Discover how Delta eSourcing can revolutionize your market engagement processes. Book a demo or contact us to see how we can optimize your procurement outcomes.
Market engagement is one of the most critical tasks in public procurement. But for marketing engagement to succeed, you need a clear market engagement strategy that focuses primarily on building and maintaining lasting, meaningful relationships with suppliers.
Part of this relies on open communication and transparency, which are best facilitated by a single source platform like Delta eSourcing’s eTender portal.
To be truly effective, however, market engagement processes must be streamlined, optimising efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
We’re going to look at tactics to streamline market engagement, giving you the upper hand in public sector procurement.
How To Streamline Market Engagement
If you want to do a good job, you need to start at the beginning. In this instance, it’s early engagement.
What is early market engagement?
Early market engagement is like a drone you send out to get the lay of the land before you enter the market. It’s a strategy intended to help you learn more about the dynamics in the market – the overall state of the market, from the big players to the collaboration potential.
You can get an idea of the scope of social value initiatives already on the go, so you know, more or less, what you can reasonably include in your contracts. You might also find that you need to revisit your requirements, perhaps with new insight into the cost of equipment needed or the number of workers required to deliver quality products or services.
Early engagement provides information that enables you to refine your contract so you attract qualified suppliers only – no time wasted with chancy “nothing ventured nothing gained” tender proposals.
It’s also a good way to find out more about the risks and opportunities available, so you can create a proactive plan to mitigate risks and capitalise on opportunities.
This overall view of the market helps you to identify and shed time-wasting processes, streamlining market engagement from the get-go, and delivering cost savings throughout the procurement cycle.
What early market engagement is not
It’s not unethical. It doesn’t give any suppliers an unfair advantage.
On the contrary, it’s actively encouraged. Consider this statement from the Cabinet Office Procurement Policy Note – Procurement Supporting Growth:
“In fact, engaging with the market before starting the formal procurement process is best practice and helps maximise value for money.”
Now, let’s step up and ask:
What Is Market Engagement?
Market engagement takes the information from early engagement and uses it to gain a more detailed view of the market. For example, early engagement gave you an overview of suppliers in the market. Market engagement enables you to sift through the suppliers and identify promising candidates.
Then you can begin building meaningful relationships that stand you in good stead for future contracts.
But the point of market engagement is to get information from specific suppliers who have piqued your interest.
You can do this in the following ways:
Requests for Information (RFIs)
RFIs for specific contracts are sent to suppliers to obtain more details about the company/products/services/works. For example, pricing structure, experience, and average time to delivery. These days, buyers should also enquire about any social value projects currently underway, or ideas for future projects.
Requests for Quote (RFQs)
This typically follows an RFI. It requires specific information about pricing, costs, and payment terms for a contract. It enables you to weigh quotes against your budget and determine if the value they provide is worth topping up the budget.
RFQs are also known as Invitations to Bid or Invitations to Tender.
Collaboration Tools
Collaboration tools provide a platform for all stakeholders, including public contracting authorities, suppliers, key decision-makers, etc., in a project to communicate with each other, stay up to date on progress, and share data, like analytics and trends.
Collaboration tools play an important role in streamlining operations for government departments and public sector suppliers. Several factors contribute to streamlined processes, including rapid decision-making, uninterrupted connection and communication from remote locations, and streamlined workflows resulting from automation, which also increases efficiency.
Collaboration tools include: Trello, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
Market Analytics
Market analysis is used to better understand your specific area of the overall market, including relevant suppliers, so you can pinpoint your position in the market and figure out how to operate more efficiently.
How to perform market analysis in procurement
Market analysis requires a fair chunk of research as you look into:
- Suppliers and their presence in the market, for instance, are they favoured by most buyers, do they have a lot of projects that are similar to yours.
- How many buyers are in the market and how influential they are. This helps establish the extent and quality of your competition.
- Past and current trends to identify patterns for the future.
- How regional differences impact local markets.
- The depth and diversity of the supplier pool.
5 Benefits Of Using Delta eSourcing For Market Engagement
Delta eSourcing has extensive experience in public procurement. Our areas of specialisation benefit both buyers and suppliers, especially in procurement and sourcing management.
Here’s a quick look at five reasons to choose Delta eSourcing for your procurement needs.
- Access to a broad and diverse range of suppliers. We have 100,000 active suppliers. Suppliers are qualified to meet your needs and extend your network.
- Informed decisions driven by accurate and insightful market research. We do the research for you. All you need to do is avail yourself of the information.
- Data enables you to customise your tenders or contracts to attract qualified suppliers only, which is more efficient and helps streamline operations. In this way, you become more competitive and enhance positive outcomes.
- Mitigate risks through early identification so you can create a proactive risk management strategy to mitigate or eliminate the risks.
- Foster innovation by collaborating with suppliers to develop unique solutions to challenges in the market. Creative solutions improve the efficiency of operations, ultimately streamlining procurement processes.
This is just a taste of what Delta eSourcing can do for you. Find out more about our services by booking a demo or contact us to discuss how we can revolutionise your market processes and optimise your procurement outcomes.
