At Bonfire, we get to work with hundreds of public procurement professionals every day. Our platform connects you to tools and resources that make your jobs easier. But we also do our best to connect you to each other, so you can reap the benefits of working together.

On March 15, we brought together procurement professionals from crown corporations across Canada for a virtual roundtable discussion. Participants heard from industry experts, shared best practices, and forged new connections with their peers.

If you missed the event, don’t worry! In this post, we’re rounding up all the highlights, so you can put some of the big themes and takeaways from our conversation to use.

What general policies do crown corporations follow when it comes to procurement, POs, and contracts?

Crown corporations purchase a variety of goods and services, from professional services to technology to general goods. Roundtable participants said under a certain threshold (around $100K for services and $25K for goods) their client departments have full discretion on how to source. If the amount is over the threshold, sourcing is led by the procurement team, whether through a public bid, NOI, or limited tendering option.

Most agencies require a purchase order (PO) for almost every purchase in order to issue payment. A small minority of purchases can be governed by PO terms but, in most instances, a supporting contract needs to be executed prior to the PO being created. Depending on the purchase, contract lengths are generally 3-5 years with the option for renewal.

How are crown corporations in Canada levelling up their procurement practices?

For the most part, the folks who attended our roundtable said their organizations use an assortment of disconnected systems and tools for different parts of the procurement process. Going forward, the agencies that use a patchwork approach are working towards adopting a single tool that will streamline their processes and support procurement success.

Bonfire allows them to bring every stage of the procurement lifecycle into a central platform where the procurement team and relevant stakeholders can collaborate on RFPs and evaluations with full visibility into the process. eProcurement is appealing because it can help agencies move the needle on strategic goals, including project efficiency, stakeholder collaboration, and vendor engagement.

What strategies are crown corporations using to deal with the current price uncertainty in the market?

Inflation is a real concern for public sector budgets today. When we asked participants how they’re approaching price uncertainty, they spoke about the importance of system portability. With prices for cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) subscriptions fluctuating relative to the market, it’s important to make sure you can stay on top of fees and look for alternatives as required.

We also discussed the strategy of reverse auctions in which suppliers compete to offer the lowest price possible. Vendors can see each other’s pricing (usually in real time) and try to beat those bids by going lower. The end goal is to drive purchase prices down for the buyer. In Canada, procurement professionals are hesitant to use this method, although they recognize that it could be a useful tool for certain types of projects. Overall, participants worried about getting overly involved in price, since it could negatively impact relationships with vendors.

How important is planning to procurement project success?

According to Canadian procurement lawyer Paul Emanuelli, 95% of project failures are caused by poor project planning. With that in mind, roundtable participants talked about how the early steps of a project impact their overall procurement outcomes.

Participants agreed that shortchanging the planning stage of the procurement process ultimately leads to problems downstream. Not only does poor research and requirements gathering create bottlenecks, it also leaves the outcome to chance and makes it difficult to determine if project objectives have been met.

While it can be difficult to get business owners to spend the time upfront on the planning process, ultimately, this approach saves time and mitigates risk down the line. Proper planning allows clients to achieve their goals within their timeline, ensures agencies allocate the right internal resources to support projects, and enables vendors to meet client expectations. On top of that, a thorough approach to planning minimizes change requests and cost overruns, while making sure potential risks are identified and transferred, mitigated, or absorbed appropriately.

How are organizations promoting diversity and sustainability in their purchasing strategies?

Vendor diversity and sustainability are becoming increasingly important for procurement teams. For many of our roundtable participants, this focus is being driven by organization-wide mandates. Folks shared how their teams are doubling down on these priorities, including:

• Engaging consultants
• Developing policies and strategies
• Creating guidelines and tools (e.g., tip sheet for low-value purchases)
• Enhancing RFPs (e.g., opportunity identification worksheet, clause menu, evaluation criteria)
• Conducting pilots (e.g., starting with high-impact RFPs with eventual rollout to all RFPs)
• Providing training for staff and internal clients
• Recruiting a dedicated resource to focus on social purpose and sustainable procurement

As part of their approach, agencies are including new types of social, economic, and environmental sustainability criteria in their evaluation grids. They are aligning evaluations to policy areas, such as environmental impacts, social impacts, and Indigenous reconciliation.

