Month: October 2021

As supply chain issues continue to impact public agencies around the globe, many are turning to diverse small businesses to fill the gap. For Amanda Burton, Contract Buyer at Utah Transit Authority, for example, the pandemic “was a big eye-opener… It showed me personally how important vendor relationships are. Suddenly those mom and pop shops that I kind of overlooked a little bit were my main go-tos.”

Exploring new vendor relationships has partly been driven by necessity. But there’s a silver lining too. More and more agencies are realizing that sourcing goods and services from diverse vendors—including historically disadvantaged or marginalized groups and small businesses—gives them a big advantage. First, let’s look at why vendor diversity is getting increased attention right now. Then we’ll explore some simple steps you can take to make your procurement process more equitable.

More public agencies are prioritizing vendor diversity

More than a buzzword, social procurement has become a top priority for many organizations in recent years. The Biden administration has said it will “support small businesses and tackle inequities in the federal contracting system” by tripling federal contracting goals for small, disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) by 2025. And recent Bonfire data reveals public agencies across North America are making a greater effort than ever to build diversity and equity in their vendor pools. 

Our 2021 State of Public Sourcing report shows at least 10% of Bonfire users are already tracking vendor diversity. That number has doubled over the past year—and it’s likely to keep increasing. Tracking vendor diversity helps buyers see how well their efforts to engage more diverse suppliers are working. In fact, as new policies and government funding emerge to promote supplier diversity, this type of reporting is becoming a requirement. eProcurement platforms like Bonfire allow you to set registration fields to easily collect data around a vendor’s status (e.g., DBE, small business, non-profit, and more). That information helps buyers improve strategic decision making and comply with social procurement policies.

Agencies that engage diverse vendors aren’t only using their purchasing power to promote social progress; they also benefit in tangible ways from driving increased competition against large, well-established players. That approach promotes best-value purchasing that supports the social, economic, and cultural best interests of the community.

Breaking down barriers to entry

Organizations that want to prioritize vendor diversity need to do more than just talk the talk. They also need to actively dismantle barriers that may be preventing historically disadvantaged and marginalized small businesses from participating in bids. Here are some of the top ways your agency can foster equity in your vendor selection process.

Invite more vendors to the table

Bonfire data shows 66% of proposals come from vendors that have been invited by the purchasing organization. If you want more diverse suppliers to bid on your projects, you need to get your opportunities in front of them through vendor invitations. Using Bonfire, you can maintain an active list of vendors with DBE status and invite them to bid on projects in a single click. More invitations means more competition in the market, including diverse vendors, local small businesses, and fresh options that can improve outcomes for your organization. 

Bring DBEs on as subcontractors

Inviting DBEs to be subcontractors also has many advantages. eProcurement systems like Bonfire allow suppliers to flag themselves as subcontractors with the click of a button so agencies, as well as prime contractors, can easily view and bring DBE subcontractors on board.

Rethink your evaluation criteria

It’s important to consider how your scoring criteria might be reinforcing barriers that make it harder for DBEs to compete. By rethinking your evaluations, you can promote greater diversity in your vendor pool and relationships. For example, Bonfire’s evaluation features let you create scorecards that reflect DBE status, including custom scoring fields that help promote DBE representation in your vendor selections.

Building resilience through diversity

Agencies that promote equity in their vendor selection process and build greater diversity in their vendor pools will be better positioned to meet the challenges of an uncertain post-pandemic world. Having diverse vendor relationships puts procurement teams at a significant advantage when it comes to navigating future supply chain shortages, driving increased supplier competition, and finding best-value solutions that promote social, cultural, and economic good.

For more insights into how your peers are navigating supplier diversity and other priorities this year, download your free copy of the Bonfire 2021 State of Public Sourcing Report. 

Did you catch this year’s NIGP Virtual Forum? It was an action-packed conference full of forward-thinking ideas, latest trends, and actionable insights for public sector procurement professionals.

If you missed our session on “Procurement Priorities in a Post-COVID World,” this blog post is for you! We’ve got all the highlights, including hot takes from our expert panelists on how the pandemic has shaped procurement processes, strategies, challenges, and next steps in 2021.

