Systems and e-Procurement — Improving Access and Transparency of Public Procurement

€2000bn were spent every year on public procurement in the EU, a more than considerable amount which justified investment and research in this area.

e-Procurement was the end-to-end digitisation of the traditional public procurement process. Access was improved through the centralisation of otherwise dispersed procurement processes in the form of one or a few central, electronic platforms, significantly reducing the search efforts for potential bidders With this, transparency and integrity were increased, as well as the visibility and traceability of the procurement process by the whole public. Furthermore, data quality was also improved thanks to the enforcing of the provision of required information and the use of structured and validated forms. Search costs also go down due to the sharing of common catalogues.

Recommendations were as follow:

+ e-procurement process must be digital from end to end;
+ end-users must be trained to ensure efficiency and acceptance;
+ adoption from the supplier side was just as important as internal acceptance;
+ security must be as modern as possible, to guarantee trust and legal compliance;
+ usability and accessibility of the process were fundamental.

External Author: Prof. Dr. Jörg Becker