Of course, increasing vendor diversity involves contracting with new suppliers, which comes with its own set of challenges. Participants shared that factors like due diligence, manual processes, and compliance reviews all create bottlenecks in the process. eProcurement can help resolve many of these issues and improve vendor engagement by automating tasks, keeping processes transparent, and supporting 100% compliance.

What Canadian-specific procurement resources do you use?

To close out the session, participants let us in on their go-to sources for public procurement best practices, industry news, and support, including:

• Networking with other Canadian procurement professionals
• Webinars and resources from Canadian procurement law firms like Paul Emmanuelli’s
• Provincial and federal government resources
• International procurement websites that cover issues faced in Canadian procurement

Be part of the community

Are you ready to discover more support from your public procurement community? Join Bonfire’s Open Access Community Projects today to continue leveraging your peers’ insights through free RFP templates and project planning resources. 

Today I’m proud to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of Bonfire and, with it, the incredible clients and team who have made our success possible. To mark the occasion, I’m hopping onto the blog to reflect on our journey — to think about how far we’ve come and where we’re headed.

Reflecting on the journey

When I joined Bonfire over 9 years ago, we were a small startup with a handful of clients. Coming from the vendor side, I knew our eProcurement platform had the potential to transform sourcing and purchasing in the public sector. But I could never have known just how successful Bonfire would be.

Before joining the team, I was a consulting engineer for a small firm and part of my job was submitting RFX responses to the public sector. That’s right, I was on the vendor side! The very last project I worked on really opened my eyes to the promise of eProcurement. It was a proposal for one of Canada’s largest hospitals — and it was a monstrosity. We were one of 30 consultants that responded, and our paperwork alone filled a banker’s box. Not only was it arduous to compile, but it also had to be stored under lock and key. I don’t envy the evaluators who had to manually sift through thousands of pages. It would be months before we got the results and by then we had turned down several opportunities to avoid overextending our team.

You can see why I immediately understood the value of Bonfire. I knew eProcurement would give vendors and public agencies the tools they needed — easy submissions, quick evaluations, instant award notifications, and transparent results — to build strong and lasting relationships.

Fast-forward 10 years and Bonfire’s eProcurement platform has streamlined the process for 451,506 global users (and counting), including buyers, vendors, and evaluators. Our clients have run 81,900 projects on Bonfire and vendors have uploaded nearly 150 million pages of proposal documents. In that time, we’ve never stopped evolving to respond to the changing landscape of public procurement.

Collaborating to find a way

Regardless of the curveballs we’ve been thrown over the years (yes, including a pandemic), our team and clients continue to evolve, innovate, and prove our value, again and again. If there’s one thing that’s true of both the Bonfire team and the public procurement professionals we work with, it’s that we always find a way.

Nearly 700 clients have collaborated with us over the last decade to help make Bonfire what it is today. We’ve co-created a purpose-built solution that rises to the needs of public sector procurement. But beyond that, we’ve also worked together to support the success of public procurement professionals everywhere. Whether through our Open Community Projects, Inside Public Procurement podcast, Strategic Sourcing blog, or virtual events and user meet-ups, we’re dedicated to building a community that promotes and celebrates excellence in public procurement.

Driving impact with eProcurement

As we enter our tenth year, we’re emerging out of a global pandemic truly ready for anything. Given the impact our solution has had during Covid-19 — connecting citizens to essential vaccines, PPE, cleaning supplies, and more — our mission and vision are truer than ever. The pandemic was an extreme challenge for procurement agencies, but it also brought procurement into focus. For once, everyone knew the procurement minister’s name! And the general public quickly came to witness the essential role procurement professionals play in keeping our communities safe, healthy, and functioning.

I always say that we’re lucky to work in the public procurement space because the delta between our day-to-day efforts and the impact they have is very small. We clearly see the positive difference our product makes in the world — from supplying healthcare workers with PPE to providing laptops for home-schooled children. Seeing that real-world impact keeps us motivated to continue supporting procurement teams for years to come.

