Increasingly, governments in developed countries are looking to sustainable procurement to rescue their foundering economies under the guise of “green” or “sustainable” procurement. (more…)

We launched a new kind of eAuction format just under a year ago… A multi-directional eAuction.

Multi Directional Reverse eAuctions are useful when you have some elements you want suppliers to bid down (e.g. unit cost) and others you want to bid upwards (e.g. a rebate, marketing money etc). Without multi-directional eAuctions you have to find some complicated way of calculating net prices and having suppliers input those net prices into the auction. With multi-directional eAuctions this is all taken care of by the system. (more…)

I am not a big fan of reverse Dutch auctions on the internet, from either the buyer’s or the seller’s point of view.

Dutch auctions were initially invented and adopted to speed up the sale of flowers in Amsterdam. Potential flower buyers would sit in a room which contained a clock. The clock would initially show a very high price - much higher than any flower buyer would be prepared to pay. The price shown on the clock would then tick downwards until it reached a price that one buyer was happy with. The buyer would press a button to “stop the clock” and could buy as many lots of flowers as they wanted at the price shown on the clock. If more flowers remained to be sold then the clock would continue downwards until all the flowers had been sold.

Software providers have adapted this kind of auction to internet procurement auctions, but the practical implementation leads a lot to be desired. (more…)

The District of Columbia is proving that the use of Web 2.0 tools can bring greater transparency, efficiency and competition to a procurement – at virtually no cost. And the tools are simple enough that anyone with moderate internet skills would be able to implement them. (more…)

Continuing along the same vein of interesting applications of Web 2.0 technologies in procurement is the Evidence Warehouse project for the District of Columbia. For this project, the District has posted all communications including documents and video to a Wiki. There is even a Q&A section available for everyone to see. The Wiki can be seen here:

www.evidencewarehouse.ocp.dc.gov

It has been reported that this process enabled the District to reduce the process from 6 months to 3 to 4 months. I have to imagine that this also furthered the public procurement maxims of openness and transparency.

Another interesting development I’ve become aware of is the use of YouTube in procurement. For instance, there is a great video that provides and overview of the eVA e-procurement system.

An interest of mine is evaluating opportunities to apply some Web 2.0 technologies to the procurement environment.

Recently, I discovered a service provided by Ning. This service allows you to create “social networks” (a la Facebook) for different community groups.

Most procurement communities are closed shops. They are regionally based associations that charge membership dues. Now, granted, they provide more service than I envision - but what about a free service to allow us to connect?

Furthermore, I have a hypothesis that the Water Dept. in NYC has more in common with the Water Depts. in Dubai and Melbourne than with the other departments in NYC. Shouldn’t someone bring these people together?

So, The Procurement Exchange Community can be found at procurementexchange.ning.com or via the home page of The Procurement Exchange.

I will leave it as open as possible so that members can create groups, start discussion threads, etc.

Let me know what you think!