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Bid opportunities down, strategic spending up
Competitive bid opportunities may be down, but strategic spending through cooperative purchasing agreements is on the rise.
Competitive bid opportunities may be down, but strategic spending through cooperative purchasing agreements is on the rise. According to a recent procurement market analysis on strategic spending, government SLED (state, local and education) opportunities for vendors remained relatively flat in 2014. This study was performed by Onvia, a government data analytics firm. Bid activity and requests for proposals were up 0.2 percent for the entire year, but the last three of the four quarters reflected...
The more recent concern for
The more recent concern for public purchasers has been the fact that these cooperative contracts are not being competitively bid. Using a competitive bid process is mandatory for those agencies that follow the federal guidelines for purchasing. It is for this reason that many of these contracts cannot be utilized. Cooperative Purchasing is definitely a value to procurement but only if it is defined and procured in a manner that the majority of agencies can participate in. As you see agencies come under the spotlight for their purchasing processes, you will see them following stricter guidelines and paying closer attention to the details of what they are utilizing as their tool for procuring. It is not good enough to say that the selection was made via a cooperative contract or via WSCA or US Communities, et. al.. Because best practice for the selection process of some of these does not include a competitive component, the agencies can no longer “assume” that the “cooperative” designation qualifies the contract for use. From the start, the minimum that could be done is for these cooperative associations to state clear and upfront those contracts that were competitively bid and those that were not. The optimum best would be to only use a competitive process.