The term Public eProcurement ("electronic procurement

E-procurement

E-procurement is the business-to-business or business-to-consumer or Business-to-government purchase and sale of supplies, Work and services through the Internet as well as other informations and networking systems, such as Electronic Data Interchange and Enterprise Resource Planning.E-procurement...

" in the public sector) refers, in Singapore, Europe and Canada, to the use of electronic means in conducting a public procurement procedure for the purchase of goods, works or services.

Phases

The term of the Electronic Public Procurement can be defined as the usage of e-Government platform over the electronic resources (Internet and Web-based applications) to conduct transactions for purchasing the products and services from suppliers to authority's buyers.

The following sub-phases of the electronic public procurement process could be identified:

• eSourcing: preparatory activities conducted by the contracting authority/entity to collect and reuse information for the preparation of a call; potential bidders may be contacted, if admitted by the legal rules, by electronic means to provide quotations or manifest interest.
• eNoticing: advertisement of calls for tenders through the publication of appropriate contract notices in electronic format in the relevant Official Journal (national/EU); electronic access to tender documents and specifications as well as additional related documents are provided in a non-discriminatory way.
• eAccess: electronic access to tender documents and specifications as well support to economic operators for the preparation of an offer, e.g. clarifications, questions and answers.
• eSubmission: submission of offers in electronic format to the contracting authority/entity, which is able to receive, accept and process it in compliance with the legal requirements.
• eTendering: is the union of the eAccess and eSubmission phases.
• eAwarding: opening and evaluation of the electronic tenders received, and award of the contract to the best offer in terms of the lowest price or economically most advantageous bid.
• eContract: conclusion, enactment and monitoring of a contract / agreement through electronic means between the contracting authority/entity and the winning tenderer.
• eOrders: preparation and issuing of an electronic order by the contracting authority/entity and its acceptance by the contractor.
• eInvoicing: preparation and delivery of an invoice in electronic format.
• ePayment: electronic payment of the ordered goods, services or works.

See also

To successfully conduct electronic procurement across borders, eProcurement systems rely on some “key-enablers”

• eSignature: data in electronic form which are attached to or logically associated with other electronic data and which serve as a method of authentication with regard to this data.
• eIdentity: dynamic collection of all attributes, in electronic format, related to a specific entity (citizen, enterprise, or object) which serve to ascertain a specific identity.
• eAttestations (Virtual Company Dossier): set of certificates and attestations, in electronic format, to be provided by a supplier to prove compliance with the selection and exclusion criteria of a procurement procedure.
• eCatalogues: electronic supplier catalogue prospect uses used to prepare and submit offers or parts of them.
• eArchiving: use of electronic means for long-term preservations of documents in digitalised format, ensuring that they can be easily retrieved without conversions.

Sources

• Most information on European public procurement can be found at the European Commission web site.
• In addition, the eProcurement forum is a source of knowledge and an exchange platform for eprocurement professionals
• Merx is an example of an eProcurement web site.
• GeBIZ
  GeBIZ
  GeBIZ is a Government-to-business Public eProcurement business centre where suppliers can conduct electronic commerce with the Singapore Government. All of the public sector's invitations for quotations and tenders are posted on GeBIZ...
  
  is an example of an eProcurement web site.
• BuySpeed is an example of an eProcurement solution for public sector.