Month: January 2021

As a public agency, you support your vendor community and you also depend on them. In order to ensure you receive the best value for your procured goods or services (and that you’re spending taxpayers’ dollars most effectively!), you need competition. And that starts with getting your opportunity in front of more qualified vendors. 

Bonfire eProcurement’s vendor database helps public procurement agents flag suppliers when a bid is posted that matches their commodity code. Additionally, users can invite vendors to bid on their opportunity as well.  

That all sounds well and good for my procurement team, you may say, but what about my vendors? We get it—nurturing strong vendor relationships is one of your top priorities. The last thing you want is to frustrate them with a confusing and arduous submission process.

So what do vendors that do business with public agencies think of Bonfire? We’ll let the numbers speak for themselves:

• In the last year, Bonfire doubled the number of vendors that public agencies have access to in the platform, with approximately 250,000 vendors in the database. 
• Vendors can access Bonfire opportunities, view requirements, and submit bids entirely online, at no cost.
• Vendors have the option to subscribe to Bonfire Premium Vendors, allowing them to access an exclusive portal featuring 20,000+ new projects a year, as well as receive notifications of matching opportunities. Suppliers love the features so much that we saw Premium Vendor subscriptions grow by 724% in the past year.

Responding to public bids is easy: A Bonfire vendor story

Kokosing Industrial is one of the largest water and waste-water general contractors and design builders in the USA. They use Bonfire to electronically find, manage, and respond to construction RFPs issued by a Bonfire client, as well as other public sector agencies.

When their client first started using Bonfire, they had some apprehensions about how the submission process would work, and how much extra time would be required to sort through technical challenges. As Preconstruction Manager at Kokosing, Dennis Tinkler, explains, “When you’re trying to figure out technology and make sure it works, sometimes it’s a challenge. But quite frankly, we didn’t have any problems with Bonfire and that’s truly what I appreciated.”

Some of the benefits Kokosing Industrial experienced as a Bonfire vendor include:

• Visibility – They can view all bid documents, requirements, public notices, and timelines in one centralized place
• Upload confirmation – They receive confirmation of successful document upload and data entry that clearly indicate the information has been correctly submitted. Once the response is submitted, they receive a timestamped submission receipt.
• Communication – They can receive and reply to communications through Bonfire so all information is tracked, transparent and centralized.
• Paperless – No more emails, curriers, or undocumented phone calls.

To learn more about how Kokosing Industrial uses Bonfire to electronically find, manage, and respond to construction RFPs, check out the video here.

The COVID-19 virus is on the rise again and lockdowns continue across North America. And now, public procurement teams are facing a whole new challenge—sourcing and distributing vaccines.

It’s a daunting time, but also a time of great innovation. Industries are adapting new processes and technologies that they may not have ever considered before, or they may not have expected to implement for another few years. The field of public procurement is no different—we’re seeing an industry that has traditionally not been first-adopters of new technology, now adapting quickly to keep business flowing as usual. Truly, the teams behind the hand sanitizers we see in every public sector building are heroes as they have found new ways to maintain status quo in a turbulent year. 

Through COVID-19, Bonfire has witnessed first-hand how public procurement teams have used our solution and, specifically, how our procurement software has supported emergency scenarios. To enable your team to continue to adapt to the curveballs that COVID-19 has thrown your way, or to prepare for future emergency situations, here are two key Bonfire Strategic Sourcing Software functionalities that are here to help:

Vendor Databases for Emergency Procurement

For both regular and emergency procurements, Bonfire can suggest vendors based on commodity codes, so clients can build invite lists quickly. You can save these lists as a roster of vendors who can support emergency situations, or you can use the functionality on-demand. Once the list is prepared, you can invite the vendors to bid on the proposal and then immediately close the project (for example, if your agency has an emergency procurement policy, it may allow you to close projects sooner than usual after running an invitational). Bonfire even has built-in best practices that recommend how long a project should be open for. However, you also have the ability to override the timeline, which is particularly useful in emergency situations. 

We’ve even seen cases with our clients successfully completing one-day project turnarounds, which is almost unheard of in the public sector. This type of scenario allows you to get the submissions online with the same digital (or “contactless”) means as before, while maintaining rigorous security and transparency obligations in an emergency situation. 