The stories behind the data

During the session, Bonfire’s own Rachel Friesen, Director of Client Experience, sat down with our three featured public procurement experts:

• Michael Brinton, Assistant Director, Contract Compliance Manager, Metropolitan Transportation Commission
• Jennifer Frates, Chief Procurement Officer, Barnstable County
• Omar Salaymeh, CEO, Bonfire

Each panelist shared their own experiences to illuminate some of the top findings from our report on the 2021 State of Public Sourcing. The report looks at Bonfire client data from 2019 to 2021 to measure how public procurement opportunities and challenges have shifted as the pandemic has evolved—impacting everything from project volumes to eProcurement adoption. Here’s a snapshot of some of the highlights from their conversation.

How did the pandemic affect your relationships with suppliers?

Our 2021 report revealed an increase in overall project volumes and a resurgence of RFPs as compared to 2020 numbers. With more projects on the go and many agencies switching to fully digital processes, we asked our panelists how the changes have impacted the dynamic between vendors and their procurement team.

Jennifer: I think we were just able to work a lot more efficiently. Previously when we had in-person bids, it was a lot more time consuming. Vendors were always worried if their bid was going to make it on time… And then, when the pandemic hit, vendors reached out to me personally and were just so grateful that [we had switched to eProcurement] and they never had to put something in the mail again… I got a lot of positive feedback from that.

Michael: As far as the move to eProcurement, Bonfire was really one of our first transitions to that. We had been starting this process, pre-pandemic, for years. And luckily we were finished turning everything on… before the pandemic. What I’ve seen is that, actually, we’ve been able to work more closely. It’s more cooperative… It reduces costs for our vendors. They don’t have to travel, we’re not doing hard copies of proposals. So it’s actually improved and allowed us to get more firms to participate and compete because there’s less of a barrier to entry.

How has procurement’s role shifted in 2021?

With the pandemic catalyzing digitization, many public procurement teams were able to automate manual tasks, such as tracking down physical signatures or managing evaluations in Excel. With fewer administrative responsibilities, it follows that teams have greater capacity for higher level thinking. Here’s what Bonfire’s CEO, Omar Salaymeh, had to say on that topic.

Omar: We’ve heard this over and over again that procurement teams wanted to modernize, but they couldn’t. And now [with the pandemic] they had a really good reason to shift. Those platforms end up saving hours and hours of time…. And what do you end up doing with the extra time? What we hear from our clients is now you have time for market research, you have time for scoping and drafting better RFPs, negotiation, diversity initiatives. All of that allows you the headspace and the opportunity to start tackling these larger projects instead of doing things that, quite frankly, computers are really good at doing.

Has remote work impacted your team’s ability to be audit-ready?

The move to digital platforms and processes can carry a steep learning curve—but, for procurement, there’s no “grace period,” especially when it comes to compliance. Here’s how our panelists are tackling the challenge of upholding transparency in a digital world.

Michael: From an audit perspective, where it becomes challenging is when you have multiple platforms that you use… You also have to be aware of trying to cut corners or skip steps. Digitally it can be easy to move around or skip something that could impact the audit trail… I‘m not as worried about it because we’ve been going to a transition to digital working for the past five years or so… But I can definitely see it, especially for an agency that was relying on paper and had to switch really quickly to digital. Having to have records retention tools in place, it really is challenging.

Omar: More and more organizations are using best-in-breed technology to do what they want to do really quickly as opposed to introducing a behemoth software solution that does it all and takes three years to implement and nobody likes to use. I think that nimble approach is definitely the way to go… It also leads to quick results that you can see right away.

How are you adjusting to increased demand and stakeholders?

As our 2021 State of Public Sourcing report revealed, the number of stakeholders involved in projects has risen 49.3% between 2019 and 2021. With more hands on deck, we asked our panelists how their procurement teams are facilitating collaboration and building consensus.

Jennifer: We’ve been able to add a lot more stakeholders… We do a lot of cooperative bids for the 15 towns in the County that may not have dedicated procurement folks. They were able to sign onto Bonfire and see the projects firsthand. So I definitely had a lot more stakeholder involvement and, even internally, with all of my departments.

Michael: We’ve increased our staff size. Using the tools between Bonfire and another system that we use, we’ve been able to coordinate making sure we’re able to monitor workload, shifting workload around so that no one’s completely overburdened. One of the things that we’ve also done is… we’re a regional agency, so we cover nine counties. And within those nine counties, I think there’s 116 jurisdictions. And they’ve been much more challenged through this pandemic than my agency has. So we’ve made an effort to make sure our procurements are available for cooperative use or piggy-backing by other jurisdictions within our agency… It’s not necessarily our volume, but we’ve been trying to help our jurisdictions and our regional partners handle their own resource versus volume challenges.

