There are sufficient examples to state that the use of electronic media provides improved time efficiency and reduced administrative costs (paper vs. electronic processes) for government and businesses, a significant increase in transparency and improved inspections, and better monitoring, control and planning; all with an important impact if the adoption takes place in a coordinated manner on a large scale.
If we consider the paradigm of provisioning applications such as cloud-based (cloud computing) services, we further increase efficiency thanks to network effects created by the generation of procurement communities:
– Simplifying access to classification information of suppliers and their products.
– Transparency. The simplest meeting routes are generated, as both buyers and sellers only need to sign into a portal. A provider can access the entire public sector, presenting its product catalogue on the portal and the buyer can access all the suppliers in said portal.
– Exchange of information on prices and products is made easier, cheaper and faster. Major potential savings in transaction costs in terms of reduced search costs, comparison and order management. Thanks to the platforms, statistics can be obtained and provided more efficiently to managers and national or European supervisory authorities, thus accelerating the decision-making process.
– Reduced transaction costs for suppliers and buyers. Thanks to the partial or full automation of information between the buyer’s procurement/financial system and the buyer’s order and payment system.
– Tendency towards a complete dematerialization of bids. Towards intelligent questionnaires that guide economic operators on the score or level of completeness of their bid with respect to real-time evaluation criteria and facilitate the evaluation of tenders to certification authorities thanks to an increased use of automatic or assisted evaluation.
– Savings in administrative costs for the provider. According to studies on the case of Portugal, the buyer can enjoy substantial cost savings of around 15% thanks to increased supplier competition (the community of buyers) and also enjoy an optimization/automation of online processes (approximately 5% per tender and 10% in administrative management).
– Access to a greater number of business opportunities on the same portal, from both the public and the private sector.
As you can see the benefits are many, now the only thing left is to implement public procurement. We have a mandate from Europe, when are you going to start?
