What is this Chapter about?
The Detail

What Tendering Tasks Can Be Done Electronically
Summary

• E-Tendering can provide for:

Faster better exchange of information;

Increased security and integrity of tendering;

Automation of the evaluation process;

• MOD encourages the use of e-Tendering for some competitions, but the ability to do so is not yet widespread throughout the Department or Industry;

• MOD aspires to introduce a corporate capability to undertake e-Tendering, which ideally will be a Government-wide system or.

The Benefits of e-Tendering

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In addition to supporting the Governments’ revised targets for conducting business by electronic communications, there are business benefits for both the MOD and Industry in doing so. The range of benefits continue to expand as business processes are changed to maximise the opportunities that electronic tendering can deliver and detailed below are the most notable:

• Making the Government easier for Industry to do business with;

• Opportunities to stimulate increased interest in the market, by reducing the burden that Tendering to Government can be;

• Efficient and effective electronic interfaces between Industry and the MOD leading to reduced costs and timesaving on both sides;

• Quick and accurate pre-qualification and evaluation which enables the automatic rejection of Industry partners that fail to meet stipulated fixed criteria;

• Opportunity for the transmission of quality information to and from Industry to enable a clearer understanding of the requirements and proposals;

• Opportunity to respond quickly to any questions and points of clarification during the tender period;

• Reductions in the traditionally labour intensive tasks of receipt, recording and distribution of tender submissions.

• Reducing the paper trail on tendering exercises, reducing costs to the MOD and Industry alike and supporting ‘green’ issues;

• Providing a clearer audit trail demonstrating integrity;

• Provision of quality management information;

• Improved opportunity for like for like comparisons of qualitative and quantitative information resulting in a faster more accurate evaluation of tenders;

• Electronic signatures for documents originating from Industry are created and managed by a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), backed by a commercial provider that has been approved by the MOD PKI Policy Management Authority;

• Electronic signatures for documents originating from the MOD and created and managed by a Public Key Infrastructure managed or authorised by the MOD PKI Policy Management Authority;

• The security and operating procedures of MOD and Industry internal information systems (IS) are maintained;

• The current principles, and not the entire practice, of the MOD Tender Board are fully replicated, by the use of a “virtual” tender box which restricts access to tenders until after the due date and time for receipt;

• The integrity of stored tender documentation is maintained through the use of an appropriate technical infrastructure.

• Security

• Flexible Process

• Confidentiality

• Future Proofing

• Integrity

• Audit trail

• Authentication

• Affordability

• Equity/ Transparency

• Compatibility/ Interoperability

• Liability

• Firewalls

• Trust

• Scalability

• Business Benefits

• Reliability/ Availability

• Portability of Data