Fitting e-sourcing into the non-existent government procurement budget

Even as the economy of 2018 continues to boom, many local governments are using an increase in tax-payer revenue for other departments’ needs and leaving little left for the purchasing department. Just as the rest of the organization needs repairs on roads, expansion in the classroom, or automating licenses, the purchasing department often has room to repair processes, expand research and strategic sourcing, and automate currently manual tasks. As e-sourcing solutions become the norm in government procurement, how do you fit e-sourcing into a non-existent government procurement budget?

IT budget

One way some procurement departments are getting an e-sourcing solution is via the IT department. When IT is tasked with finding a solution for an outside department, they will often get a set of requirements and find a solution that meets the necessary criteria. While this idea may sound nice, sometimes the end users (purchasing team) are not involved in this process and can end up with a sole-sourced product chosen based on pricing, technology, or supplier relationship. The IT team often sees the cost of hosting bid documents, handling vendor registrations, and website maintenance as an easily outsourced RFQ. If IT budget will be used for a third party sourcing solution, procurement needs to get involved to ensure that the needs of the purchasing department, its vendors, and appropriate laws/policies are considered.

No cost solution

Over 1,300 local governments throughout the country have found a no cost e-sourcing solution. BidNet Direct offers its core vendor and bid management solution at absolutely zero cost to the participating government agency. BidNet Direct provides extensive reporting and best-in-class audit and tracking to all participating buyers at no additional cost. In addition, many newly offered add-on modules such as bid response evaluation and approval workflows also carry no license fees.

On BidNet Direct, vendors also have free access to view all solicitations, download documents, and respond to bids. There are optional value-added services offered to both the vendor and buyer for a small fee (starting at less than $50 per year for the vendor). Additional modules, such as a robust contract management or vendor performance management, both have a small implementation fee and annual fee for participating buyers who decide they can find the budget needed. Starting at less than $5,000 per year, contract management can often be squeezed in to any procurement budget because of the savings gained.

Even in an ever shrinking budget for some government departments, opportunities still exist to gain automation, expansion, and fixes to old purchasing processes through a no-cost e-sourcing solution such as BidNet Direct. 

Find out how BidNet Direct can help your government organization today!