Centralized Emergency Documents

Emergency documents can be created and uploaded in Bonfire and stored in a centralized place to outline procedures during an emergency situation. Bonfire offers the capabilities to store these documents safely, but the documents and procedures themselves—as well as the legal decisions as to how to proceed in an emergency—are decided upon by the client. Having a place to store such a document, however, provides you with the peace of mind in case you are audited in the future and need to reference your emergency procurement procedures.

How Municipal Procurement Teams Transformed in 2020

As a procurement professional, you have had to adapt on-the-fly to address the changing needs of your constituents during COVID-19. We dug into the Bonfire database, and comparing usage in 2019 vs. 2020, here’s an inside look at how municipal government procurement projects have changed:

• 350% increase in communications devices and accessories
• 285% increase in computer services
• 150% increase in consumer electronics
• 67% increase in data voice or multimedia network equipment or platforms
• 1300% increase in information technology service delivery
• 122% increase in software

To ensure a contactless government experience, or to ensure government employees can work from home seamlessly, municipal governments had to quickly and compliantly source the right technology. And Bonfire was there to help.

To learn more about how Bonfire can help your procurement team navigate emergency procurements during the pandemic and beyond, talk to a Bonfire expert today.

On December 27, 2020, the new U.S. $900 billion stimulus bill was signed into law. The package includes stimulus checks for individuals, enhanced federal unemployment benefits, relief for businesses, funds for vaccine distribution, and more. For the public sector, new funding has been introduced to support schools and transportation, and for state and local governments, CARES Act funding has been extended.

For public sector procurement teams, here’s what you need to know.

New aid and extended deadlines

With the new stimulus package, colleges and schools will receive $82 billion, including $22.7 billion earmarked for colleges and universities and $54.3 billion for elementary and secondary education. 

Transportation will receive $45 billion, including $16 billion for another round of airline employee and contractor payroll support; $14 billion for transit; $10 billion for highways; $2 billion for intercity buses; $2 billion for airpots; and $1 billion for Amtrak. 

For reference, Coronavirus-related spending in 2020 totalled $30 billion for K-12 and higher education funding, and $25 billion for Mass Transit funding.

Although no new money was earmarked for state and local governments, the deal would give them an additional year to spend the $139 billion appropriated under the CARES Act.

Requirements for expenditures

With the deadline to use your CARES funding extended beyond the original December 30, 2020 deadline, it’s time to consider how to maximize your unused funds to respond to challenges caused by COVID-19.

The Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF) covers some of those more obvious expenses—like establishing temporary public medical facilities or disinfecting public areas—but it also covers some indirect costs related to COVID-19, like expenses to improve telework capabilities for public employees working from home.

As you consider how to leverage your funding, keep in mind these three requirements for CRF eligibility:

• Necessary expenditures incurred due to the public health emergency. This includes expenses for public safety measures (such as maintaining social distancing), improving remote work infrastructure, and more. The Department of the Treasury includes a nonexhaustive list of eligible expenses in this guide.
• Costs not accounted for in the budget most recently approved as of March 27, 2020.
• Costs incurred during the period between March 1, 2020, and the end of 2021. 

Using CARES to purchase procurement software

Government agencies across the country are using CARES funding to invest in procurement software. The City of San Angelo, Texas, for instance, used CARES to buy online bidding software to maintain social distancing by eliminating the need for in-person proposal submissions, courier deliveries, and physical bid openings. 

Investing your CARES dollars in an online bidding solution (like Bonfire) can serve as a force multiplier, driving greater impact even with limited resources. In emergency situations, these tools can help you get the goods and services your citizens need quickly and compliantly. By streamlining manual tasks, increasing vendor competition, and fostering stakeholder collaboration, digital solutions can help drive best value in your bids and RFx, setting up your agency to thrive during the pandemic and beyond. 

According to Terry White, IT procurement expert covering procurement and disruptive technologies at Omdia, “It has never been more important for government procurement teams to strengthen, stabilize, and regulate the procurement process with digital tools. Work from home, flexible working hours, and the need for rapid and efficient processing and evaluation of bids demands it. If not for the government agency themselves, then for the citizens they serve.” 

To learn more about digitizing your procurement process with CARES, chat with a Bonfire expert today.