In recent decades, environmental and societal crises have propelled us to change the way we understand and do business.
Droughts and climate change have prompted us to become more aware of how our actions in business and at home impact the environment. The Coronavirus pandemic forced us to become more remote and paperless than we ever thought possible as our work processes were moved online and to home offices.
Procurement teams face many challenges, but for each challenge, there are intelligent solutions that help us do our work efficiently and keep pace with mandated government guidelines.
Challenge 1: Complying with Federal Sustainability Mandates
Solution: You’re going to continue to hear more about this as the push for prioritizing sustainability in the government sector grows. For some time now, as vehicle fleets have aged, they are being replaced with electric vehicles. School districts and transportation agencies now routinely post RFPs and award bids on eProcurement platforms for hybrid or fully electric food service vehicles and buses and EV charging stations.
Soon, as government contractors are required to monitor and take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as mandated by the Federal Sustainability Plan, they will need to file reports. PlanetBids’ proprietary platform has the tools you’ll need to manage these tasks.
Challenge2: Growing the Vendor Pool While Managing DEI
Solution: An internet platform opens the door for vendors inside and outside your region to register to bid on RFPs. Agencies can also manually add vendor contacts (individually or by importing an Excel spreadsheet) to procurement software that offers a contact database.
Registering on PlanetBids’ Vendor Management module, for example, is simple.
"When we first began, occasionally a vendor would call and tell us, 'That was too easy. I must have done something wrong,’” notes Jennifer Rittenhouse, Senior Contract Analyst for Howard County.
PlanetBids allows agencies to reach out to vendors who have completed their unique configurable registration or tap into the greater PB vendor database with ease.
Challenge 3: Bringing the Certification Process Online
Solution: An online certification process puts the procurement professional in control of prequalification certification and increases real-time tracking on Small Business, Disadvantaged Business, Disabled Veteran Business, etc., participation goals.
PlanetBids’ Vendor Management module offers a configurable and intuitive registration process. Users can search by description, milestones, contractor licenses, keyword, and more to locate relevant contacts. Reports are generated in a snap.
PlanetBids’ PB System™ directly connects with the California Department of Industrialization’s registration system and the California State Licensing Board, and it tracks prime and subcontractor diversity. The Business Certification Module also helps users who certify diversity vendors or manage a prequalification process for Bench (Construction Management and Architecture), CUPCCAA, Prime, Subcontract, MEP and more.
Challenge 4: Managing Contracts
Solution: Wouldn’t it be great to not have to start a contract from scratch? Bid specification research and writing can be streamlined by accessing thousands of projects via PlanetBids’ Bid Spec Library. A simple sort and search provides access to cooperative or piggy-backable bids!
Once a contract is awarded, an online procurement system allows users to create, manage and view relevant information throughout the lifetime of a contract. Milestones can be calendared, reminders can be set for contract renewal, and procurement and customer departments can ensure that all performance standards are met. Invoice submission and compliance tracking are just a few of the features included.
Challenge 5: Monitoring Insurance Certificates
Solution: Woe is the procurement team that hasn’t automated insurance compliance. Take, for example, what happened to a small California city when poor-quality chemicals were delivered to a city plant and harmed the city’s equipment. When it came time to file the claim, the contract manager discovered that the insurance certificate was out of date. This incident ignited the city to sign up for PlanetBids’ Insurance Certificate module.
An eProcurement system paves the way for automated workflow process, expiration notices, and real-time alerts. It also neatly ties into contract management and helps manage all aspects of contract compliance.
Challenge 6: Maintaining Process Integrity
Solution: Moving the project evaluation process online allows the buying officer and the evaluation committee to fairly assess a bidder’s qualifications and identify the best proposal confidentially and impartially.
“An online evaluation system has safeguards that keep everyone involved honest – evaluators, procurement professionals, facilities professionals, and the purchasing manager,” says Janice Unger, Retired Director of Purchasing at East Side Union High School District. “The scoring cannot be challenged, and the evaluators are safe because the entire process is confidential. Evaluators cannot see each other's scores."
Additionally, an online evaluation process allows evaluators to review a project from their own desktop computer, at any time of day.
“It saves personnel time, as we no longer have to coordinate these in-person meetings to accommodate everyone’s schedules," says Dean Hof, Procurement Manager of Howard County. "Individuals could work on their evaluations at any time, allowing the process to move much faster."
Challenge 7: Embracing Teleworking in Government
Solution: Mandated teleworking during the pandemic proved that government employees could work from home, and teleworking is here to stay in some industries.
While Enterprise Resource Planning software applications once were the norm, when COVID hit some agencies discovered limitations to ERPs and turned to eProcurement platforms. Santa Clara Valley Water District is one such agency, preferring a system focused specifically on procurement.
“Our team found that automation made communication with staff and suppliers much easier, with documented processes and time/date stamps to increase transparency,” notes Alicia Fraumeni, Supervising Program Administrator.
She added that another benefit was the ability to quickly respond to public information requests (done manually before) through the system.
PlanetBids has fully – and quickly – automated numerous public procurement teams across the country before, during, and after the pandemic. The entire implementation process typically takes two to four weeks after contract execution.
“On a scale of 1-10 in level of complexity of implementation, it was seamless,” says Scott Munzenmaier, who runs the one-person procurement office for the City of La Mesa.
If your team hasn’t yet moved to automation, then 2024 can be the year to make that happen. Schedule a demo to understand how PlanetBids’ PB System™ can help you tackle your procurement challenges.