National Highways Gold Standard is a rigorous initiative designed to elevate the performance of its supplier network. Suppliers are evaluated on nine key criteria encompassing areas like category management, procurement strategies, value delivered and commercial management. Earning a green rating in all nine categories during the annual assessment is a testament to GRAHAM’s dedication to continuous improvement and best practices.

Dave Brown, GRAHAM Contracts director, said: “This achievement reflects the hard work and dedication of the entire team, who strive to deliver exceptional value and build strong, collaborative relationships with our clients.

“In the spirit of continuous improvement, this rigorous Gold Standard review process has also afforded GRAHAM the opportunity to critically challenge our existing policies and processes, identifying future enhancements to ensure they remain reflective of current best practice and that GRAHAM continues to be an industry leader in procurement and supply chain practices.”

Benefits of the Gold Standard for GRAHAM

• Enhanced Transparency: The Gold Standard demonstrates GRAHAM’s commitment to supply chain excellence.
• Stronger Collaboration: This recognition strengthens the collaborative working relationship between GRAHAM and National Highways.
• Upskilled Workforce: The process of achieving Gold Standard has further enhanced the expertise of procurement and supply chain staff.
• Elevated Profile: The Gold Standard highlights GRAHAM’s position as leader in procurement practices within the industry.
• Enhanced Policies: The process of achieving the Gold Standard provided the opportunity to challenge our own policies such as anti-bribery and corruption improving our business approach.

Andrew Stephenson, procurement director at National Highways, said: “The National Highways Gold Standard was developed in 2022 and is aimed at increasing the commercial and procurement maturity of our supply chain.

“GRAHAM has been successful in demonstrating their alignment to all of our assessment criteria which focuses on evidencing best practice approaches across key areas such as strategic procurement; subcontractor performance management, demand and operational planning as well as contracting strategy.

“Suppliers need to meet all requirements within the assessment to achieve gold status so this is no small task and ultimately results in a more mature, capable and resilient supply chain.”

Gareth Scott, GRAHAM supply chain manager, added: “The Gold Award initiative has been a fantastic opportunity to develop our Procurement & Commercial processes, increasing GRAHAM’s maturity in relation to Supply Chain Management cascading benefits company wide.

“Overall, the Procurement & Commercial departments reputation has been enhanced by the process and is increasingly being recognised as a Strategic function within the business. The Gold Award has helped to future proof our Supply Chain procedures concentrating on shared core values increasing transparency and performance overall.”

This recognition demonstrates our commitment to excellence, in building long-term, successful partnerships with all our clients, through innovative procurement and supply chain solutions.