Is hosting a vendor event right for your agency?
Are you thinking about hosting a local “how to do business with the government” event for your vendors? While many local government organizations participate in NIGP or NPI events such as tradeshows, some also work directly with vendors to offer an in-person meeting to learn how to do business with their organization. While meeting with local vendors certainly increases vendor engagement with current and future solicitations, there are logistics that need to be decided and worked on before planning a meeting with local vendors.
Do you need an event?
Deciding whether hosting a local vendor event is right for your buying organization or not is a decision only you can make. Here are some questions to ask yourself when deciding whether or not to host an event:
• Have there been any personnel changes within purchasing recently?
• Have any purchasing policies changed?
• Have you seen a decrease in the number of bid responses?
• Has your region been through a business boom recently, with new businesses that may not be receiving requests for bids?
• Have you started using a new method of distributing solicitations or accepting responses?
Planning for the event
Depending on your answers to the questions above, you may want to schedule an event! It would be best to cover any recent changes in detail during the event, and touch on all aspects of doing business with your organization (purchasing team introductions, purchasing policy, responding to bids/where to find bids, feedback from vendors, etc.). Introducing the purchasing team and key department heads is always a good idea at an in-person event, but it is critical if there have been recent personnel changes.
Planning for an educational event will need to include who will present and what information to distribute. Sharing both the formal purchasing policy, along with a watered-down version that is easy for vendors (non-purchasing) to understand, is suggested as well. This can include something as simple as a link to your formal policies, bullet points of the new/updated bid thresholds, or an overview of a new/updated local vendor preference.
If you have seen a decrease in the number of responses or a change in vendor behavior, you may also want to use this event to get feedback from the attending vendors to help resolve this issue. Or if you have started to accept more responses electronically, you may want to provide information on the new process for submitting bids.
You also want to make sure that your agency goes over the steps of how to do business with your entity, for new and existing vendors alike. Maybe recent changes in your purchasing policy have resulted in a significant change to the process from what existing vendors have previously experienced.
For example, if you have recently joined BidNet Direct or another e-sourcing solution and your solicitations are now online, you may want to provide information about that solution. This could include how to register on the site. It could also address vendor FAQ’s, such as your question/answer period and how to ask a question, addendum policies, expected award times, contract issuance, and payment terms. You may even want to take this a step further and provide a link to a training video, or do an in-person or virtual walk through at your meeting of viewing and responding to a solicitation. If you are already utilizing BidNet Direct as your sourcing solution, our team can help you set this up!
The planning should start at least a couple of months before the event to allow for scheduling of the room/area, coordination with your e-sourcing solution on training materials for vendors, coordination with staff to prepare and present the information, and enough time to promote the event.
Getting the word out
It is important to let vendors know about your upcoming event. At BidNet Direct, we often help promote events to local vendors, such as local NIGP events and organization-specific events, for our participating agency partners. Just send us the when-where-what and we will help you spread the word!
In addition to providing outreach to local registered vendors, BidNet Direct can also supply both a digital and print-ready flyer outlining the simple steps to register on the platform and do business with your government organization.
Many organizations have relationships with local newspapers and news channels to have the government/public event advertised for little to no cost on their events calendar. You also may be able to utilize your organizations social media or other media relations to market the event through the communications department.
Adding the event to your purchasing teams’ email signature line to ensure that it is mentioned in any email communication with a vendor is also a good idea.
It is always a good idea to keep open lines of communication with your local vendor community and an in-person “how to do business” event is a great way to build those relationships.
Find out how BidNet Direct can help your government organization today! 
