How to ensure transparency and manageability of tender purchases for the medical sector, find the best offers on the market, save money, expand the pool of suppliers? Andrey Chernogorov, founder of Bidzaar.com, chairman, talks about the results of the transition to the ETP Bidzaar using the example of a medical client Purchasing Directors Association
The client I want to talk about is — medical web lab. The task is to make purchases that cover approximately the same positions, since this is a chain. The company buys everything for its activities, except for raw materials and packaging for production. Indirect purchases include laboratory equipment, office equipment, furniture, construction, cleaning, utility equipment, measuring instruments, and so on.
What happened before, why ETP was needed, and why Bidzaar was chosen
Previously, the company operated in the old traditional way and traded via e-mail. It was familiar, familiar, but not completely transparent, it carried the risks of price collusion, it was difficult to increase the supplier base, and the ability to manage the entire process was limited. All of this needed to be changed.
The goal of the lab was to have a transparent bidding process so that it was clear which action followed which and it was clear why a particular one was chosen. provider. And so that any part of any purchase can be viewed.
The task was to choose an electronic trading platform (ETP). Many of the existing trading platforms are designed for trading on complex regulated procedures. We are talking about federal law 223-FZ. Using its processes for commercial purchasing is often inconvenient, especially for vendors.
After studying and testing, the choice was made in favor of Bidzaar, primarily because of the simple and understandable interfaces of our site — working with it is no more difficult than with the same e-mail. You can enter the procedure in about an hour, and without an EDS (electronic digital signature). It is free for participants, only the winner of the procedure pays — a percentage of the contract amount.
Colleagues formed an internal regulation (similar to 223-FZ, but with a “human face ”), and this became their methodology for the reconfigurable purchasing division. Then they registered, got used to the site, tried different things, trained managers — and one fine day they informed all counterparties that they were holding tenders on the site.
What Happened After the Transition: Client Findings
The transition was successful. Colleagues soon shared feedback.
They noted that Bidzaar< span> allows you to move to a more competitive mechanism: both due to the search for new suppliers, and due to more iterations of price changes. Ten steps of the reverse auction for many auctions has long been the norm, in some competitions there may be 30-40 steps. It's simply not physically possible to organize this in mail.
After the adaptation period they put a site widget on the site, and all suppliers could subscribe to notifications of ongoing auctions. And we, for our part, helped to transfer suppliers from other sites — and with any other questions we helped, both for small businesses and for large ones.
As a result, savings increased by 12-15% (depending on the category) due to the greater number of participants in the procedures. Especially in the service market, marketing, etc. these savings track very well.
Colleagues stopped wasting time and looking for suppliers by cold calling and letters to new addresses. Now the site is doing this.
For such purchases as construction or administrative and economic activities, new suppliers have allowed significant savings.
As for the supply of equipment for production and rare equipment, the composition of suppliers has changed slightly, in general, all of them were already known to the client. But now suppliers see each other's offers and can adjust the price more accurately and more often.
There are many suppliers on the site for popular categories, all of them receive notifications in time.< /p>
The company entered some suppliers into rare categories, some we helped to find with Bidzaar.
After a number of suppliers left the Russian market we helped the client look for parallel import options and alternatives. With analogues, everything is quite good. When something of the equipment is declared with a delivery time of a year, we help form the requirements together with the laboratory so that we receive new versions of analogues with the same technical and functional characteristics.
Sometimes colleagues were faced with the fact that not every selected analogue is suitable, and some contests had to be replayed three or four times. Still, alternatives can be found. Although there are still rare procedures on laboratory equipment where one participant comes.
The laboratory equipment market is represented to a very large extent by Western vendors who supply proven equipment. In Russia, they are directly span>do not trade, they enter through distributors and dealers. One supplier has several dealers, therefore, depending on current conditions, you can get different prices and different terms for the same device. Thanks to the platform service, it is possible to find the optimum both in terms of price and terms.
More lab hacks
1. < /span>For equipment, they conduct tests, including at suppliers' sites. That is, specialists look at a sample, conduct tests similar to real production, and then make a decision. Not all pieces of equipment pass.
2. Wherever possible, try to get a sample or a minimum lot. For example, when buying furniture, they go to the showroom to look at a serial model, or they order one unit to assess the quality already in their office.
3. It is more convenient for the company's internal customers to work with already known and trusted suppliers. Accordingly, in the competition, they have a preference of up to + 10% of the final points compared to new suppliers. Who exactly this “bonus for reliability” depends on the category and the length of service of the supplier with the buyer.
4. Supplier experience information is taken into account: letters of thanks (most often in marketing, this tool does not work for production), other contracts , if necessary, they contact previous buyers under the contracts of this supplier.
5. The terms of delivery are taken into account and, if the products have analogues, scores for tests or assessments of experts from the production side.
6. For such services as the transportation of dangerous goods, the license, the type of transport, as well as the experience of the same transportation, confirmed by contracts, is checked. For example, colleagues regularly buy absolute alcohol (and 67 other substances).
7. When carrying out repair work, potential contractors are invited to come, look, check with the project or preliminary estimates. All bouts run until a winner is chosen.
8. services, first the project is ordered, and then a competition for implementation is held for the project.
Now the auctions in the network laboratory are structured like this:
Applications are received by the Tender Management Department of the Management Company from divisions of the Civil Code by e-mail;
The department then prepares the documentation;
After trading on the ETP Bidzaar, discuss all technical and commercial terms with participants;
According to the results of the tender, materials are submitted for consideration by the tender committee and a supplier selection protocol is drawn up, on the basis of which the initiator of the purchase draws up a contract or an order for a master contract.
Over the past year, the procurement situation has changed several times and it was not easy for all bidders to adapt. There were difficulties with high-tech equipment, mainly imported, some purchases were made with great difficulty. Some products were not available for order in principle, while others had too long delivery times (10-12 months). In such circumstances, the ETP cannot perform a miracle, although our Bidzaar administrators and managers make great efforts in finding suppliers and attracting them to participate in tenders.
Now gradually the processes began to normalize. Parallel import appears, such contests are held mostly behind closed doors, since in the future suppliers may fear sanctions from vendors.
Another point from the advantages noted in the laboratory — almost everything is done much easier than before, for example, you can set a very wide tender framework, which helps when comparing options in different currencies, with different payment terms and different analogues bygone brands.
The lab conducted the market analysis on its own, didn't use the ETP much, although we have such opportunities. Of all the purchases, they completed about 70% of requests with the choice of winners, which is a very good indicator for the client.
In the future, the company plans to introduce a single end-to-end system, where there will be a procurement plan, applications, competitions, contracts and the entire history of order fulfillment by suppliers.