The eAuction, for IT hardware and related products, delivered a 41% reduction in price against the starting figure of £6.5m and was the fifth in a series of collaborations between OGC and buyers from central government, local authorities and the NHS.
The savings realised by this latest eAuction are the best achieved to date. What makes the results even more attractive is that this eAuction was the first known collaborative cross-sector event run under the new EU Procurement Regulations, which came into being on January 31st 2006".
12 organisations from across the public sector participated and 400 bids were received from 7 suppliers. The eAuction ran for 7 hours 10 minutes.
OGC managed the whole of the end-to-end sourcing process for the 12 participants, including preparation of the specifications and Invitation to Tender, the evaluation process and preparation of the eAuction. Auction service providers, Achilles, managed the technical elements of the eAuction on behalf of OGC.
The OGC team responsible for organising collaborative eAuction events is the eProcurement team, who are part of the Procurement Workstream. The workstream is focused on developing broader category management on IT Hardware purchasing and driving toward a more strategic supplier approach.
This approach ultimately maximizes value for money, while still meeting customer requirements and gives immediate savings that complement longer-term strategies across the public sector.
The public sector organisations taking part in this latest eAuction were:
- Countess of Chester Hospitals Foundation Trusts
- Scope
- Procurement Agency for Essex
- Anchor Trust
- Office of Government Commerce
- Northampton General Hospital Trust
- Mersey Care NHS Trust
- Mid-Cheshire Hospitals NHS Trust
- Central Cheshire Primary Care Trust
- East Cheshire NHS Trust
- Finmere C E Primary School
- Barts. and the London Trust
This is believed to be the first collaborative public sector eAuction to utilise "transformational" bidding, which factors in both a suppliers' qualitative evaluations and its pricing
EAuctions are seen by government as a highly effective method of delivering better value for money in the procurement process. Among the benefits to both public sector buyers and suppliers are:
- Reduced bureaucracy in public sector procurement
- Attractiveness to SMEs as a way of bidding for Govt. business
- Reduced tender and bid costs to both suppliers and users
- Ease and flexibility of use
- Reduced demands on staff time
- Produces immediate cashable and non-cashable efficiency gains
Quelle/Source: Publictechnology, 09.06.2006
---
Addendum 13.06.2006: Dear reader, please note the following comment form Mr. Charles Eddolls, Managing Director, GS Auctions Limited:
Dear Sirs,
I read with some concern your article headed - "OGC E-Auction IT Hardware saves £2.7 million for the Public Sector" - not because you have published this article, for which I commend you, but because of the inaccurate content supplied to you by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC). I note that your article is the same in content as the press release posted on the OGC web site regarding this event.
It was stated within the article that the savings realised by this latest e-auction are the best achieved to date. Not so! Richard Abbott and his colleagues at OGC should look at their own records, since the auction that our company undertook for them in 2003 delivered a 66% saving and 80% betterment, so the 41% reduction you cite wasn't the highest percentage savings that they have ever achieved. (see attached case study)
If on the other hand they were referring to the total value of savings then the attached Press Release from the Defence Communication Services Agency (DCSA) concerning another auction undertaken by us in 2005 shows that we produced a £4.2 million saving, obviously way in excess of the savings achieved in the OGC auction.
It is further interesting to note that this (DCSA) auction resulted in the CIPS award for the Best Public Sector Procurement Project for 2005 (copy attached). In the Supply Management article you will see highlighted the difference between purchase prices from the MoD catalogue as achieved using our process compared to the OGC catalogue prices. This proved so embarrassing to OGC that we understand they are now forced to promote the MoD electronic supplies catalogue in preference to their own as to do anything other than that would be to sanction the squandering of public money.
Regarding the following “What makes the results even more attractive is that this eAuction was the first known collaborative cross-sector event run under the new EU Procurement Regulations, which came into being on January 31st 2006".” GS has also undertaken cross-sector collaborative eAuctions under the new regulations and if OGC were to promote our reverse auctions framework and interact with our staff they would be well aware of this fact. As to who undertook this type of auction first I would suggest that we did.
Regarding the following “400 bids were received from 7 suppliers. The eAuction ran for 7 hours 10 minutes.” This compares to the detail in the DCSA audio visual reverse auction which lasted 10 hours with 1,700 bids received covering 1,000 price factors.
I believe that it would be in the wider Public Sector interest to promote the process by highlighting this procurement that we did for DCSA in November last year, where on a £24 million spend we saved £10 million, over three times as much as the best achieved to date by OGC. The details of this exceptional result are also attached.
You can imagine how we feel as the leading provider of reverse auction services in the Public Sector, using considerably more advanced technology and processes than OGC sponsored auction providers, only to find that OGC are promoting as “Best Value” only the auctions for which they happen to be receiving framework commissions regardless of the commerciality of the results.
There is of course one exception, this being their first reverse auction commissioned by OGCbuying.solutions, to understand how reverse auctions work, and undertaken by our company. This was initially publicised but hasn't been accessible on the OGC web site since they selected their five E-auction providers one of whom is no longer on the list, while another is not using the process that it stated it would use in order to achieve its status. (see OGC press release)
We are all aware of Spin in the political arena but are surprised to see civil servants blatantly misinform Public Sector buyers and assume this to be of serious interest to you and your readership. If this is the case might I suggest that you seek a retraction from OGC as to their misleading statements and print it in your publication.
I would be grateful if you could respond to this missive as soon as possible.
Regards
Charles Eddolls
Managing Director
GS Auctions Limited
2 The Old Yard,
Prinbox Works,
Lypiatt Street,
Cheltenham
GL50 2UD
e-mail Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein!
office tel +44 (0) 1242 541020
fax +44 (0) 1242 541029
Mobile 0797 008 2797
www.gsauctions.co.uk