Supporting Remote Work with E-procurement

Around the world, the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented upheaval in the way people work. Many people working in public-facing sectors, such as foodservice, healthcare, transportation, and public services, have been declared essential workers; as such, they are expected to continue to report to work despite a risk of infection. Oppositely, many individuals who work in office jobs (including administration, marketing, finance, and IT) have been fortunate to be able to transition to remote work, allowing them to work from home or another safe location while physical offices remain closed. Research from Pew shows that nearly three-quarters of people surveyed who rarely worked from home before the pandemic -- but whose jobs could be done from home -- are now working remotely, marking a seismic shift in how workers do their jobs.

Purchasing staff are considered to be essential workers, for good reason: no government can operate without a functioning purchasing department. But while many public sector agencies have put work-from-home programs in place since the pandemic began, procurement staff need access to critical documents, information, and their colleagues to work effectively.

This is why a cloud-based e-procurement solution is essential to enabling remote work for procurement professionals. In this article we’ll explore how e-procurement makes it easy to collaborate on every aspect of procurement from any remote location, while ensuring security and accessibility for all stakeholders.

Importance of working remotely for procurement professionals

Data shows that many Covid-19 outbreaks have occurred in the workplace. Close working quarters, limited ventilation and the use of common areas and surfaces make workplaces an ideal environment for the virus to spread. As a result, many employers have prioritized having employees work from home wherever possible.

Remote work allows essential work activities to continue while minimizing the risk of infection and mitigating the spread of the virus in general. As part of a containment strategy, remote working policies are some of the most effective measures organizations can take to help combat Covid-19.

Historically, procurement has in many ways been a hands-on, face-to-face business – people on both sides of major transactions often like to shake hands and look each other in the eye when hammering out the details of a deal. Accordingly, the sudden move to virtual bid submission, virtual bid openings and no in-person contact has been a major change for many buyers and suppliers.

Fortunately, the tools available to buyers and their suppliers with BidNet Direct’s cloud-based e-procurement solution can make the transition to digital purchasing smooth and efficient.

How BidNet Direct supports remote procurement

For all aspects of purchasing, from requests for proposal to contract award, BidNet Direct provides the industry-leading solutions that buyers need to take the purchasing process online. Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, 148 new government entities have chosen BidNet Direct to support their transition to e-procurement.

Our solutions are modular and flexible to the needs of any size of organization, allowing buyers to choose the solutions they need immediately and add additional solutions as needed. BidNet Direct is cost-effective and delivers strong value at every step of the procurement cycle, as we’ll detail below.

Features & Modules Highlights

Electronic Bid Submission

The Electronic Bid Submission (EBS) is a solution that allows vendors to submit bids online, a powerful and helpful tool during these times when many offices are closed to the public. Electronic Bid Submission delivers many benefits for buying organizations, including eliminating paper bids, the ability to set up third-party virtual pre-bid events and bid openings and to automatically tabulate bids after the bidding event.

 - Also includes single or double envelope security for formal responses
 - Allows buyers to host a virtual bid opening to show the community all responses have been unseen since then
 - The double envelope opens first for all responses, second for pricing

Online Q&A

With Online Q&A, buyers enjoy a simplified process for accepting questions and answering them with this feature. Online Q&A allows vendors to submit questions through the solicitation portal, which buyers can then answer in real-time or in bulk. This feature simplifies communication with vendors.

 - Select how to answer: one by one, or simply click to automatically send all Q&As as an addendum
 - Keeps all questions in one place and can assign a question to any user, including end users to answer
 - No more forwarding emails or keeping track of emails

Approval Workflow

Ensuring that all stakeholders provide timely approvals at critical stages throughout a project can be a challenge. With BidNet Direct’s Approval Workflow process, this process is automated and simplified. Stakeholders receive notifications as important dates or pending deadlines approach and all relevant parties are notified as required approvals are obtained, guiding even the most complex projects to completion and mitigating risk.

With Approval Workflow, you can create configurable workflows; design sequential or parallel workflows; set different approval rules based on solicitation type and other factors; and align approval workflows with all other BidNet Direct modules and features.

Bid Evaluation

After vendors submit their proposals, procurement teams can organize, evaluate, and score vendor responses using the Bid Evaluation module. The solution allows users to create custom evaluation forms and set criteria, simplifying the process of determining which vendor is offering the best value for the money. Purchasing teams can also set passing grades and require explanations from vendors for low scores; assign deadlines and reminders; develop a library of Frequently Asked Questions and distribute evaluation forms to all stakeholders. Finally, users can award contracts from the secure platform once a decision is made.

Bid Distribution

Procurement managers need a secure and reliable way to distribute addenda and other important documents to vendors and colleagues. The Bid Distribution module makes it easy to get critical documents to the right recipient at the right time and keep vendors up to date with the latest critical project information.

Contract Management

With Contract Management, purchasing staff can create custom contracts from scratch or choose a template that suits their needs, while including their own preferred legal language. From initial negotiations through to the last stages of a project, the Contract Management module makes managing every aspect of the contract lifecycle a breeze.

Staying safe and productive with e-procurement

Cloud based e-procurement solutions provide everything that purchasing professionals need to keep projects moving. By supporting interoffice communication, vendor management, document creation and all aspect of bid management, the BidNet Direct platform makes transitioning to online procurement simple and pain-free.

As we move forward during these disruptive times, no one can say when day-to-day life will return to a semblance of normalcy, or even what a ‘New Normal’ could look like in a post-pandemic world. But today, it’s easier than ever for purchasing professionals to adopt the tools that will help them not only weather the current challenges, but to thrive and keep essential procurement projects moving, both now and in the years to come.

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