Government Marketplace Development: Pitfalls to Avoid
What Is Government Marketplace?
Government procurement is the acquisition of goods and services for the needs of the state from the state budget. In order to avoid corruption, it should be passed in accordance with the specialized scheme, regulated by law. There are the following key principles each government e procurement platform should guarantee:
- Equal relationship to the participants of procurement, as well as justice. This means that all companies and enterprises participating in the auction are given equal rights and opportunities to present their products, and all of them have the same access to information related to the procurement procedure;
- Transparency and openness of the bidding procedure. A participant is obliged to post all the data on purchases on the site devoted to competitive bidding and publish information about the beginning of trading and its progress in the media;
- Targeted and rational use of budgetary funds. The competitive bidding procedure ensures that the goods and services will be purchased at a minimum price with optimal characteristics and properties. The placement of all information on the terms and conditions of the bidding allows to control the procurement process. This leads to a rational use of budget funds;
- Full responsibility for improper performance of obligations. To exclude unscrupulous sellers from the market, any purchase is accompanied by a report on the price and quality of the goods purchased. The report justifies why this particular supplier was chosen. If there is a conspiracy, then in this case both parties of the transaction should be responsible.
Currently, electronic auctions are becoming very popular, for which maximum transparency is key factor for all public procurement procedures. In addition, the obvious advantages of a good and reputable electronic auctions include:
- Short lead time;
- Economy of state budget for bidding;
- Transparency and fairness of a procurement process;
- Competition between enterprises;
- The same equal conditions for all sellers;
- Ability to take part in the auction regardless of its location.
The new electronic format for holding tenders makes it possible to significantly save budgetary funds, but the advantages of the new standard of tenders do not end there. Thanks to the publicity of the auctions, the use of standard corruption schemes becomes much more complicated, lobbying is minimized, and the process of holding tenders is simplified and accelerated. This opens up new opportunities for the business, and economy for the budget of the country.
In addition to commonly used e-procurement systems, there are also other platforms that are build for each state and similar procedures: a healthcare gov marketplace and a charity marketplace.
Some Technologies to Build Government E Marketplace
A few technologies that are used for a Government E Marketplace development
Here is a list of some technologies and solutions used for gov marketplace development:
- Symphony CMS allows to manage content.
- Magento is one of the most useful tools on the basis of which the most popular world websites are build.
- Shopify contains ready made modules and templates for building e-marketplaces.
- Virtuemart is a marketplace constructor which allows adding all necessary functionality.
- PHP is one of the most popular and demanded programming languages which can be used almost for any purposes, and one of them is marketplace development.
- Marketplace Inc. is a tool that is convenient for creating multi vendor e commerce platforms.
- Forest is very useful instrument that is intended to control and manage operations provided on the trading website.
E Tendering System: Global Experience
E tendering system allows to fully automate the process of qualification selection of suppliers applying for a tender. The selection is done based on electronic monitoring of price proposals, in other words, by the mean of a reverse auction. In the course of real time bidding, suppliers compete in the lowest prices, the optimal terms of delivery and payment for each of the bidding lots. Here are the worldwide examples of e tenders gov:
Central Public Procurement Portal (India). As India is a country with high level of corruption, using such tender portals helps this country to decrease the level of unfair transactions in public procurement.
Screenshot of Indian Government marketplace
Prozorro (Ukraine). It is a Ukrainian innovation that has already received the approval of the European Union and other countries of the world.
Screenshot of a Ukrainian government e marketplace, approved by the European Union
GeBiz (Singapore). Singapore was one of the first countries which began to use a government e marketplace in order to make all deals with the state transparent.
Screenshot of a government e marketplace in Singapore
Federal Procurement Data System (USA). This government marketplace is based on the US federal contracting system.
Screenshot of the US government marketplace
AUS Tender (Australia) is a request for proposal (rfp) marketplace, which should be obligatory used by all states authorities and business units.
Screenshot of an Australian RFP marketplace
Some Pitfalls in Marketplace Development
- Developing a government marketplace, a programmer should take care of its uninterrupted performance so that all participant of e-tendering might be able to login into the system and take part in trading;
- Such a website should contain a simple and unified registration form for participants, as well as the intuitive application form;
- After the end of the development the site must be immediately transferred to the state;
- An indispensable condition is the recognition of the legitimacy of such a site for interaction with state and municipal customers;
- The platform should contain a system for verifying suppliers in order to protect the state customers from scammers;
- Programmers who create the gov marketplace should develop and implement unified requirements for the organization of electronic trading on the site and the application forms for participation;
- The trading platform must be provided with the necessary electronic resources, including instructions for its usage, legislation in the field of electronic trading and government orders;
- The government marketplace should be continuously maintained and monitored by programmers in order to ensure its well-functioning work, as well as information security.
How To Build A Marketplace?
If your project implies custom marketplace development of any orientation, then you are in the right place. Mobilunity has wide experience in creating similar sites and will gladly help you implement your project into reality.
Contact our manager right now to discuss the details of your tender portal creation!
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