What’s next?

When people ask me what the future holds for procurement, I think about what happens as more and more agencies digitize at scale. What happens is that procurement rises to be a value-add department within the agency. And procurement departments become guardians of the process — not just from a compliance point of view, but from a strategic point of view. Internal clients will want to engage procurement teams not only to ensure compliance, but also because they provide deep expertise on how to source the best products and services at the best value.

Bonfire eProcurement supports that strategic role for hundreds of public sector agencies that rely on us to manage their competitive bid processes. Looking to the next 10 years and beyond, we’ll continue to provide a platform to elevate procurement’s importance and enable strategic decision-making. I’m very proud of that legacy and I know Bonfire will continue to be a strong partner for many years to come.

Celebrating our clients

We wouldn’t be here without the clients who have made our success possible. So, to celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we’re launching a new awards ceremony. Bonfire’s Procurement Awards celebrates procurement professionals who excel, innovate, and showcase excellence in the eProcurement space. I encourage you to nominate someone who inspires you.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us over the past 10 years. I look forward to working together to shape the future of public procurement.

Government projects rose 39% during 2021 as signs of an exit from the pandemic were felt across the globe. And late last year, U.S. Congress passed a monumental $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill to help rebuild America. That’s great news if you’re a contractor or operate in the construction industry! Many contractors are trying to determine what they need to know in order to bid and win government contracts tied to the new Infrastructure Bill as funding flows into cities and communities across the nation.

Today’s your lucky day because the team at Bonfire has pulled together four tips to help suppliers in the construction space win big when it comes to government contracts (and save costs while doing it!). We’ll cover winning strategies to get your business prepared for all the new government construction projects hitting the streets as funding continues to be dispersed to municipalities, special districts, and other government agencies across the U.S. to rebuild core infrastructure.

1. Know what types of construction projects will be funded

This one is a no-brainer and a really simple place to start. Familiarizing yourself with what’s included in the Infrastructure Bill will help you to understand what types of projects you will want to look out for—and of course, if they align to the specific products or construction services you offer. Remember, we’re talking about $1.2 trillion dollars on infrastructure, which includes expanding broadband, repairing and rebuilding roads and bridges, improving transportation, and reducing greenhouse emissions. Large contractors and subcontractors, including those designated as small or disadvantaged businesses, will be needed to tackle these complex projects.

So what’s in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure deal? The almost three thousand-page Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes some new categories, in addition to the highway and infrastructure projects it typically allocates for. Here’s a high level summary on the new stimulus areas:

• $110 billion for roads and bridges. In addition to construction and repair, the funding also helps pay for transportation research at universities, funding for Puerto Rico’s highways, and “congestion relief” in American cities
• $66 billion for railroads. Funding includes upgrades and maintenance of America’s passenger rail system and freight rail safety, but nothing for high-speed rail.
• $65 billion for the power grid. The bill would fund updates to power lines and cables, as well as provide money to prevent hacking of the power grid. Clean energy funding is also included.
• $65 billion for broadband. Includes funding to expand broadband in rural areas and in low-income communities. Approximately $14 billion of the total would help reduce Internet bills for low-income citizens.
• $55 billion for water infrastructure. This funding includes $15 billion for lead pipe replacement, $10 billion for chemical cleanup, and money to provide clean drinking water in tribal communities.
• $50+ billion for cybersecurity and climate change. This resilience funding will protect infrastructure from cybersecurity attacks and address flooding, wildfires, coastal erosion, and droughts, along with other extreme weather events.
• $39 billion for public transit. Funding here provides for upgrades to public transit systems nationwide. The allocation also includes money to create new bus routes and help make public transit more accessible to seniors and disabled Americans.
• $25 billion for airports. This allocation provides funding for major upgrades and expansions at U.S. airports. Air traffic control towers and systems would receive $5 billion of the total for upgrades.
• $21 billion for the environment. These monies would be used to clean up superfund and brownfield sites, abandoned mines, and old oil and gas wells.
• $17 billion for ports. Half of the funds in this category would go to the Army Corps of Engineers for port infrastructure. Additional funds would go to the Coast Guard, ferry terminals, and reduction of truck emissions at ports.
• $11 billion for safety. Appropriations here are to address highway, pedestrian, pipeline, and other safety areas with highway safety getting the bulk of the funding.
• $8 billion for western water infrastructure. Ongoing drought conditions in the western half of the country will be addressed through investments in water treatment, storage, and reuse facilities.
• $7.5 bill for electric vehicle charging stations. The Biden administration asked for this funding to build significantly more charging stations for electric vehicles across the nation.
• $7.5 billion for electric school buses. With an emphasis on bus fleet replacement in low-income, rural, and tribal communities, this funding is expected to allow those communities to convert to zero-emission buses.

