Month: November 2021

After the pandemic put public procurement plans on hold, 2021 brought a resurgence of activity that shows purchasing teams are putting their foot on the gas. Bonfire clients are on track to complete an average of 27 projects in 2021, up 39% from 2020 and nearly on par with 2019 numbers.

While public agencies are accelerating into an uncertain post-pandemic world, things are different now. Approaches, processes, and tools have transformed. And there’s no going back to pre-pandemic ways of working. 

One of the most transformative changes for agencies that used paper-based or “patchwork” procurement processes before the pandemic was the transition to eProcurement. Let’s look at some of the findings from our report on the State of Public Sourcing in 2021 to understand how eProcurement use has changed and what it means for the future of public procurement.

More users than ever are logging into Bonfire

In the State of Public Sourcing in 2021, we looked at data from around 400 public agencies that use Bonfire for procurement. Our analysis compares key metrics from January to June of three consecutive years—2019, 2020, and 2021—to shed light on how the pandemic has impacted public procurement departments’ strategies and priorities.

One of the biggest takeaways? eProcurement use is on the rise.

That trend was clear even in 2020 when the pandemic forced many procurement teams to put plans on the backburner. Despite lower project volumes, there were more people logged into the Bonfire platform in 2020 than ever before. Compared to 2019, Bonfire users logged in 50% more in 2020 and 38% more in 2021.

For public sector agencies, including municipalities, school boards, and healthcare organizations, eProcurement became a critical lifeline for continuing operations and delivering essential services. The speed and efficiency of digital procurement processes helped public sector teams expedite critical projects. And it also kept procurement departments, internal clients, stakeholders, and vendors connected while working safely from home.

Agencies are increasing how many buyers use eProcurement

eProcurement levels up an organization’s ability to collaborate with stakeholders all across the agency, and externally too. When the pandemic hit, procurement teams realized the value of digital processes virtually overnight. Traditionally office-based teams became remote ones and regular processes like lunchroom chats and paper-based forms were no longer an option.

Over the course of 2020 and 2021, teams accelerated their adoption of digital solutions for things like productivity, workflow optimization, and collaboration. So it makes sense that, on top of logging into Bonfire more frequently, agencies also expanded the use of eProcurement to a broader set of buyer groups within the agency.

The number of procurement buyers per agency leveraging eProcurement software increased by 44% from 2019 to 2021. That upward trend correlates with the increase in project volumes we mentioned earlier, as public agencies leveraged relief funding to address new and emerging priorities.

Buyers are logging in from anywhere and everywhere

With more people working remotely at least some of the time, our data shows that procurement teams, internal clients, stakeholders, and vendors were logging into their accounts from more places.

When looking at the average number of distinct locations per eProcurement user from 2019 to 2020, we see an increase from 1.7 to 2. Comparing 2019 to 2021, there’s an even bigger 41% increase in the average number of locations where each buyer uses Bonfire.

In other words, people are working on eProcurement tasks from more and more locations and devices, not just a desktop in the office. That finding lines up with data we collected in our 2021 procurement priorities survey, in which over 50% of respondents said they expect to work from home on at least a part-time basis after the pandemic.

Once an anomaly in the public sector, the increase in remote work reflects digital transformation and new workplace norms driven by the pandemic—specifically, the introduction of work-from-anywhere policies and technologies. 

Get the full picture

Our data analysis offers evidence that COVID-19 has been a catalyst for permanent change in public sector procurement. The rapid pace of transformation has many procurement teams developing new strategies and priorities as they head into an uncertain future.

For more insights into how your peers are navigating eProcurement adoption, plus other priorities like vendor diversity and engagement, download your free copy of the Bonfire 2021 State of Public Sourcing Report. 

You’ve posted your RFP, evaluated dozens of candidates, and finally selected the best vendor for the job. The contract is signed and now it’s time to celebrate. Right? Not quite.

The next step in the procurement lifecycle is contract management. Not only is it critical to ensuring a project’s success, you can also improve outcomes across the board when you use a purpose-built digital solution for automating, tracking, and analyzing elements of your contracts.

In this blog post, we’re looking at the value of contract management and the advantages that your procurement team can realize when you take contracts out of filing cabinets or shared drives and into an eProcurement platform.

The value of improved government contract management

Contract management is a phase during the procurement lifecycle when the procurement team, internal clients, and vendor work together to ensure performance meets expectations and the vendor delivers against all requirements.

In a recent episode of our podcast, Inside Public Procurement, we talked to Tyler Liu, Strategic Sourcing Services Manager at the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), about how procurement software has streamlined the process in his department. He said, for ICBC, “having contracts management is very key, especially for big projects where there are multiple deliveries and milestones listed out in the contract.”

With contract management integrated into their digital procurement workflow, Tyler can ensure there are no gaps between the contract requirements and vendor performance—something that can create issues if there’s no monitoring or oversight in place.

Why bring contract management into eProcurement?

Integrating contract management within a single, purpose-built digital procurement platform transforms your approach from reactive to proactive, giving you the ability to stay on top of your active agreements and build strong vendor relationships.

