eProcurement Glossary

Tendering

It is basically the process where a buying organisation publishes its intention to purchase goods, works or engage the services of consultant from a vendor / contractor / consultant (a supplier) through a process of seeking formalised bids in order to select the most competent and/or competitive bids.
In practice, there are several variations of this process and their individual usage depends upon the size of procurement, the nature of the works, and the type of goods, works or services being procured.

Tenders can be fixed amount tenders, item rate tenders or percentage rate tenders. There are also open tenders and limited tenders. Tenders can be for one-time supply of goods or rated contracts where the resultant bids become a contractual framework for multiple supplies over a period of time.

Single Round Single Envelope Tendering

It means a single bid response to a set of tender documents being submitted to the buyer by each of the “suppliers” in a single sealed envelope before the due cut-off date and time.
The bids are then opened by authorised personnel from the buying organisation, which may sometimes be opened in the presence of the bidders.

Single Round Multiple Envelope Tendering

This means a single bid response to a set of tender documents being submitted to the buyer by each of the suppliers in multiple envelopes before the due cut-off date and time. In such cases, the envelopes contain different parts of the requested bids. For example, envelope one would be for the technical detail information, and envelope two would be for the financial offer.
Depending on the method of tender, one of the envelopes is opened first for evaluation. In such a system, the detail of the second envelope is opened only after the content of the envelope that has been opened first has been completed. Typically the opening of the other envelope will depend upon the suitability and shortlisting of the bid documents contained in the first envelope.

Further bid analysis, evaluation and adjudication is then made only for those bidder(s) who qualify from their submission(s) in the first envelope.

This method is usually adopted for goods or services where technical criteria are significantly more stringent than required for standard goods (e.g. design and construction works) but can be used for goods, services and works type contracts.

Multi Round Tendering

This tendering process is usually used for large projects or complex engineered goods where Multi Round Tendering may be carried out in more than two rounds of bidding
Initially only an “Expression of Interest” or PQQ may be invited. This may constitute the pre-qualification round for further technical and financial bidding rounds. Only the shortlisted vendors from the pre-qualification round will go through to further technical and financial rounds. There may be one more shortlisting step after the technical round—for example through a process of “Competitive Dialogue”.

Non-Repudiation

To repudiate means that a party to an agreement / contract /communication or the like cannot deny the authenticity of various kinds of communication or information that originated from them. These could be:

  • A document; or
  • The sending of a message; or
  • A statement; or
  • A bid

Digital Certificate (DC)

A digital certificate is non-reputable. There are various classes of Digital Certificates. In the case of Nextenders a Digital Certificate in most cases is of Class II or Class III and the DC is personal to an individual and to be authentic the identity of the individual must be verified by a Trusted Authority before the DC is issued in the individuals name, making its use unique.

Maverick Spend

It relates to purchasing of goods and services that are made outside normal purchasing policy, which means the expenditure is non-compliant.

Catalogue/Catalog Management

Catalogue management allows buyers to simplify the management of supplier catalogues and to classify goods and services through category management so that purchases can be organised and managed in a way that it brings in the following benefits:

  • Increases the control of purchase spend
  • Helps to reduce Off-Contract and Maverick purchasing
  • Centralise and manages catalogue access and standardise access to contract prices
  • Creates a self-service regime for buyers, whilst allowing purchase control authorisations
  • Reduces the time and effort needed to maintain catalogue updates
  • Allows rapid search and comparison of goods and services and pricing

PunchOut

It is part of a Catalogue/Catalog Management system that connects a buyer to a supplier’s external web site from within the eProcurement system. To do this, the buyer “virtually” leaves or “punches out” from their designated eProcurement system to view an external supplier’s web-based “punchout catalogue” to view and order products, whilst in the background the eProcurement application transparently captures information about the purchase.

In fact the process is well defined, otherwise it would simple encourage Maverick Spending. A Supplier’s Punchout catalogue can take a variety of forms—it can be the normal catalogue, subject to special discount structures that are client/buyer specific (borne out of a separate tendered framework agreement) or a client/buyer specific catalogue with fixed ranges and special prices that have been agreed between the parties.