Source: Investopedia

If you want to go a bit deeper into the funding distribution, our friends over at the National Association of Counties (NACo) have pulled this handy resource together that includes great visuals and other resources. They also make updates to this page as funding continues to flow into the key areas of focus supported under the Bill.

2. Position your business to get in on the action

Now that you know where the money will be spent, what can you do to place your business in the best position to win government contracts? First, if you haven’t already done so, register your business with organizations to make it easier to be found and to increase your level of credibility. The first place to start is by registering your business on the System for Award Management (SAM) database, where you can create a profile making it easier for government procurement officers to find your business. Then, get on the pre-approved bidder list on the General Services Administration (GSA). Securing a contract with the GSA is also called “getting onto the GSA Schedule,” which means you’ve been approved to do business with the government.

As part of the registration process, you will need to apply for something called a DUNS number. All entities wishing to do business with the federal government must have a unique entity identifier (UEI). Currently, the DUNS number, which is a unique nine-character identification number provided by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) free of charge, is the official UEI.

With that out of the way, remember to start small as you begin bidding for government business. Government agencies view past performance as a key indicator of potential success, and to get your foot in the door, you should bid on projects where you’re confident you can deliver competitive value and where you’re certain that you have the resources to complete. There’s nothing worse than overcommitting on a project bid and then under-delivering on the expectations. Fortunately, for complex projects like those related to infrastructure, government agencies typically subcontract out services to multiple businesses that specialize in their respective area. Focus on construction projects that match your expertise and never overcommit.

3. Get a bid service like Bonfire Premium Vendor to help you find the right construction RFPs!

Here’s the biggest area where Bonfire can help. Over 500 government agencies post their construction solicitations on Bonfire in the hope to find contractors just like you! A bidding solution like the Bonfire Premium Vendor service aggregates tens of thousands of government projects passing through Bonfire every year and pulls them into a central dashboard built for you. Your own custom dashboard gives you a convenient place where you can enter keyword search criteria and apply filters to hone in on the construction projects that matter to you. That means you have a single destination to easily discover relevant bids that suit the specific products and construction services your business offers. It saves your business valuable time and effort typically spent searching the internet for relevant government projects. A Bonfire Premium Vendor subscription will even send recommendations right to your inbox, so you never miss out on the chance to win a government contract, and grow your business.

Last but not least, once you find the construction projects that meet your criteria, you can access all the bid details and submit your proposal directly from within the Bonfire Premium Vendor solution. Then sit back and follow your projects, get alerted when statuses change, and know when the contract gets awarded–and hopefully that award goes to you!

4. Know the general bid process and remember that bid accuracy is critical

So what does it take to be awarded a contract? Now that you have a subscription to Bonfire Premium Vendor, you’re ready to easily start bidding (the first step in the process) and as we mentioned, you can also submit your bids directly inside Bonfire Premium Vendor.

But let’s start with helping you understand the general process for government construction projects and RFPs (Request for Proposal). . The team at Smartsheet has put together this summary of the basic government construction tender process:

• Bid Solicitation: The government buyer seeks bids and provides a package of material with drawings, specifications, and other scope documents. This is also known as making a request for proposal (RFP) or a request to tender (RTT). Over 500 government agencies use Bonfire to post their RFP solicitations online. You can easily find these bids with a Bonfire Premium Vendor subscription.
• Subcontracting: General contractors take bids from subcontractors for pieces of work. Depending on the project method, this may occur after a general contractor wins a bid. In Bonfire, subcontractors can also make their services known to general contractors on a specific project!
• Bid Submission: Builders/contractors submit bids by a deadline. Remember, you can also do this right inside Bonfire Premium Vendor!
• Bid Selection: The buyer/government agency reviews bids and awards the contract to the winner.
• Contract Formation: This phase finalizes the terms and lays the legal groundwork for the project.
• Project Delivery: Construction takes place.

