Tender-IT, a CHEST Call 3 winner, is an innovative platform that is being developed to create a truly global marketplace for online tenders. The platform will connect those who are searching for products and services (“Seekers”) with those who can solve these needs (“Solvers”).
With the ever increasing digitisation of government procurement, being able to efficiently and effectively put products and services out to tender, with a wide range of organisations offering solutions that fulfil the requirements of those tenders, is vital. Without this, a lack of competition occurs and the procured products and services cost more, placing a higher cost on society as a whole. The access to the tendering process is especially important for SMEs and self-employed professionals, whose current levels of participation and representation are often low, reducing the effectiveness of the marketplace.
Tender-IT wants to develop a digital market place – a knowledge co‐creation multi‐sided platform – that processes and unifies existing European tender sources, making the market transparent for all organisations, especially SMEs and self-employed professionals. Tender-IT will have a clean, crisp look and feel and will be easy to use, whether users are working on a desktop computer or mobile device.
This will be achieved by an intuitive matching engine and dashboard, which will make online tendering easier and less time-consuming. Users will get personalised matches from optimised searches, so will not waste time scanning information they are not interested in. The dashboard will enable users to manage, track and monitor public tenders, and provide all the information that is required for informed bidding with an inclusive process, rather than the current, fragmented and labour-intensive approach that is only realistic for larger organisations to undertake. As a result of this, Tender-IT will increase transparency in tendering, and participation from SMEs and self-employed professionals. To further this, there will also be partnering option available on the platform, so users can apply as a consortium.
Last year, Tender-It focused on the development of their initial prototypes of the data processing structure and a solution for unlocking various public procurement sources. Research was also conducted into contextual search in big data sets. The project team is currently developing back-end solutions. Later this year, Tender-It expects to be able to produce a first minimal viable product (MVP), ready for technical and functional testing with their focus group, which includes representatives from public authorities, knowledge institutes and commercial enterprises.
To learn more about Tender-IT, you can visit the official website: http://www.tender-it.com/
You can also follow Tender-IT on Twitter (@Tender_It_com)
