Tender services - Public Procurement

German’s photovoltaic in the UK

toni — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:59:37 +0000

I recently had the chance to present alongside a specialist from the Department of Energy and Climate Change from the British Government as well as a specialist from the Renewable Energy Association.
A great little event where we presented to a delegation of businesses and trade association specialising in Solar energy coming from Berlin.
The Germans are very well developed in the solar panel field. The federal government had some support for citizens and companies, the different regions have their own support programmes too. Recently Germany announced that they will be ditching the nuclear idea which will mean an even bigger push on renewable energies such as solar, wind and water if they do not want to fall dependent to Russian gas.
The group of German businesses were really interested in dealing with the UK as we are considered as an under-developed market. Solar panels on house is just about starting to grow and that is mainly because of feed-in tariff i.e. you get paid for the electricity you produce from your panels or you get the panels free and the payments from produced electricity are shared with the installer or management company. The feed-in tariff rates have been generous since their introduction a couple of years ago and that helped the companies in the UK develop the field and the people to take to the idea.
The British government is also pushing for carbon neutral houses in the new-built market and every little helps for the architects and contractors reach the target.
Electric cars have been for the last few months in the news pretty much every other week.
So we’ll we see this underdeveloped market develop?
On the public sector side of things, from a quick research I carried out, the UK is better than Germany! The public sector has issued about 8 tenders a year since 2008 and the trend is accelerating as 8 tenders have already been published in 2011 so we can expect probably double this number this year against just 2 tenders in Germany.
That is very good and follows on a previous post I wrote a few months ago saying how great the UK is when it comes to the green / sustainable agenda.
I am sorry to put a dampener here, but for the last few months the Government has been carrying a review of the generous feed-in tariffs. The conclusions of this report should be published in June and they are likely to bring a big reduction on the allowances given which might have catastrophic consequences for the private house or general solar panel developments.

Our new German friends were still interested but it did not sound as good the UK being the new Eldorado under the sun (by the way let’s demystify things: it does not always rain in the UK, look at the draughts in Dorset or East Anglia…)

Until next time…

PPP in BG, UK or IE opp?

toni — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 12:52:36 +0000

I came across an interesting article about the opportunities of developing Public Private Partnerships in Bulgaria ( http://www.publics.bg/en/interviews/45/ ).

Bulgaria is one of the 27 European Union Member States and they have to follow the same EU directives on public procurement that we have to in the United Kingdom.

The interesting bit is the fact that the expert in this conference refers as Ireland as a specialist in developing PPP projects and also refers to the UK as being the largest PPP market in Europe. As a consequence experts from Ireland should be solicited to bring their experience to Bulgaria and prevent costly mistakes they could do without the know-how of dealing with PPP projects.

A great opportunity for the Irish PPP consultants or government officials offloaded after the crisis hit.

The question that came to my mind though was why is the UK not considered a specialist in the area and called upon / invited in the same way the specialists from Ireland have? The Bulgarian expert, who incidentally wrote a book on PPP has actually worked in Ireland on PPP project and is probably naturally biased.

Anyway PPP projects might be developing for all the traditional fields (roads and hospitals in the near future in Bulgaria) as they need to develop the infrastructure and even if the European Union is pouring in millions of Euros, the private sector is seen as a supplier but also a partner in getting the country to the highway of growth.

Application to Bulgaria’s infrastructure ministry…

Until next time…

Limiting Contract Award modifications in Spain

toni — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 12:30:16 +0000

It sounds almost unbelievable, but until recently an interesting procurement practice was going on in Spain. After awarding a contract, the Spanish public sector organisation was modifying the contract including additional works, or changing some of the fundamental guarantees of the contract.

The Spanish Law 30/2007 on public sector contracts gave the procurers an almost unlimited power to modify essential terms of public contracts after award, in a manner which was not in line with the principles of equal treatment between bidders, non-discrimination and transparency set out in EU public procurement rules.

Can you imagine saying that you are procuring “xyz”, companies bidding for “xyz” and then after the award you turn to the company and ask for “w” to be provided as well. It would probably be done at an extra cost but it does cut out the chance for the other providers to be considered for the delivery of “w” as well. If you were to be creative “w” could be much more interesting for the company and the public sector than the “xyz” part.

All that is finished however (well, at least legally) through a law published earlier this year.