Source: Smartsheet

Understanding this process and then bidding with success depends on many factors. A pro-tip is making sure to pay close attention to the RFP/bid requirements and timelines, and ensuring the accuracy of your proposal/response. Accurate bidding requires you to estimate precisely how much a building will cost to construct, for example, in terms of labor, materials, and overhead costs. And when it comes to government construction projects, cost is a key factor in the evaluation criteria but remember, each project will be different and some projects may place heavier weight on qualifications or delivery timelines.

And remember, if you don’t feel overly confident, don’t worry; a Bonfire Premium Vendor subscription uses our guided online submission process that is fast, keeps you in compliance, and is backed by our award-winning support team if you ever need it.

And there you have it—four essential strategies to help your business win government construction contracts today and tomorrow. The opportunity to grow your business has never been more exciting, and a Bonfire Premium Vendor subscription can help.

Late last year, the United States Congress passed a $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Bill to help rebuild America. Additionally, government projects rose 39% during 2021, and we’re only seeing that level of growth increase just one month into 2022. Many businesses just like yours are asking themselves what they need to know in order to bid and win government contracts tied to infrastructure funding.

That’s why the team at Bonfire has prepared 3 tips to help you win big (and save costs while doing it!). We’ll cover winning strategies to get your business prepared for all the bid opportunities becoming available as funding continues to be dispersed to municipalities, special districts, and other government agencies across the U.S.

1. Know where the funding will be spent

This one is a no-brainer and a really simple place to start. Familiarizing yourself with what’s included in the Infrastructure Bill will help you to understand what types of projects you will want to look out for—and of course, if they fit your business. Remember, we’re talking about $1.2 trillion dollars on infrastructure projects, which include expanding broadband, repairing and rebuilding roads and bridges, improving transportation, and reducing greenhouse emissions. Businesses of all types and sizes will be needed to tackle these complex projects.

So what’s in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Deal? The almost three thousand page Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes some new categories, in addition to the highway and infrastructure projects it typically allocates for. Here’s a high level summary on the new stimulus areas:

• $110 billion for roads and bridges. In addition to construction and repair, the funding also helps pay for transportation research at universities, funding for Puerto Rico’s highways, and “congestion relief” in American cities
• $66 billion for railroads. Funding includes upgrades and maintenance of America’s passenger rail system and freight rail safety, but nothing for high-speed rail.
• $65 billion for the power grid. The bill would fund updates to power lines and cables, as well as provide money to prevent hacking of the power grid. Clean energy funding is also included.
• $65 billion for broadband. Includes funding to expand broadband in rural areas and in low-income communities. Approximately $14 billion of the total would help reduce Internet bills for low-income citizens.
• $55 billion for water infrastructure. This funding includes $15 billion for lead pipe replacement, $10 billion for chemical cleanup, and money to provide clean drinking water in tribal communities.
• $50+ billion for cybersecurity and climate change. This resilience funding will protect infrastructure from cybersecurity attacks and address flooding, wildfires, coastal erosion, and droughts, along with other extreme weather events.
• $39 billion for public transit. Funding here provides for upgrades to public transit systems nationwide. The allocation also includes money to create new bus routes and help make public transit more accessible to seniors and disabled Americans.
• $25 billion for airports. This allocation provides funding for major upgrades and expansions at U.S. airports. Air traffic control towers and systems would receive $5 billion of the total for upgrades.
• $21 billion for the environment. These monies would be used to clean up superfund and brownfield sites, abandoned mines, and old oil and gas wells.
• $17 billion for ports. Half of the funds in this category would go to the Army Corps of Engineers for port infrastructure. Additional funds would go to the Coast Guard, ferry terminals, and reduction of truck emissions at ports.
• $11 billion for safety. Appropriations here are to address highway, pedestrian, pipeline, and other safety areas with highway safety getting the bulk of the funding.
• $8 billion for western water infrastructure. Ongoing drought conditions in the western half of the country will be addressed through investments in water treatment, storage, and reuse facilities.
• $7.5 bill for electric vehicle charging stations. The Biden administration asked for this funding to build significantly more charging stations for electric vehicles across the nation.
• $7.5 billion for electric school buses. With an emphasis on bus fleet replacement in low-income, rural, and tribal communities, this funding is expected to allow those communities to convert to zero-emission buses.

