Thank you.
We have undertaken a substantial review of a number of categories, for example, of goods and services. We have 31 major categories, and we are going through an extensive review process for each one of them, engaging with industry.
One of the comments we received was that when we pull together supply arrangements or standing offers, they tend to be for a length of time and companies don't have an opportunity to either refresh or update their information, and we don't have an opportunity except when we have to re-compete these on a three-year, or depending on the length of the arrangements. We have worked with companies and various suppliers to ensure that we can, in fact, refresh them on an ongoing basis and have them done on an as-needed requirement. I think this is one of the key areas where we have significantly improved our processes, so that departments and suppliers aren't left with a static set of supply arrangements for suppliers on those lists.
The other aspect I spoke to earlier was industry engagement. I did commit to providing information on how we do that. We have extensive consultations because we want to be part of the business cycle of companies, and we want to be part of the requirements cycle of our client departments and agencies. We have to make sure the supply and the demand are meeting each other's requirements, at an opportune time. We have taken steps on a number of these categories of supply, or of procurement activities, and we are working our way through them. I think we have found, up to now, that has received good input from companies, from suppliers, and from our client departments and agencies.
We've also streamlined a couple of major procurements, where we have looked at, for example, shared travel services. My colleague talked about video conferencing, but we still travel. Therefore, being able to drive the best price and the most effective way of getting at your travel services.... We have been able to obtain the services of a supplier that would allow us to have some very competitive rates. But that was generated as a result of a fairly extensive discussion with our client departments and agencies, to get at what their requirements and essential needs are.
We were able to then engage with suppliers to have a better conversation about what they could provide us in services in a timely fashion.