But this is interesting given the current consultation on EU regulations – see Peter Smith’s comments about the UK proposals, which include extending the ability of buyers to negotiate with suppliers…

Until next time…

On a different map: France’s geographical data in Europe

toni — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:21:09 +0000

Every so often you get these press releases, announcements of things planned to happen in the near future. Procurement stories are plentiful if you look through the various news aggregator websites and other RSS feeds.
I am subscribed to one from the European Commission. An interesting story came by a couple of months ago about France being summoned by the European Commission to open their market to private geographical data providers.
The situation at the moment is that Public sector organisation in France must buy their geographical data information from the IGN (Institut Geographique National – the French equivalent of the Ordnance Survey).
On the 14th March the European Commission caned France for having such a rule and gave it 2 months to sort out the matter or being sued in front of the European Court of Justice with possibly heavy fines as a result (http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/11/289&format=HTML&aged=0&language=en&guiLanguage=en ).
A bit more than 2 months on and despite a lot of researching, I cannot see any announcement either saying that the Commission is taking the case forward or that the French have changed their rules…

In the UK the market has been opened for many years and tenders for gazetteers, digital mapping, GIS etc. with about 10 tenders a year and many British private companies providing this kind of services.
The twist might be that the IGN was not charging commercial rates when selling the data to the French public sector but were doing it at real cost. Isn’t better or cheaper for the French Public?

Why have the French been so slow in doing the same as the UK? Don’t they think the private sector can always provide a better service for a cheaper price than a state influenced organisation? It is in things like this that you can notice a different of culture between the UK and France: the sell all to the private sector it will saves us money or make us plenty of money (us being the public sector or the great British tax payer public). The all out capitalism, privatisation vs the socialism (to a certain degree though) with the protection of the great French tax payer public.

It brings the question: Is what the European Union want to do that different from what the UK want? Liberalisation, capitalism, support of the private sector…

Coming back to the Geographical information. From June 2011 an EU directive nicknamed INSPIRE, which set the legal framework for sharing geographical data across the EU between national organisation, enters in its last stages by opening an online portal where you can browse detailed geodata www.inspire-geoportal.eu . Some of the comparisons between French maps and Spanish maps for the same area does make you think coordinating capabilities is a necessary activity ( I thought French maps were good but compared to the Spanish there is still some work to be done…).

Considering everything then maybe the French are slow in opening the market to block out the Spanish…

Until next time….

Crossing the borders of procurement

toni — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:46:44 +0000

As you might have read previously, Procurement makes me travel recently.
I am going to be speaking in France, Italy and Spain in the coming weeks about what can be done to help small businesses sell more of their products and services to the public sector in a country different than their own.
I have been a great supporter/believer that procurement is a great tool for us all to use. Politicians have come around the idea in the last few years that they can really influence the market by putting one or another requirement in their tenders for companies to comply with. They also saw the light in the fact that an efficient procurement can save a lot of money to the buyer. The EU is now trying to push loads of different policies onto the countries by using the procurement process: supporting the SMEs did not come from Mr Cameron, but from many EU talks and a pamphlet called the Small business act. Green procurement, Innovation procurement, E-procurement, Social procurement are all policies that are changing the face of Europe through the procurement train.

What can small businesses do to use procurement at their advantage?
First of all as many of them as possible need to get to understand how it works properly, then put procurement in the business growth development plans.
Small companies should not get disillusioned by procurement, not everybody is equal in procurement is one of the best lessons they could learn quickly.
You know the system or you don’t.
You go for the wrong opportunities or you don’t.
You blame the system or you play the game.

Rome was not built in a day neither a company with no experience should win a multi-million pound deal.

You might have your own views on what the SMEs can do and whether they should even be involved/ encourage in dealing with selling to the public sector. However very often I feel that the discussions made at the Central Government offices misses the point about SMEs.
Not all SMEs are equal and throwing the word SME in every sentence related to procurement sends the wrong message to the huge majority of them that have no interest in selling to the public sector and will never have due to their business either not being geared up for it or offering products and services that have very little interest to a public procurer.
A difference is rarely made, precisions rarely or never offered on what a typical public sector supplier SME is or can be, which is a real pity.

Who is the ideal public sector SME supplier? That is a question worth thinking about. Answers in comments please.