Source: Investopedia

2. Position your business to get in on the action

Now that you know where the money will be spent, what can you do to place your business in the best position to win government contracts? First, if you haven’t already done so, register your business with organizations to make it easier to be found and to increase your level of credibility. The first place to start is by registering your business on the System for Award Management (SAM) database, where you can create a profile making it easier for government procurement officers to find your business. Then, get on the pre-approved bidder list on the General Services Administration (GSA). Securing a contract with the GSA is also called “getting onto the GSA Schedule,” which means you’ve been approved to do business with the government.

As part of the registration process, you will need to apply for something called a DUNS number. All entities wishing to do business with the federal government must have a unique entity identifier (UEI). Currently, the DUNS number, which is a unique nine-character identification number provided by Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) free of charge, is the official UEI.

With that out of the way, remember to start small as you begin bidding for government business. Government agencies view past performance as a key indicator of potential success, and to get your foot in the door, you should bid on projects where you’re confident you can deliver competitive value and where you’re certain that you have the resources to complete. There’s nothing worse than overcommitting on a project bid and then under-delivering on the expectations. Fortunately, for complex projects like those related to infrastructure, government agencies typically subcontract out services to multiple businesses that specialize in their respective area. Focus on projects that match your expertise, never overcommit, and you’ll be creating a positive reputation in the public sphere in no time.

3. Get matched with the right projects so you don’t miss out on an opportunity to bid!

Here’s the biggest area where Bonfire can help, and if you’ve ever submitted a bid using Bonfire in the past, you know just how simple it is. What many vendors don’t know is that Bonfire offers Bonfire Premium Vendor—a $399 USD per year subscription service that aggregates tens of thousands of government projects passing through Bonfire from over 500 government agencies across North America. From that, you get one centralized, searchable dashboard, customized for your business. That means you have a single destination to easily discover relevant bids that suit the specific products and services your business offers. It saves your business valuable time and effort typically spent searching the internet for relevant government projects. What’s even better is that we’ll even find the projects that meet your criteria and send recommendations right to your inbox, so you never miss out on the chance to win a government contract and grow your business.

And there you have it—three simple strategies to help your business win government contracts today and tomorrow. The opportunity to grow your business has never been more exciting and a Bonfire Premium Vendor subscription can help.

Over the past two years, K-12 students across North America have had to transition back and forth between virtual and in-person learning. For many, ongoing disruptions to learning routines have had a negative impact on mental health and academic success.

A recent survey conducted by EdWeek found that high schoolers are getting lower grades, procrastinating more, and feeling more distracted by anxiety than they were before the pandemic. And in October 2021, three leading pediatric health organizations declared that the pandemic-related rise in child and adolescent mental health issues is a national emergency.

Given the challenges elementary and high school students are facing right now, K-12 procurement teams have a unique opportunity to make a positive impact through their purchasing decisions.

Today on the blog, we’re sharing how eProcurement can help you deliver that impact and make student-first buying decisions. These tips will help you eliminate roadblocks in your procurement process, so you can support the success of young learners during the pandemic and beyond.

Student-first buying decisions are collaborative

Many procurement teams are geographically distant from the schools they support. And they may also be removed from the day-to-day realities of virtual learning. That can make it difficult to understand the needs of students in the classroom.

If procurement teams and internal clients don’t have a strong system in place to support collaboration, the result can be purchases that aren’t aligned with student needs, lengthy project timelines, negative relationships between stakeholders, and even rogue spending.

