January 2006

LOCAL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER WINS MAJOR GOVERNMENT TENDER FOR PROCUREMENT SOFTWARE

In 2006 the NSW Department of Commerce released a tender to source an E-tendering platform as a whole-of-government automation strategy.  Up until this time the government departments were engaged in developing tenders manually with every department developing different variations of common tendering requirements. 

The main goal of the automation program developed by the Department of Commerce was to drive end-to-end efficiencies for suppliers and government departments.   Further the process was designed to expand the buying process so that the “panel contracts” developed by Commerce could provide enough data and product information to reduce the “retendering cycles” that government departments were engaging in.

The automation tender was aimed at selecting the most suitable e-enablement software tool on the market that addressed a number of key issues:

- Automated tender preparation
- Probity based evaluations
- A reduction in the time to handle tender evaluations
- The development of central clause libraries for government
- The enablement of data from tenders to be reused in electronic catalogues

The awarding of this contract was seen by the Department of Commerce as a significant step forward to realising a state-wide procurement automation program which would provide productivity and cost savings to the Government, their suppliers and the NSW tax payers.

The selection process was conducted through an 'Open Public Tender' process and was contested by companies wishing to secure a foot-hold in the government eSourcing arena.