For me, it depends on the level of the procurement and on the activities. It is quite natural that all companies want to get these 5 years contract worth 500 000 pounds but if they have not previously won this one off contract worth 5000 pounds, or the subsequent one worth 50000 pounds should they be wasting their time running after the Holy Graal? Many will try though…

Until next time…

Water in my Bordeaux

toni — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:58:13 +0000

Bordeaux wine is well appreciated on these shores. Probably some of the best wines in the world, the red’s especially, give me a Pomerol and I will be very happy. Not so sure about the white’s. I go further south for the white’s usually (Jurancon being one of my favourite – very sweet).
2011 sounds like another good year and the prices might be going up due to demand from China. Yes, the Chinese do like wine and buy stuff from Europe – the containers do need to be filled up both ways to make the International trade work efficiently.
Anyway, the point of this article is not wine or China or international trade for that matter but water.
The Communaute Urbaine de Bordeaux (CUB) (basically Bordeaux and the surrounding small towns group) is looking to end the concession given to the biggest water management company in France “la Lyonnaise des Eaux” (part of the Suez group).
Why? The Communaute Urbaine wants to manage, influence, be close to the problems and solutions to this vital resource. The CUB’s president does not agree giving contracts, even if the companies are doing a good job, for 20-30 years. The president is from the Socialist party, does it make a difference? Probably.
What are the consequences? The transfer will be done progressively and by 2018 the contract could be ended early. I hope La Lyonnaise des Eaux did not invest heavily thinking they will recoup their money within 25 years otherwise they could feel hard done…

Original article 10th June 2011: http://www.lemoniteur.fr/131-etat-et-collectivites/article/actualite/855424-bordeaux-prepare-le-terrain-a-un-retour-en-regie-publique-de-l-ensemble-de-son-service-de-l-eau-a-l-

Until next time…

Another EU consultation… Procurement outside of the EU

toni — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:40:59 +0000

Since last November, we can announce the third EU consultation on public procurement.
This consultation looks at gathering views to develop a new policy on access to the EU public procurement market by companies in countries outside of the European Union.

According to the press release, the EU has played ball through the Government Procurement Act (GPA)at the World Trade Organisation Level as well as by respecting mutual trade agreements but as it is being stated, other countries are being very reluctant in letting EU companies work in their countries.
In numbers: €312 billion worth of contracts are up for grabs by the WTO agreement partners but in return just €34 billion are available for EU companies to bid for in the USA and €22 billion in Japan.
In the target range: getting Canada, China, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland and the USA to be more opened to EU business – at least on paper. Awarding the contracts to EU companies will be another battle. How many GPA countries companies win contracts in Europe? I do look through many contract awards on a daily basis and it is extremely rare to see a company from outside the EU winning a contract, it is quite rare already to see an EU company win a contract in a different country than their own…
The agreement, the legislation is probably necessary but at the end of the day will probably not change the practicalities of procurement at ground level.
If you want to add your views on the consultation questions you can do this by visiting: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/consultations/?consul_id=154 Deadline is on 2nd August 2011.
I have gone through the questionnaire and it is quite interesting once you pass the first 3 screens of questions about who you are and what you do. Plenty of free text boxes where we can complain about other countries blocking our products and services to enter their procurement market…

Until next time…

Guides to inspire procurers

toni — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 17:53:27 +0000

In the last year I have been quite heavily involved in developing the procurement capacity of the Enterprise Europe Network which my office belongs to, as well as supporting businesses and getting involved with procurers.

As part of this work I have been training the guys developing an EU funded project called Europroc. Their aim is to “tackle the access of SMEs to public procurement” in their own words

. One of the main activities was to develop a series of guides in different languages (it’s European).

They created 2 guides that are very interesting to read and accessible to pretty much anybody involved in aspects of public procurement.

The first one is a GOOD PRACTICES GUIDE designed to be practical and easy to access. It should be seen as a tool for Business Support Organisations (chambers of commerce, industry bodies etc) to help them support SMEs and enable them to radh their ppotential in terms of public sector contracts. It describes in detail the 17 Good Practices led by Regional/National public authorities on procurement instruments for SMEs.

The second one is called NAVIGATE CHANGE and presents new global approaches to public procurement. This guidebook provides guidance to business leaders in small- or medium-sized companies.

These “new approaches” have changed the way regulations and procedures are applied by public authorities and are grouped into four themes:
- Green Public Procurement;
- Socially Responsible Public Procurement;
- Procurement for Innovation;
- Electronic Public Procurement.

I have participated in the production of the first one and spoke about the second one at the presentation / launch conference in Barcelona last week. You can download the guides here.

Procurement in the margins of Italy – and are buyers too powerful?

toni — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 03:33:57 +0000

I recently had the great chance of going to Venice, Italy through some procurement related work I was dealing with. Venice is such a lovely place, a pity it was pouring down and that I was there for barely 2 days, the time to deliver the work and go back and forth…

On this occasion I met up with the Venice chamber of commerce who have a tender support service for their local companies where they inform them regularly of what European tenders could be of interest. It is a good step towards getting small companies aware of what is out there and that exporting or cross-border sales (exporting is not a term used when you speak about exchanges between EU countries) do not need to be done just with the private sector.

