A strategic lens helps public sector buyers gain clearer oversight, stronger governance, and greater confidence that every decision supports wider organisational goals.
Category management procurement is a strategic approach used by the public sector to organise and manage its purchases. Category management, put simply, is the act of grouping similar goods and services. The resulting collections of aligned products and services are often called procurement categories of spend, and they give organisations a clearer view of their purchasing activity. Category management helps them understand what they buy, how much they spend, and where the best value for money lies. In simple terms, it’s like organising your household budget and shopping lists to shop smarter.
A public sector organisation might create categories such as IT, professional services, construction, facilities management, or transport services. Each category is managed by a specialist or a specialist team that understands the market and can review supplier options, manage risks, and find opportunities for savings.
For example, if a local council needs to buy laptops, software licences, and cybersecurity services, they could group them under IT. A professional services category might include training providers, auditors, and legal advice.
Category management procurement encourages stronger planning and allows the public sector to review spending in a specific area and use its funds more wisely.
Because public money must be managed carefully and transparently, any procurement category strategy must withstand scrutiny and demonstrate value. Purchasing goods or services can be inefficient and risky without the right buying processes in place. We have summarised specific challenges and pain points below.
Public organisations are under a great deal of pressure to manage budgets. There is a rising demand for services and less money available. Most buyers have to find a way to deliver more with fewer resources.
Buyers must prove that the purchasing decisions they make are fair, compliant, and value for money. But when there are multiple purchases across an organisation, it becomes hard to keep track of what is being spent, and which suppliers have been contracted.
Buyers must document every step taken in making procurement decisions. Collecting, organising, and updating documents can be overwhelming, leading to failed audits and delays.
Buyers must follow rules to remain compliant with the law and regulations. In a rapidly changing environment, procurement specialists must understand relevant rules and governance and apply them correctly.
Thanks to the latest Procurement Act, buyers are expected to deliver wide community benefits through procurement. These are not always easy to quantify, but today, outcomes are measured against a broader range of measures than cost and efficiency.
The benefits of category management in procurement can help alleviate challenges for the public sector. We have outlined the benefits of spend category management using broad examples from the public sector.
If a local council combines all its energy contracts into a single utilities category, it can potentially negotiate with fewer suppliers. Such a move could strengthen its negotiating position, reduce energy bills, and lock in rates.
When a hospital needs new medical uniforms quickly, a relevant category allows them to create a pre-approved supplier list, reducing administrative overhead and wait times.
A public transport authority can use category management to track its vehicle maintenance suppliers. Monitoring which suppliers provide the best service and identifying any performance issues helps them make informed decisions about renewing contracts.
A university can often have hundreds of small office supply orders from different departments at any given moment. By ensuring all purchases are made through one single category and assigning a team member to take charge, duplicate purchases can be reduced, as can procurement time and costs.
A local council wants catering services for all its schools. It decides to open up its catering category, favouring smaller, separate lots over a single large contract. This allows local SMEs and smaller businesses to compete for contracts and increases the choice of available suppliers.
A city council is procuring construction services for a new community centre. By creating a construction category strategy, it can cover recruitment, training, the purchase of sustainable materials, and community engagement under one roof. This strategic approach delivers the building and also benefits the local community and environment.
Bloom’s case studies demonstrate how category management in procurement can deliver real-world benefits -
Procurement category strategy in the public sector transforms complex buying processes. We have outlined a simple four-step model to demonstrate how it works in practice.
The first step in the category management process in procurement is to understand what your organisation currently purchases, how much it costs, and who your suppliers are. This activity involves gathering all procurement records from different departments. Highlight high-cost areas and which suppliers provide the majority of goods or services. Are there any patterns or trends? Assess supplier performance to understand opportunities and risks.
Spending should be organised into procurement categories of spend, such as IT, professional services, consultancy, or facilities management. Such a move allows buyers to see the full picture of what your organisation is buying. Which categories have the biggest impact on cost, for example, or risk? The aim is to turn raw data into strategic action.
