Digital Tendering Tool
Many organisations are increasingly adopting digital tools for tendering. This is an efficient approach that also improves the traceability and documentation of the procurement process.
The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management encourages organisations that have not yet adopted digital tendering tools services in full to begin using them, in order to enjoy benefits such as:
- Improved documentation of the procurement process
- Easier reuse of procurement information
- Simplification of the communications process between purchasers and suppliers
- Automatic evaluation
Using the appropriate tools for digital tendering can make it significant easier for suppliers to participate in competitive public sector procurement processes. Overall, both purchasers and suppliers can achieve significant cost reductions by utilizing digital tendering and contract administration tools.
The Norwegian Agency for Public and Financial Management
The EU has recently adopted a new directive for public procurement. A new dimension to this regulation is that it will be mandatory for suppliers to respond to tenders digitally. Most tendering tools currently in use support electronic submission of tender responses, but the new EU regulations place more emphasis on unified delivery mechanisms and data security requirements than has previously been the case.
Work is currently underway to create standardised formats that can improve the quality of the tendering process. Sending and receiving will utilize Peppol-based messaging (Peppol Network), with structured documents for the whole process. Peppol has published Peppol BIS as Call for tender Pre-award catalogue request, Pre-award catalogue, ESPD (European Singel Procurement Document) and standardized envelope. Norway has a specification type called Electronic Commerce Format (EHF) which is based on CEN BII and Peppol BIS. There is also EHF which covers processes that Peppol BIS does not cover