An easy-to-use procurement platform can alleviate these issues by providing a central place for procurement teams and educators to work together. With internal discussions and online evaluations directly within Bonfire, stakeholders can collaborate to define and respond to student needs with the best possible purchasing decisions.

Student-first buying decisions are responsive

With public health measures changing frequently throughout the pandemic, procurement teams and internal stakeholders have had to pivot to help students learn safely and effectively. On top of that, educational technology is always evolving. Students’ future success will depend on having access to the latest tools and software.

When procurement teams and K-12 stakeholders rely on manual methods, staying on top of those needs is a challenge. Along with being labour-intensive and time-consuming, manual bidding processes that involve multiple systems and complex tabulations increase the risk of information being missed or miscalculated. That can translate to low confidence in the decision-making process, poor audit trails, and student needs being overlooked.

With eProcurement, teams spend less time managing administrative burden and more time working with vendors and educators to make efficient student-first buying decisions. In Bonfire, all evaluators review and score submissions in one central place and auto-tabulated results ensure that bids are always reviewed and scored accurately.

Student-first buying decisions are compliant

K-12 schools rely on grants and government funding to deliver the best possible learning experience for students. To continue receiving support, they depend on procurement partners to maintain compliance in the bidding process.

The more time procurement teams spend on the administrative burden of demonstrating compliance, the less time they have to spend on optimizing outcomes for students. While it may seem far removed from the student experience, these inefficiencies can have a negative impact.

With eProcurement, K-12 purchasing teams and internal stakeholders get an airtight audit trail of all interactions without extra administrative effort. Bonfire lets you centralize your current workflow in a customizable platform, ensuring every step of the procurement process is tracked and easy to export.

Boost collaboration, responsiveness and compliance with Bonfire

eProcurement empowers your K-12 procurement team to make student-first buying decisions every time. See how Bonfire can help.

Considering everything you do for your agencies, colleagues, and communities, there’s no question that public procurement professionals are on our “nice” list every year! Even though the holidays are coming fast, we couldn’t wait another minute to give you this special gift.

Bonfire Open Access Community Projects is a searchable repository of public projects from our growing database of over 500 public sector agencies across North America. And the best part? It’s completely free to use for public procurement professionals everywhere. Consider it our way to say thanks and send a little festive cheer this holiday season.

Tens of thousands of templates, all wrapped up in a bright red bow

Procurement teams can get requests for everything from pothole patching to software to PPE. When facing new or unfamiliar projects, you might have to spend hours searching the web for RFP templates.

How much time could you save if you never had to start another RFP from scratch again? With a large and growing database of RFx templates available, Bonfire Open Access Community Projects is designed to help make your busy job easier:

• Search tens of thousands of public projects and filter by location, project type, organization, and more
• Draw from thousands of new projects added monthly from over 500 public sector agencies
• Use the tool completely for free if you’re a public procurement professional
• Free up time for higher-level, strategic tasks (and hopefully a little festive decorating, cookie eating and cozying up by the fire this holiday season!)

Sign up today and see the benefits right away.

Unwrap the gift of time

Helping public procurement teams work more efficiently is a critical element of what we do at Bonfire — and so is facilitating collaboration within and between agencies. With Bonfire Open Access Community Projects, teams get best-in-class examples of successful RFPs to model their own projects, eliminating the need to create net-new documents.

Here’s what Bonfire CEO Omar Salaymeh had to say: “Our data found that public agencies ran 39% more projects in 2021 compared to 2020, and with the Biden administration’s newly-approved Build Back Better infrastructure funding, we believe that number is going to skyrocket. We’re making Bonfire Open Access Community Projects free to all public procurement teams everywhere, making it easy to access resources from their peers and effectively helping them spend less time and effort physically drafting RFP documents.”

See how Bonfire Open Access Community Projects helped save Christmas!

Hear those sleigh bells ringing? Thanks to Bonfire Open Access Community Projects, one special public servant was able to make critical repairs to his sleigh just in time for the busiest season of the year. Check out the video to see how…

Ready to join Santa in accessing best-in-class RFPs to save time on your projects? Sign up today for exclusive access.

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.