2000 billion euros are spent every year on public procurement in the EU, a more than considerable amount which justifies investment and research in this area. e-Procurement is the end-to-end digitisation of the traditional public procurement process.
Access is improved through the centralization of otherwise dispersed procurement processes in the form of one or a few central, electronic platforms, significantly reducing the search efforts for potential bidders
With this, transparency and integrity are increased, as well as the visibility and traceability of the procurement process by the whole public. Furthermore, data quality is also improved thanks to the enforcing of the provision of required information and the use of structured and validated forms. Search costs also go down due to the sharing of common catalogues.
Recommendations are as follow: e-procurement process must be digital from end to end; end-users must be trained to ensure efficiency and acceptance; adoption from the supplier side is just as important as internal acceptance; security must be as modern as possible, to guarantee trust and legal compliance; usability and accessibility of the process are fundamental.
Source : © European Union, 2018 - EP