Develop a clear plan for how each category will be managed; this will provide a roadmap for future buying decisions. Set objectives and performance measures for each category and decide how you would like to work with suppliers. Establish a sourcing approach that helps you meet your objectives. Identify risks and ensure all contracts are compliant with regulations.
Engage suppliers through category management and strategic sourcing to encourage competition. Mini-competitions secure competitive pricing without the need for large, time-consuming tenders. They also offer SMEs a chance to participate, increasing innovation. Competitions can be set up to focus on achieving category objectives.
Bloom’s core strength is helping public sector organisations manage the purchase of professional services in a strategic way. They make it easier to understand complex markets, work efficiently, achieve important goals, and get the best value. Bloom looks beyond simply saving money. Outcomes are often considered more complex in professional services category management due to a focus on ‘softer’ results compared to physical products. While product-based frameworks can utilise standard contracts and bulk purchasing, professional services require tailored strategies. This is because their value can’t be measured by how much the service costs or how many units are delivered. Instead, success is evaluated on the results the services provide and the impact of the organisation.
Bloom focuses on the expertise a supplier brings to a project: their knowledge, skills, and experience. We design sourcing strategies based on your objectives, taking into consideration risk and supplier capability. Delivering services often involves collaboration and long-term partnerships. Relationships with suppliers can be more complicated than when purchasing products. We actively manage these relationships, monitoring performance and encouraging innovation, to ensure the service delivered meets your objectives.
In the public sector, professional services are usually considered indirect spend and can often be spread across departments, making it difficult to track and ensure consistency. Bloom tackles indirect category management strategically, prioritising results and impact, not just cost and savings.
Based on our experience, Bloom has created a concise, actionable list of best practices for procurement category management.
Use category data to analyse spending across departments. Identify patterns and find opportunities for savings.
Work with pre-qualified suppliers who have demonstrated they are compliant and meet quality and capability standards to speed up sourcing and reduce risk.
Utilise mini competitions, or other streamlined approaches, to create faster routes to market while remaining compliant.
Use a managed service framework to handle suppliers and deliver everything from one place, improving consistency and efficiency.
To ensure your organisation is meeting its strategic objectives, measure how well the work was completed and its wider impact.
Many public sector buyers struggle when using category management in their procurement work. A lack of market insight, for example, can lead to buying without a clear picture of the supplier landscape, resulting in slower, more complicated, and more expensive procurement. This can be avoided by buyers taking steps to understand their market, available suppliers, and costing before beginning a project. Limited supplier diversity restricts choice, raises prices, reduces innovation, and makes it more challenging to deliver impact. By implementing frameworks that open opportunities to SMEs and break requirements into smaller lots, buyers can make procurement attractive to a broader supplier base.
Lengthy procurement cycles can also slow down delivery and increase administrative costs. Using pre-qualified suppliers and standardising documents can speed up administration while maintaining compliance. Providing demonstrable value for money for services is harder than a product, but buyers can overcome this by setting clear objectives at the start of a project, tracking performance, and measuring social value in a way that highlights tangible benefits.
By consciously addressing these challenges, public sector organisations can make category management straightforward and impactful.
Bloom helps public sector organisations implement effective category management through their NEPRO³ platform. With it, buyers can improve efficiency and enjoy confidence in quality and compliance.
The platform offers built-in social value measurement, making it easy to track community impact so that social value becomes a central part of procurement decisions. Ready-to-use frameworks, mini-competitions, and centralised supplier management accelerate the buying cycle to save time and reduce administrative burden.
All costs, fees, and results of a procurement are transparent for both buyers and stakeholders. There are no hidden charges or surprises, which supports accountability, compliance, and audit requirements.
By combining these features, Bloom helps public sector buyers achieve more from their professional services procurement.
Our procurement team is ready to help you with professional services category management and achieve real value through NEPRO³.