Ready to put your foot on the gas pedal?

Public procurement teams are racing ahead to a brave, new post-pandemic world. And we’ve got all the insights you need to reprioritize and plan your strategy—now and into the future. Get your copy of the 2021 State of Public Sourcing report to learn more. Watch the full panel session on our website.

While empathy may not be a required qualification on many procurement job postings, it’s one of the most important qualities of a successful procurement professional. When agencies need to make big decisions about how to spend taxpayer dollars effectively, procurement professionals are at the center of it all, putting themselves in their colleagues’ shoes, connecting diverse stakeholders, and helping them agree on the best possible solutions. 

It’s a position Peggy Ferrin has been in countless times, and she joins us on the Inside Public Procurement podcast to talk about why empathy is her procurement superpower. As Procurement Coordinator for the Town of Paradise Valley, Peggy brings over 20 years of experience working in purchasing for school districts, cities, and hospitals. During that time, she’s dealt with her fair share of resistance to procurement policies. On the podcast, she shares her tried-and-true strategies for building trust-based relationships and promoting compliance.

Keep reading for all the highlights from our conversation and tune into the full episode on our website or wherever you get your podcasts!

Buy-in starts with trust

In public procurement, regulations play a central role in maintaining a community’s trust. “I think in my view, procurement basically is compliance. I mean, that’s what we do and that’s the way we think,” says Peggy. And, when it comes right down to it, she says it’s her job “to keep the government officials and all the employees out of the newspaper.”

Unfortunately, many internal clients don’t realize just how important compliance is to keeping the organization running—particularly when it comes to securing funding and managing public opinion. As a result, educating colleagues and overcoming their resistance is something Peggy has learned to do well over her 20-year career. 

So what’s her proven method for winning over even the most resistant colleagues? Building a personal relationship first. “I had the mentality that I would just meet with all my user groups at least once a week, once every couple of weeks, depending on their schedule. And I would sit down and talk to them… on a personal level.”

That approach allowed her to gain clients’ trust and encourage buy-in, ensuring projects achieve the most favourable outcomes possible.

Beyond black-and-white rules

Approaching procurement from a relationship-building perspective isn’t just about winning trust. It also lets Peggy see things from internal clients’ perspectives. The big takeaway? Procurement doesn’t have to be as rigid as she first thought when she entered the profession years ago.

“I used to look at it that procurement was just black and white and all these rules, but there’s so much gray in between. It’s important for us to look at it through the lens of our user groups. You know, what is it that they want? What’s the end goal? What are they trying to accomplish? Then in procurement, how can I help them do that?”

That’s where empathy comes in. Connecting on a personal level helps procurement professionals reach a deeper understanding of internal clients’ challenges, pain points, needs, and goals. Peggy says starting a project from that perspective drives the best results.

“I always try to do that when I work with user groups. What is it they’re looking at? What are their obstacles that they’re trying to get over? Just try to help them, and now they call me in advance, which is procurement’s best way to have it, right? That’s our dream is that they call us in advance before they get started.”

The difference eProcurement makes

A third key ingredient to fostering better collaboration and consensus, in Peggy’s experience, is eProcurement. While some organizations struggle to get agency-wide buy-in for large-scale digital transformation, Peggy is proud to say that wasn’t the case in Paradise Valley, even though “some of our employees have been there 10, 20, and we have quite a few that have been there 30 years.”

eProcurement has helped the team to build trust and transparency around the procurement process—especially bid scoring. And having access to a digital platform during the pandemic allowed them to continue operations remotely without interruption. Now that they can complete procurements of all shapes and sizes in one central place from the beginning, Peggy has noticed an improvement in the way the whole agency works and communicates. “It’s so easy to pull [a bid] into the contract module and then set those reminders right from the beginning, put my stakeholders in there so they get those emails as well.”

And that’s not all… 

Don’t miss the full episode for more advice and firsthand procurement stories from Peggy on the importance of empathy, negotiation, and relationship-building in public procurement.

Hungry for more tips, insights, and inspiration you can use to level up your procurement strategy? Head over to our website, or find Inside Public Procurement on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts!