“DemandStar has been a great addition to our bidding process at the University. It is user friendly and has allowed us to simplify our bidding process by becoming more electronic.” – Ashley Sliger, Contract Compliance Manager, Missouri State University.

375 local government agencies joined DemandStar in 2021, accessing its online network of over 100,000 businesses of all sizes to drive increased competition for their bids/RFPs. Over 112 local governments have joined in 2022 to date.

“Government spending is coming back, and more than ever it’s going online,” said DemandStar CEO Ben Vaught. “More and more local governments are resuming projects put on hold at the beginning of the pandemic, and they’re turning to online purchasing marketplaces like DemandStar for help.”

DemandStar member agencies span from local cities, libraries, and fire stations to statewide governing bodies, county-wide public-school boards, and highway infrastructure organizations. Businesses range from large government contractors to many small businesses, minority & woman-owned businesses, and businesses seeking their first government contract.

New government agencies added include:

• Las Animas County, CO
• Embrey-Riddle Aeronautical University, FL
• Walton County, FL
• Cherokee County School District, GA
• Idaho Association of Highway Districts, ID
• Arlington Heights Park District, IL
• Housing Authority of DeKalb County, IL
• Housing Authority of East St. Louis, IL
• Saline County, KS
• Kentucky Educational Development Corporation, KY
• City of Litchfield, MI
• City of Republic, MO
• Missouri State University, MO
• Raleigh Durhan Airport Authority, NC
• Consolidated Utility District of Rugherford County, TN
• City of Manassas, VA
• Town of Herndon, VA
• Racine County, WI
• Essex Westford School District, VT

Government partners and businesses looking to join DemandStar’s government procurement marketplace can learn more at demandstar.com.

ABOUT DEMANDSTAR
DemandStar builds communities by connecting government agencies quickly and efficiently with quality suppliers of all sizes. Founded in 1998, they pioneered the online marketplace concept for bidding on government contracts and now serve as the gateway for public sector partnerships between government agencies and suppliers both locally and nationally throughout the United States. For more information, or for government agencies and suppliers interested in joining the DemandStar procurement network, please visit DemandStar.com or call (206) 940-0305.

Original source located at Yahoo Finance.

The post Leading Public Sector Online Marketplace Adds 1,000th Local Government, Surpassing $4.6B in Annual Contract Value appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

Following compliance guidelines is an important part of what a procurement agent does. By adhering to guidelines, they can ensure that their department is free from ill-advised spending, corruption, and fraud. Here are the top five compliance traps that procurement agents should be aware of, and some tips to avoid them: 

1. Rushed procurement
When the process is rushed, things are bound to fall through the cracks. Procurement agents should make sure that they have plenty of time to go through a proper bidding and selection process. A rushed process may open the procurement agents to picking a vendor that’s not the best fit or failing to follow other selection guidelines. By standing their ground and insisting on enough time to follow all procurement steps, agents will help themselves by allowing the process to flow properly from beginning to end.

2. Contract compliance
Procurement agents have so much on their plates, that keeping track of everything can be overwhelming. However, it’s not enough to simply follow the procurement process, they must also follow up throughout the project and make sure that vendors are actually doing what their contract indicates. This will ensure that governments get their money’s worth and that vendors that don’t comply with contract stipulations do not get rehired. 

3. Lack of standardization
There is security and transparency in a standardized procurement process. The procurement process should be the same for every project. While each project of the course will be different, there should be a set of guidelines and steps to follow. This will help procurement agents prove that all vendors applied and were selected through the same process, reducing the opportunity for any corruption or fraud claims. 

4. Favors
While it may be tempting to do a favor here or there for a city council member or higher-ranking official, this opens the door to accusations of corruption and fraud. It’s vital that all procurement projects are treated the same, and that no favors are granted to any individuals. This will help procurement agents avoid any favoritism or impropriety allegations. 

5. No purchase order
Part of compliance is accurately tracking the budget and spending. By ensuring that the proper paperwork has been filed for each project and that a purchase order is attached to every item or service procured, government agents can prove that spending is on track. When money goes missing, people get nervous. Even if the spend is approved, by simply making sure that all expenditures can be connected with proper purchase orders, procurement agents will save themselves the headache of having to go back and explain any undocumented money spent.  

It’s a trap!
Procurement agents are responsible for upholding the department’s reputation and preventing costly mistakes. Compliance traps can be easily avoided by following some simple steps, such as being aware of the dangers and taking the time to do things properly. Ensuring that the procurement process is standardized, makes it less likely for compliance issues to arise. 

What traps have you come across? What compliance tips do you have to help avoid these traps?

The post The Top 5 Compliance Traps Made by Government Procurement Agents appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

What is cleantech?
One of the main areas that procurement officers can expect to start acquiring as the government goes more and more green is cleantech. Cleantech (short for clean technology) is any product or service that provides sustainable use of resources, facilitates energy efficiency, and protects the environment by reducing harmful impacts. Cleantech can also help eliminate waste and improve energy production. As an example, one piece of cleantech that is familiar to most is the solar panel. However, there’s a slew of other products and services that would qualify as cleantech.

What to look for in cleantech procurement?
If you haven’t made environmental RFPs before, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Gets the job done – At the end of the day, you still need the product or service to successfully complete the task. Make sure that your cleantech solution performs the same or better than what you would regularly purchase.

Meets standards – Any cleantech product or service will be expected to meet all government standards. That means companies will need to have appropriate certifications, follow all safety guidelines and submit a bid just like all other companies.

Provides measurable benefits – As can be true with any emerging industry, there will be some players that are doing cleantech well, and some that are just jumping on the bandwagon. Confirm that any product or service you select will offer measurable benefits in either reducing consumption of natural resources, increasing available renewable energies, or significantly reducing waste. 

It’s innovative – The last thing you want to do is invest in technology that’s about to be obsolete. Confirm that the solution you’ve selected is innovative and up to date. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the newest, most cutting-edge option, but it shouldn’t be on its way out the door either.

Government goes green
The government can have a huge impact on what technologies get adopted. More environmental RFPs are popping up around procurement, so it’s likely that you’ll start to see more cleantech products showing up in bids. As more government money starts flowing into cleantech, more innovation will take place. With the government taking an interest, cleantech solutions will also likely become a place for grants and other investments. Procurement agents can play a role in this exciting new trend in government procurement by looking for cleantech solutions that will provide the biggest impact.  

Have you invested in cleantech for your government agency? What are your tips for looking for the best option?

The post Going Green: What Procurement Officers Should Look for in the World of Cleantech appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

Be detailed, but don’t micromanage
The bottom line is government purchasing agents know what they need. So, when they share all the detailed ins and outs of the project, they’re just helping the vendor, right? Sadly, this isn’t always the case. When agents dictate minute details of how a project must be completed, that could close the door to vendors with innovative ideas. Some vendors may know more efficient ways of getting projects done and may be able to suggest a better option. By detailing the exact way government agents want the project completed, they may deter some vendors with inventive ideas from responding.  

Dazed and confused
RFPs that are lengthy can be confusing. If a vendor has to read through the RFP several times and still isn’t clear on what is needed, the likelihood of them creating a good response is small. In order to avoid rambling RFPs that cause confusion, procurement agents should re-read and edit the RFP before posting. This will ensure that the project is clearly and succinctly described so that vendors know what is expected. 

Time prohibitive
Some vendors may not even bother with an RFP that’s too long or they may not know how to respond to the RFP questions. Many run their own businesses, and wading through a huge RFP can take a lot of time. They also know that they’ll have to then create a response, which involves collecting resources and information and addressing each item in the overly detailed RFP. Many vendors, simply can’t invest that much time in creating a response for an RFP they might not get. In order to attract more vendor responses, a shorter RFP is more attractive and can open the lines of communication with more vendor options.

 Short and sweet
Government procurement agents want to get the best responses to the RFPs they post. That means sometimes they might find themselves creating lengthy documents that try to best communicate their needs. The truth is that while detailed RFPs are helpful, clarity and brevity are equally as important.

Are you a government procurement agent that regularly creates RFPs? How do you ensure that your RFP length stays within a reasonable range?

The post All in the Details, and Then Some. When RFPs Are Too Long for Their Own Good. appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

Consider cost
Obviously, any fleet purchase needs to be within budget, but it’s not just the cost of the vehicle that should be considered. Procurement agents should also review fuel costs, regular maintenance costs, and likely repair costs before making any final decisions. A vehicle may have a lower initial investment, but if it offers poor fuel efficiency, or requires costly parts to repair, it may not be the best fit for the budget (or for the environment). 

Manage risk
Properly maintaining your fleet purchase is an important step in managing the risk of owning a fleet. By keeping track of all regularly scheduled maintenance items such as oil changes, brake checks, tire rotation, hydraulic systems, and general vehicle health inspections, procurement agents can reduce the likelihood that a vehicle will break down while in use. Additionally, these regular maintenance items could prevent larger issues. For example, regular oil changes prolong the life of a vehicle’s engine, increase fuel efficiency, reduce the risk of more exhaustive (costly) repairs and extend the life of the fleet purchase, ultimately saving dollars.

Use smart tools
With potentially thousands of vehicles in their care, procurement agents should consider engaging with a smart technology tool to help them keep track of not only vehicle status and maintenance, but an abundance of other data points as well. Software companies in the telematics space provide GPS and AI insights that would otherwise be inaccessible to procurement agents. GPS tracking can make sure vehicles are going where they need to go and keep track of their physical location. It can also suggest faster routes, saving time and fuel costs. AI technology can communicate updates to fleet managers about maintenance needs and if a vehicle should be taken off the road for repair. This will make the fleet safer and more efficient.

 Fleet feat
Keeping a fleet on track is no small feat! A fleet purchase can be a daunting task without the right tools. But, by considering making a fleet purchase strategy, managing risk, and engaging with smart tools that help with tracking, procurement agents will be well on their way to a “smart fleet” that runs safely and efficiently.

What are your “smart fleet” tips and tricks? What procurement strategies do you find most useful in maintaining your fleet?

The post Procurement Strategies for a “Smart Fleet” That Are Safe and Economically Sound appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

When a natural disaster strikes a community, one of the first lines of defense is the procurement process of the local government’s team. They knowingly accept the demanding challenge of responding, recovering, and rebuilding the community, a task with multiple high-stress obstacles.

And if the obstacles of a natural disaster weren’t daunting enough, another one was just thrown into the mix: FEMA recently made changes to its natural disaster public assistance funding requirements. If procurement teams and cities are not fully aware of these changes, they could leave citizens out in the cold. Literally.  

Let’s talk about this situation and what government procurement teams can do to mitigate any potential problems. 

What’s the Situation with Natural Disasters? 

Natural disasters include floods, fires, earthquakes, storms, and pretty much any catastrophic event that’s outside of your control. And the reason we’re talking about them at all is because they are, unfortunately, on the rise. 

Times are changing, and natural disasters are occurring more frequently than ever. For example, the United Nations reports that natural disasters are occurring 3x as often as they did 50 years ago, and the Ecological Threat Register reports natural disasters happen 10x as often as they did 100 years ago. Climate.gov models also predict this trend is just going to speed up, as will the increasing costs of disaster-related destruction.  

“But what if I’m not in a high-risk area for natural disasters?” you might ask. Sadly, living in a low-risk area that doesn’t have a history of natural disasters doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared.

Just ask the State of Texas, which was hit with Winter Storm Uri in February 2021. Uri left one out of two people without water, two out of three without power, and communities stranded without access to food and other necessities. And this all happened to a state whose history books and almanacs expected temperatures in the high 40’s and low 50’s that same month. 

Where Do the Financial Obstacles Come into Play? 

While natural disasters are on the rise, natural disaster government assistance and budgets have done the opposite and diminished.

Due to the impact, Covid-19 has had on local, state, and federal budgets — plus the increasing cost of damage inflicted by disasters — the federal government has opted to push back on state and local governments who need assistance by raising the bar on what it takes to get federal financial support. 

When the Disaster Relief Act of 1974 was first put into place, the bar to receive FEMA funds was $1 per capita in your state. This meant if your state had two million citizens then a natural disaster cost had to exceed $2 million for you to receive federal support and assistance. 

However, due to the constraints mentioned above, FEMA and Congress have elected to raise this bar to $1.50 per capita, which means that the same state now has to have costs exceeding $3 million to get federal support. This 50% jump in the requirements affects many of the smaller, local communities and their procurement processes as they just don’t have the tax revenue to cover these costs on their own. 

Look at the Town of Hanksville, Utah, which was hit by a storm during the first week of September, leaving its community of approximately 400 citizens underwater. The Mayor estimated the damage to be $3 million, but with the new bar of $1.5 per capita and the state population of 3.2 million, Hanksville needed the damage to be over $4.5 million to qualify. The town clerk and mayor are instead using crowdsourcing platforms like GoFundMe to raise the money to recover and rebuild.

How Can We Prepare Our Procurement Process for Natural Disasters?

Even though natural disasters are out of our control and occur unexpectedly, procurement teams can learn from these events and try to curtail some of the heartache and struggles that occur when faced with a disaster. 

Studies have piled up on the value of the government procurement process with natural disaster mitigation in mind. The National Institute of Building Scientists reports that some of the mitigation efforts listed below have up to an 11-to-1 cost/benefit ratio, with an average of a 6-to-1 cost/benefit ratio. That’s a good return on investment for any government agency to consider, and there are also grants a city or town can apply for to help with these mitigation costs. 

These are just some of the things our cities, towns, and villages can consider to strengthen their procurement process and teams against natural disasters:

• Retrofit buildings 
• Design and construct levees of the right depth
• Elevate power equipment for protection
• Storm hardening of power lines (burying or elevating)
• Decentralizing power transmission (smaller/mini power grids)
• Inspection and modernization of utility poles (line hardening)
• Set Up Debris Management PlanSurplus and stockpile equipment 

Looking for suppliers that can handle this work? Our procurement community has over 150,000+ suppliers across America. Get free access to DemandStar vendors today. Check out our 40-minute webinar on this topic to hear more

The post How Natural Disaster Funding Is Challenging the Government Procurement Process appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

You are in luck; I have had the good fortune of working with procurement strategy from California to Florida and have listened to the conversations being discussed right now by procurement teams that are sure to continue for the rest of the year.  Yes, many are still talking cooperative purchasing and how to write a good RFP, but there is a lot more going on, and here are the 4 other topics whose reverberation is getting louder and louder.    

Work From Home

Over the past couple of years, studies and evidence have mounted showing that work from home (WFH) or hybrid remote work has shown levels of productivity equal to or greater than office-only work culture.  Studies from Stanford University and Bloomberg also share that having a culture of remote work improves employee health, boosts employee retention, and increases work-life balance yet governments have been slower than the private sector to adopt this idea.  That is until the pandemic, where government organizations were forced to jump into the deep end of the pool on working from home.  Most governments were unprepared, as many government procurement strategies were to still use desktop computers instead of laptops, using desk phones instead of softphones apps, having only booked physical conference room spaces to have meetings, and having never used Zoom.  This caused some initial heartache as procurement staff reported using their cells phone from home to call suppliers, scrambling with IT departments to set up remote logins, and quickly buying the basic versions of zoom, Slack, and Microsoft teams.  What was learned from there was that it didn’t take long for a government organization to catch on to the efficiency and benefits the private sector was experiencing with work from home.  Within a month government was running finance meetings, logging hours, doing payroll, CIP, and budget meetings, and judges embracing court hearings and cases through video conferencing. 

Prior to the pandemic, only 3% of government employees were working remotely and at the peak of the pandemic, nearly 60% of government employees were working remotely during some portion of their workweek.  With many states on the road to fully reopening what will be the new norm and standard for government purchasing departments?

We know some procurement strategy was to go all-in as soon as they had to close their doors to the public, getting staff laptops, video conference licenses, and setting up infrastructure, policies, and workflows that allowed them to keep on procuring goods and services that allowed their communities to operate smoothly even during the pandemic.  For these governments do leaders simply tell everyone to come back to pre-pandemic schedules, in the office from 9-5 Monday through Friday, and if you’re not in the office you need to use PTO? Or do leaders put in place a hybrid work schedule where staff has the option to choose remote workdays?

We also saw other procurement teams hold back on investing in tools to help staff work from home during the pandemic, instead of putting in place band-aid policies like having staff fill out forms estimating hours they used their cell phone for work calls and reimbursing them, scheduling hours for each individual to come in the office during the week to make copies of the forms they needed to use or pausing procurement altogether.  These teams did their best during the pandemic without investing in the suite of tools available for working from home and it looks like most are now fully back in the office.  But what happens if another scenario occurs where we are required to work from home again?  Can the staff manage those loose band-aid policies again and pause critical infrastructure projects that need to be done further?  And what does this do the employee retention and what will the total cost of losing a key staff member be due to the frustration?

Procurement teams are finding that the decisions being made on this topic are all over the spectrum. You’re even seeing neighboring procurement teams from two cities just miles apart have one; leaving their staff with the continued freedom to work from home while the second is required to be back in the office 100% of the time.  This is causing conversations at the real or metaphoric “water cooler” to last quite a bit longer.  

Being seen as heroes

Remember the days when the only news the public ever heard about government procurement news was when there was bad news.  When a project didn’t finish on time when a project went over budget or there was an accounting error.  I can’t lie and say those days are gone and behind us but there sure seems to be a new sense of appreciation from the public for those working in government procurement.  Last year there were tons of comments on social media pages from parents who flocked outdoors to park and trails during the pandemic thanking parks and rec’s department for keeping their parks clean, nurses thankful to government buyers who were able to find a supplier to deliver face shields, and interviews with teachers who were glad to have new technologies to teach students.  This last year shined a light on how vital a procurement department is to keep a community operating smoothly.   Maybe this is the new trend, as it sure seems like the citizens of our communities are starting to see procurement folks as the unseen heroes behind all that is working as it should.  Whatever it is, is making those of us on the receiving end of these kind comments smile and we are all keeping our fingers crossed that this continues.  

The Biden Jobs Plan

The idea of a major infrastructure plan was presented in late March and since has been estimated to be as low as $500B and as high as $2.25T.   Whether the bill is signed through on the top or bottom of that scale remains to be seen but what seems certain is whatever goes through will have a major impact on local government procurement trends, as they will have to roll up their sleeves and fulfill the contracting of the goods, services, and products from commercial businesses.

The good news for communities is a signed infrastructure bill makes available funding that many communities have needed for years and being that so many of us in procurement are living within or near the communities we serve this is a welcome sight.  However, the challenge we face will be procuring goods that we have never had the opportunity to procure before, most of us have the suppliers to do the electric, lighting, and construction work but many of us just don’t have the supplier locally to source the products and solution that would reduce the carbon footprint, introduce electric charging station and innovative clean energy technologies that are being funding by this infrastructure plan.  And I’m not confident that the Tesla’s and ChargePoint’s of the world are reading our local newspaper waiting for us to put out an RFP as an ad.  So how will we get the suppliers? How will we get the innovative companies that provide these solutions to pay attention to our needs, and what happens when there is a limited supply of companies that can match these standards.  What will be the timelines to spend the infrastructure funds if we face these procurement challenges?  This is one of the things we have to watch out for as the infrastructure plan moves from an idea to a bill.    

The DBE Program Design To Address the Wealth Gap

The US government can greatly influence the distribution of wealth, being the largest consumer in the world of goods and services. In 1983 congress decided to pass the first DBE program, meant to help balance wealth across social, racial, and gender classes.  Most economists agree that a more equal distribution of wealth across society leads to more innovation, strengthened public health, higher social trust, and better-resourced communities.  

However, the intention of the program created to balance wealth distribution has not been achieved, and nearly 40 years later the Congressional Budget Office finds that the gap in the distribution of wealth is even larger than it was in 1983 and continues to grow wider every year.  

Various things have contributed to this, lack of tools for governments to do outreach to the DBE community, lack of transparency, skepticism about the “good faith efforts”. What might be the biggest reason for this program to fall short of what it set out to do was that it was designed with the procurement processes of 1983 and is still being used in 2021 without updates to match the times. Asking procurement teams to solve and address contracting challenges of 2021 with procurement policies of 1983 feels like a near-impossible task.  

As the spotlight shines brighter on the wealth gap in the US and the current administration looks at how to solve this challenge as the biggest influencer in the distribution of wealth it’ll be interesting to see how soon an update is made.  Imagine if we all were still using computers built in 1983 to do our jobs of today, it would be way too slow and software too outdated to do accomplish tasks.  That is what it must be like for procurement teams, we are asking them to address procurement trends of 2021 with procurement rules, processes, and standards of 1983.  

The last year and what appears to be ahead of us have added elements that are changing the conversations being had in government procurement departments.  Will, there be 4 songs played on repeat for years or will we be constantly switching the tune?   

The post 4 Topics Procurement Teams Will Be Discussing in the 2nd Half of 2021 appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.

During the transition period, business suppliers and local and state agencies are making considerable changes to their processes to incorporate the new features—and these changes may slow down the flow of projects they need now. There needs to be a stop-gap solution so that procurement can keep moving in the state of Virginia while the eVA system is overhauled, and agencies and vendors become accustomed to the new system. There are free services that suppliers and businesses can use during this transition and beyond that will work extremely well with and complement the eVA system.

DemandStar is an online procurement platform that is free for government agencies nationwide. In Virginia alone, DemandStar already includes 27,000 suppliers and 45 agencies as members. Large state procurement systems like eVA procurement are complicated and time-intensive for suppliers. As such, and even though eVA is the system of record for the state, fewer suppliers may sign up. DemandStar has seen quick adoption with suppliers in its network and e-bidding platform, and contracting opportunities are sent out to qualified suppliers that already do business with other governments. Suppliers who can easily find contract opportunities with DemandStar are then much more motivated to get through eVA’s complicated registration process to compete for bids.

The DemandStar marketplace also offers a host of technological advancements that are already built into the system. This includes instant notifications to vendors that match with new RFPs, online responses, updates, and e-bidding, competitive intelligence insights, sorting algorithms to help procurement agents swiftly review bids and save time, bulk supplemental supplier upload to facilitate vendor connections, subscription level options with free accounts and more. For business owners and procurement professionals looking for an easy and modern procurement system that’s already up and running, DemandStar can help their communities succeed. 

In the middle of the pandemic, a technology-first solution to procurement that offers up-to-the-minute updates is vital. Procurement agents need to be able to work remotely and connect with vendors quickly to keep the state running. It’s also important to keep an eye on the cost to taxpayers. CGI has been awarded $137 million of taxpayer funds to overhaul the eVA procurement system. This cash is precious as the pandemic pushes into its one-year mark and citizens are becoming increasingly reliant on government services.

DemandStar offers a free, comprehensive and technologically advanced solution to not only fill in the gap while CGI updates the eVA procurement system, but that could work side-by-side or in place of the updated eVA system.  Request a demo today to learn more!

The post The Procurement Transition in Virginia appeared first on DemandStar | Government Contract Bids, RFPs & Procurement.