Bidhive has launched its open contracts tools that enables anyone to search for tenders and contract award data. The innovation follows the chain of procurement – right from the time a tender is published to when it is awarded and delivered.
Bidhive co-founder Nyree McKenzie said their new Open Contracts tool, which aggregates data from Australia and the UK and then uses data visualisation to provide better insight into the complex world of procurement, would not only increase competition but also pass on public savings by lowering information costs and investment risk for bidders.
Visible procurement data, all in one place
Ms McKenzie said until now businesses have had to visit multiple procurement portals to source open tender opportunities and contract data while others remain hidden behind subscription paywalls.
“With 1 in every 3 dollars spent on public contracting we’re making datasets freely available to allow businesses and the public to follow the money on government budget commitments to improve visibility of the process, and transparency into how and where it is being spent.”
“The global tendering industry is worth $15 trillion, but it remains notoriously reluctant to innovate. As a result, corruption and mismanagement has continued in many countries, and in the case of COVID-19, chaos reigned as antiquated procurement systems and processes buckled under new demand for medical supplies, security resources, and protective equipment,” said McKenzie.
Research by the World Bank in 2017 found those countries with more transparent procurement systems and commitment to open tendering had reduced levels of corruption and more firms participating in the public procurement market.
“In the 2019-20 budget year just 10 suppliers held 83.9 percent of Australian Government procurement contracts, but new procurement rules and initiatives to encourage contract bidding by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should see the end of the big, long-term deals held by ‘mega vendors’ that have blown out budgets and underperformed,” she said.
Creating a level playing field to support economic recovery
“Having open contracting is critical in supporting economic rebound from the impact of Covid-19, and global procurement reform agendas that are designed to support small and local businesses, in particular,” Ms McKenzie said.
“We set out to develop a bid management platform to help contract suppliers break down the complexity of the bidding process, and with the addition of open contracting data made possible by working alongside the Open Contracting Partnership, we can help to create a more level playing field for competition, while helping procurement departments see what best practice looks like. This lets them take steps to clean up their data entry so that reporting is more accurate, timely and transparent.”
Ms McKenzie said the Bidhive open contracting data search engine will be open and free for anyone to search and analyse the public data, with the ability to build a pipeline and unify it with their own company data and workflows into the Bidhive platform. Additional country and sub-national data sets are planned for later release where open contracting data standards are being implemented.
More than 50 countries and cities, from Argentina to Zambia, are pursuing open contracting reforms. Bidhive is one of the first technology vendors worldwide to aggregate both procurement and supplier data sets from end to end across the bid lifecycle between tender planning through to contract award.
The Bidhive end-to-end bid management platform was recognised for outstanding innovation at the 2021 AIIA Queensland iAwards in July, being named as Winner in the Business & Industry Solutions of the Year category.
Users can register a free Bidhive account at www.bidhive.com/open-contracts.