In this episode of the Podcast, Ian Fishwick, Commercial Director of Innopsis talks to Tim Colman, the  Head of Procurement Policy at the National Federation of Self Employed & Small Businesses Limited

Having trained as an engineer Tim realised that utilising his engineering skills in a more commercial sense would open up more career opportunities. He rapidly established himself in technical sales and within a year was a regional export manager for a company selling power electronics into the Far East – a role he describes as character building.

Tim then joined what became the Swatch Group in their sports timing division where he stayed for twenty years. In that period he travelled widely and became something of an expert in “Olympic Technology” and expanded his activities into general management in the organisation, rising to Director level.  He led the Swatch Group bid teams for over 40 major projects. During his time with the Swatch Group he spent 5 years living and working in Switzerland.

Tim left the corporate world in 2003 to establish a procurement consultancy specialising in procurement processes and bid writing. He is now heavily involved in supporting micro and small businesses and is very active in the Federation of Small Businesses. He holds a number of Directorships including an HR company, a procurement consultancy, and an engineering company building racing cars.

Ian asks Tim about –

* Who are the Federation of Small Businesses and what do they do?

* What the FSB are doing to help sub-contractors getting paid faster?

* What is the Prompt Payment Code?

* Where the Mystery Shopper service can help

* How Aggregated Procurements disadvantage SME’s

We look forward to hearing form Tim again in the future to get updates on the progress made with these initiatives

Tim can be contacted at [email protected]

 

 

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