Cross-border tendering is a huge issue in Europe and the powers in Brussels have been scratching their heads for quite a while on how to make things happen more easily. The EU directive broadly give the same legal background, procedures to all procurers in the EU but small companies still find it difficult translating their success on home markets into their neighbour’s.

I met up with half a dozen businesses and we shared some experience about how tendering is seen from their perspective. As Italians they are never really fond of rules and regulations and anything they have to deal with administratively. Winning contracts for them is difficult but somehow they felt winning a contract in Italy for a non-Italian company is even harder. One of the companies was interested in doing more in the EU but somehow found it easier to deal with the Middle-East and African countries… They are structural engineers, dealing with bridges, stadia, highways and the like. There is still a need in the EU for all of these, why don’t they get on with it nearer home?

The answer is that they really would like to, and they will try in the future but at the moment the margins are much better somewhere else.

This brought to me the thought that maybe the procurement process as it is designed / managed in Europe gives too much power to the procurers? We all want to have the best products for as cheap a price as possible but we sometimes forget that the companies selling these products also need to survive and be rewarded for their risks and investments. Without the bridge company making huge profits in Dubai they would not be able to build a bridge in the UK at an UAE “subsidised” price.

The same can apply to pretty much any products we buy as individuals – we may get them at a favourable price because of other markets supporting the seller.

Without making all procurement people feel super important, the procurers are pretty much the masters of the world. How do you control them? How do you guide them in making decisions that in the short term are not the most interesting? Is buying a bridge from Italy a better option to buying a bridge from the UK for a British buyer?

Scratching head still in progress but there are some new rules coming up in Europe that are looking at how to do more “social procurement” i.e. buying with the society in mind. Will that change things?

How to score in the United Nations procurement net

toni — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 17:54:19 +0000

I recently attended a 2 day training workshop in New York about how to deal with UN procurement from a supplier perspective. This was organised as part of something called the European Union Procurement Forum, a group of people each representing a member state country trying to help the businesses of Europe sell to the United Nations.

The event is organised every year, as far as I know with the support of the UN but without their financing, instead all the participants have to pay around $800 to attend.

Is that worth it? 135 companies from 21 different countries thought so. A real mixture of businesses, from consultants to printers, translators to freight forwarders, medical devices, construction companies, IT etc.

Did I get value?

To a great extent yes (and that has nothing to do with the very nice food served, or being in one of the most interesting cities in the world). Part of the second day could be forgotten about – I cannot actually remember a thing about the afternoon session.

For the meaty part (and yes, our friends in the US do eat a lot of meat, I was looking forward to eating my greens back in the UK), the first day set the picture of what the UN buys (seems to be mosquito nets mainly): the extent of their procurement (dangerous zones mainly but not only), and how they do it (quite differently from the EU procurement procedures).

What was striking is the number of different agencies the UN is made of. Striking as well is the procurement budget of these different agencies – it runs in billions for most of them and they are considered small when they have a spend of “only” $220M.

Are UN procurers different from EU procurers? All the speakers were procurers or head of the procurement departments at different agencies and you certainly could not fault their professionalism in most of their presentations. They all follow the guiding principles, similar to the EU, of Best Value for Money, Fairness, Transparency and Integrity. Their main differences from EU procurers is that they have to deal more often with crisis procurement and have systems to allow them to be quick, but at the same time very confident that whoever they buy from can actually deliver the job every time. As one presenter said, you cannot have a soldier managing a crisis with an empty stomach and without shelter for too long…

Is the UN open to dealing with small businesses? Absolutely, and a big proportion of the companies there were small outfits. I travelled/met up with small company from Kent, a middle size printing company from Malta which previously won a contract and a middle size freight forwarder from Southampton which won quite a few contracts.

The UN buys a lot in the locality where their mission is taking place and tries to spread their buying for risk prevention as well as a social development exercise. If an international company works with local suppliers, wherever the crisis is, the bid is all the stronger.

Are there products the UN need and where you could make a mint?

Apart from the mosquito nets mentioned before – they have a multi-million dollars programme to distribute them as an effective Malaria control system – the UN needs blood, loads of it. They currently have a supplier in the Netherlands that is good but does not have as much capacity as the UN needs. How do you get into that business I am not sure, but if you have connections with Dracula Ltd you have a great potential buyer to speak with…

If you want to learn about the UN, the next event is in May 2012. Places go very fast once the registration opens in January (not quite as fast as for a Take That concert though)…