When sourcing and contract management are hosted together, all the data you need to generate a new contract is already there for you to pull from. But that’s just the beginning. The Contract Management module in Bonfire also helps you reduce risk, manage contracts more proactively, centralize data, and collaborate better.

Manage risk more effectively on existing contracts

Ensuring vendors are performing as expected is an important part of successful sourcing. Bonfire delivers clear visibility into vendor performance, so you can stay on top of every project easily. With contracts on a centralized, searchable platform, you quickly see what you need to focus on to make strategic decisions. You can also level up your vendor performance data by creating surveys that pull expertise and input from stakeholders. View and export survey results to see at-a-glance insights and trends in performance scores. And get instant alerts about any performance red flags, so you can get ahead of potential issues.

With tools to support contract and vendor management, your procurement team spends more time building strong relationships with great vendors. And you also minimize risk by ensuring you have plenty of lead time to go back to market if vendors are missing the mark.

Take a proactive approach to contracts

Once you have data around vendor performance, you’re better equipped to make decisions around contract renewal. But you also need to be able to track important contract dates like lead times and end dates so you know, in advance, whether you need to go back to market.

When we talked to Tyler from ICBC, he said contract management in Bonfire helps his team better manage hundreds of contracts with notifications about renewal timelines. “So we can remind ourselves and the business units, ‘Hey, we have a contract expiring in six months, so what’s our plan? Do we want to extend, terminate, or go to market?’”

In Bonfire, a calendar heatmap gives you a high-level view of important dates. Dark-color days signify more contracts expiring for greater values, allowing you to prioritize your time. You can also see visual timelines for individual contracts and set custom reminders to stay on track.

Share insights and collaborate better using a single source of truth

Having strong data is key to making the best possible contract and vendor management decisions—and it’s even more powerful when all internal and external stakeholders have visibility into the same consolidated source of truth for agreements and milestones. 

Bonfire improves communication and collaboration that helps you manage the contract lifecycle more effectively. Clear, easy-to-use dashboards and KPIs keep everyone on the same page, giving your team the information they need to identify and respond to issues, set priorities, and continuously improve. It’s easy for everyone to view, filter, and export contract information—such as vendor documentation, insurance certificates, contract details, and more—all in one place. And auto-reminders ensure you never miss an important milestone.

Learn more about how Bonfire integrates sourcing with contract and performance management, all in one seamless eProcurement platform.

Transportation professionals are facing a variety of new opportunities and challenges in 2021. Among other priorities, they’re navigating the transition to remote and hybrid work, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in their organizations, and preparing for the potential flood of new projects that could come as a result of Biden’s proposed infrastructure bill.

Needless to say, there was a lot to talk about at this year’s AASHTO Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. We were lucky to attend the meeting and chat with public and private sector transportation professionals from across North America about the issues facing the industry today, including emerging technologies, safety strategies, post-pandemic planning, equitable systems—and, of course, procurement.

Procurement professionals provide valuable skills and expertise to departments of transportation (DOTs). They’re important strategic advisors and collaborators. They support long-term planning, decision making, and process optimization. And they also play a critical role in building consensus by addressing the interests of diverse stakeholders. 

Whether you’re part of a procurement team or you work with one, there are a number of key challenges that come along with finding best-value vendors for transportation projects. Based on our conversations with attendees at the 2021 AASHTO Annual Meeting, here are the top procurement challenges we heard—and how Bonfire can help.

Top procurement challenges facing DOTs (and how to tackle them)

1. Increasing vendor engagement

Many agencies told us they’re having a tough time attracting bids from quality suppliers. That’s even more of a challenge for complex projects with lengthy RFPs and lots of requirements. How can you convince vendors that it’s worth putting the time and effort into responding? Minimizing barriers to entry is key. Here are some points to consider:

• How can you reduce the time and effort required to participate? Online submissions and evaluations through Bonfire’s eProcurement platform eliminate the need to spend time and resources on travel, printing, and postage. 
• How can you lower the cost to submit bids? Eliminating paywalls can increase engagement. Bonfire is free for vendors to use, whether to find new opportunities or bid on them.
• Are your RFPs clear and easy to follow? Vendors are more likely to show interest in an RFP if they don’t have to dig to find the project requirements and questions.

2. Evaluating vendors and tracking performance

Another theme we heard from transportation professionals is the challenge of vetting suppliers. How can you be sure you’re selecting the best vendor for the job? And that your procurement process is set up to ensure success?

Many procurement teams still rely on manual paper- or email-based processes to source goods and services. That can make evaluating vendors for complex projects extremely challenging. By moving your processes out of Excel and into an eProcurement platform, you save time, reduce costs, improve collaboration, and increase vendor engagement. And it also makes it easier to evaluate submissions and track vendor performance. Here are some ways Bonfire can help:

• By running evaluations in Bonfire, you establish consistent scoring criteria and ensure you fully understand and measure a vendor’s skills, past experience, and DBE status before making a selection.
• All internal clients and stakeholders can evaluate vendors’ responses side by side to help determine which one can provide the best value. Dashboards let everyone involved in the project monitor progress and get status updates.
• You can also rate vendor performance against contracts to support better decision-making on contract renewals.

