Technology makes procurement sustainable

Business sustainability involves the management and coordination of financial, social and environmental demands to ensure responsible, ethical and ongoing success. Nowhere do these three demands overlap more directly than in the procurement function responsible for buying the right goods and services at the right price.

And at the centre of procurement lies technology. Designed to help public-purse organisations like Councils stretch their finite resources further, our procurement technology offers an important contribution to the ongoing sustainability of organisations.

Applied during the preparation, advertisement and management of the full range of competitive bid procurement notices, it can be coupled with an evaluation toolset that enables users to drive more rigour into the bid response evaluation process.

As a package, these tools help organisations deliver better financial outcomes, while also meeting community obligations of fairness and equity. All tenderers receive the same information, so there can be no complaints about unfair treatment. Well-documented criteria and weightings ensure that all submissions are measured and ranked with the same yardstick and the whole process is transparent and auditable.

While the technology itself doesn’t guarantee “green” procurement, local authorities with strong environmental aspirations can ensure that their standards are upheld when documenting their tender requirements. Any crucial environmental requirements can be explicitly specified, weighted and scored within the evaluation toolset.

Business sustainability is not only about doing the right thing, but also about showing that you’re following the ethical, fair and responsible path. Here again, procurement technology provides organisations with full visibility over every stage of the purchasing process — from specifying the need to communicating with the market and evaluating proposals. So, while also helping organisations deliver on their financial, social and environmental objectives, procurement technology also provides organisations with confidence in their procurement systems by allowing them to defend any decisions which may be questioned down the track.

Rob Cook is Marketing Manager at TenderLink (www.tenderlink.com)