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Being an entrepreneur in South Africa inevitably leads to taking part in tenders. Or at least it should. Lots of businesses don’t even bother to participate because of the red tape involved and the poor image of the decision making process. Not a day goes by without a tender scandal in the newspapers. The 21st century is a great time to get rid of all the paperwork and digitise the tender process in a state of the art way, making sure that tenders result in what they are meant for: reporting the best bidder for the job. And that is seldom the friend of a friend. |
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The tender is re-worked from its issued paper format into an electronic form where potential bidders are able to submit their information online in the comfort of their own offices. A simple web browser is sufficient for the bidder to access the Tendersure system and submit information, no additional software needs to be purchased in order to access or use Tendersure. Sentigol recommends the use of the Firefox browser (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html) with Tendersure, but supports other browsers as well. All bidder data is stored in an encrypted database locked to the bidder's user name and password. |
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New tenders can be issued through the same server portal used to collect the tender data from bidders. The tender issuer can communicate more directly with potential bidders by allowing them to register on the Tendersure system and select which tender category notices they wish to receive. The bidders can then tailor their own information feed without requiring additional labour or costs to monitor bulletin boards and traditional tender notice boards. The bidders will receive notices into their personal (elected) email inbox. |
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Tendersure will alert potential bidders via email and SMS of the issue of a new tender in their registered category. Bidders can then download the new tender from the system and decide whether or not they wish to bid on the new tender. This decision on whether to bid or not can now be made the same day that the tender is released and not have to wait for the tender notice to be issued or for the tender to be physically retrieved. Once a decision on the granting of a tender has been made, the same server portal is again used to communicate the decision to all the bidding parties as well as other interested parties. Supporting documentation is provided to bidding parties comparing their bid to the winning bid and the areas where the winning bid is superior to their own are highlighted. This allows bidders to identify the areas where their own business needs to improve in order to win future tenders, as well as provide transparency that the best bid has actually won.
Finally, the Tendersure system provides feedback during the bidding process; informing bidders of information missing from the bid that would cause the bid to be marked non-responsive (incomplete). The bidder can create custom messages based on time and date triggers to alert them to bid milestones in addition to the automated 'bid incomplete' messages. Email and SMS'es (at the bidder's discretion) are the medium of communication. |
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After the time lock of the tender has passed, the Tendersure system retrieves the bid information and evaluates the bids according to the pre-defined criteria. This saves manpower on the side of the tendering party and provides assurance of an equitable, auditable evaluation for all bidding parties. The tender bids are then ranked and submitted to the decision making body in the form of a compact report with all the bid raw data attached. The winning bid must now be selected from the amongst the best bids, severely reducing the benefit gained from illicit influence. Any decision too far outside the norm is instantly flagged to a watchdog body for investigation. |
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The results of the automated bid evaluation are provided in a report format (with raw data and ranking criteria attached) where the best bids are clearly identified and elevated above the non-responsive and undeserving bids. A tender decision committee is now able to apply their minds to evaluating the bids, rather than waste time with repetitive and mechanical vetting and calculation. All recipients of the report can be confident of receiving consistent, coherent and unbiased data from which to draw conclusions. Once a decision is reached, all bidding parties will be informed of the decision automatically and provided with concrete information as to why their bids were unsuccessful, without the need for the tender issuer to divert additional resources. Transparency and communication between the tender issuer and bidder is enhanced without the need for additional spending. |
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The digital storage and off site backup of tender data will ensure an audit trail of any tender for the foreseeable future. Any investigation will be able to access all tender data at a central location, which can also be made open to the general public. Further, the centralised storage of tender data allows for the analysis and evaluation of trends. Spending differences across provinces can be identified and investigated, allowing for the distribution of best practice and highlighting of illicit business practices such as price fixing. |
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