E-Tendering

Bringing transparency in the working of the

Government Departments/Organizations

Definition of E-Tendering
An

e-Tendering System (or Electronic

Tendering System) facilitates the
complete tendering process from the
advertising of the requirement through
to the placing of the contract. This
includes the exchange of all relevant
documents in electronic format.

CURRENT SITUATION

Nowadays,

large
organizations
usually have to handle multiple
procurement needs by applying
different
kinds
of
information
systems developed by various
suppliers. Such process will become
inevitably long and cumbersome in
conventional e-tendering systems
when the categories of products are
not well sorted out.

HOW TO IMPROVE?

In

order to realize better cost savings

and increase efficiency, replacing the
manual paper-based tender procedures
by electronic-facilitated system has
become an essential element in
process re-engineering. With a highly
automated e-Tendering system, tender
specification,
advertising,
tender
aggregation as well as the evaluation
and placing of the contract can be
prepared at ease.

WHY E-TENDERING?
An

e-Tendering System (or Electronic Tendering

System) replaces these manual paper-based
tender processes with electronically facilitated
processes based on best tendering practices to
save time and money.
Buyers are able to manage the tenders coming
in, with all tenders stored in one place. Buyers
can cut and paste data from the electronic
tender documents for easy comparison in a
spreadsheet. Evaluation tools can provide
automation of this comparison process.

Business benefits:
Reduced

tender cycle-time
Fast and accurate pre-qualification and evaluation, which
enables the rejection of suppliers that fail to meet the
tender specification
Faster response to questions and points of clarification
during the tender period
Reduction in the labour intensive tasks of receipt,
recording and distribution of tender submissions
Reduction of the paper trail on tendering exercises,
reducing costs to both councils and suppliers
Improved audit trail increasing integrity and transparency
of the tendering process
Improved quality of tender specification and supplier
response
Provision of quality management information

Key Benefits of e-Tendering for Buyers

Manage

suppliers bids online

Automate the e-Tendering process
Gain full audit trail and process intelligence
Reduce costs and run sustainable,
environmentally responsible tenders
Reduce time-to-procure

Tendering

is the specific procedure.

It is relatively simple but used on a large scale requires
a substantial investment in IT equipment.
The client organization by means of an extranet uploads
the documentation on to the system and it is sent out.
Contractors download the information and prepare their
tender prices which are submitted electronically and
may be amended any time up to the tender deadline.
So, e-tendering provides for tender documentation to be
distributed to tenderers via a web-based system and
allows transmission of amendments to documents and
tenderers' queries during the tender period and the
submission of the final bids.

The

ease with which documents may be

distributed and amended also presents a risk
to the integrity of the system.

Security

features must be incorporated to

ensure that:
tender documents cannot be accessed by
unauthorized parties;
neither party can deny sending or receiving
documents;
alteration of tender documents is either
impossible or easy to detect whilst also allowing
the tenderers to insert their rates and prices.

For employers
Paper

and copying costs are eliminated;

Document issues are in good control.
Besides, e-tendering provides fast,
reliable exchange of information, a
transparent audit trial, clearer
comparison of bids, etc.
However, IT system could crash
preventing distribution of documents
and considerable investment is
required in IT.

For Contractors and Subcontractors

The

advantages are almost the

same, but IT system could crash
preventing submission of tender
and there is no cost saving as it
will often require paper
documents.