3. Building equity into your process

Time and again, we heard transportation professionals highlight the importance of vendor diversity and the need to track and engage with diverse suppliers. Today’s procurement departments have a unique opportunity to promote social good by partnering with disadvantaged business enterprises (DBEs) and small businesses. And in many cases, it’s becoming necessary to do so, as new policies require public agencies to prioritize diverse vendors. 

This is good news for agencies, since working with diverse suppliers encourages greater competition that supports best-value purchasing. Here are some ways Bonfire helps you increase vendor diversity, equity, and inclusion:

• Eliminating barriers to entry evens the playing field for DBEs that may have fewer resources than other businesses. Bonfire’s free-to-use eProcurement platform makes it easier for vendors to access opportunities, view bid documents, and respond to RFPs.
• Getting quick and easy visibility into the participation of diverse vendors helps you make more informed decisions. In the Bonfire Projects module, buyers can set vendor registration fields to easily collect information around a vendor’s status. 
• Sending out vendor invitations that specifically target diverse suppliers puts your opportunities in front of more DBE businesses. Bonfire helps you widen your vendor pool to include more minority- and women-owned businesses and small businesses, so you can increase competition and find the best value across categories.

Public procurement teams in the transportation sector are facing many more challenges, opportunities, and questions as they look toward an uncertain post-pandemic future. Our report on the State of Public Sourcing in 2021 has all the insights you need to plan your next steps. Get your free copy.

Any software can digitize your process. What’s truly special is when it can connect you with a peer community and best practice experts so you’re not doing it alone. 

These were some of the opening remarks from Bonfire’s CEO Omar Salaymeh at our latest client virtual meetup. His words perfectly encapsulate the heart of these meetups, which are all about connecting users from the 500+ agencies across North America that use Bonfire in order to level-up their mastery of the Bonfire platform, and public procurement in general. 

If you had to miss last week’s meetups, if you were an attendee who wants a refresh of what you learned, or if you’re not yet a Bonfire client but you’re curious about benefits of joining the Bonfire community, we’ve got you covered as we recap the highlights of our last virtual meetups of 2021. 

Day 1: Panel and Roundtable

As we mentioned, day one of our meetups started with some opening remarks from Bonfire’s CEO. In them, he covered:

• What’s new at Bonfire, including the launch of the Approvals Module, Community Projects, and new functionality to track DBE / diverse supplier participation
• A glimpse into the makeup of the Bonfire community, including client distribution and project activity
• An introduction to key leaders on the client experience team

To deliver insight on navigating vendor diversity and supplier relationships, we welcomed our panel speakers,

• Sheena Fain, Contract Compliance and Supplier Diversity Officer at the City of Akron
• Karen Smith, Purchasing Officer at San Antonio River Authority
• Shawn Garris, Procurement Analyst at the City of New Haven

Each panelist shared their stories and best practices when it came to things like tracking vendor diversity information, their biggest vendor diversity challenges, and their processes for communicating with vendors to maintain relationships. One of our highlights from the discussion was Karen Smith’s anecdotes on how San Antonio River Authority uses Bonfire’s subcontractor feature to provide more opportunities for smaller agencies to be involved in large, complex projects. The day ended with all attendees going into breakout sessions to share their own learnings when it came to the topics of vendor diversity and relationships, and how they use the Bonfire product to support their initiatives. 

Day 2: Toolkit Session

“I’ve loved Bonfire since the day I met it.” 

That’s according to Crystal Vandermeulen, Procurement Analyst for the City of Kamloops, who took a deep dive into how her agency uses some of Bonfire’s most unique features. She covered:

Approvals: How the City of Kamloops uses Bonfire’s Approvals feature for different approval processes, and how it has helped streamline and centralize this process.

Setting up and managing criteria: Crystal walked through this process in Bonfire, highlighting how criteria in Bonfire has positively impacted time savings and project success.

Contract and performance management: In this part of her demo, Crystal highlighted how the City of Kamloops uses Bonfire Vendor Performance Management, which has allowed them to keep tabs on how vendors are performing against criteria, and how the platform has made this information easily accessible to anyone who needs it. 

Day 3: Best Practices and Product Releases

Day 3 of our virtual meetup was dedicated to learning about best practices on how Bonfire’s recent and popular features have been used by clients and the Customer Success team. Bonfire Client Success Manager Ryan Hamill headed the session, demoing best practices for modules like Intake, Approvals, the Public Portal, and Contract Management. 

Since client feedback is a major driver of Bonfire’s product roadmap, Ryan led the group in a round of feedback sessions on recent and new releases, integrations, and future features. We were taking furious notes as our clients expressed both what they were excited for, and what could see improvement. 

Overall, our last client virtual meet-up of the year was a blast, connecting and learning from on-the-ground procurement professionals from over 100 public agencies across North America. Curious about how Bonfire inspires a community of public procurement peers beyond our user meet-ups? Learn more here.