Readjust institutional technology purchasing procedures

Considered by businesses as a highly lucrative market, the purchase of supplies and equipment by public institutions has always been subject to bribes, skulduggery and side deals. To counter this phenomenon, most governments have established fairly strict rules to regulate their public procurement.

In recent years, procedures have even been tightened by limiting contact between buyers and sellers, as any contact could be construed as lobbying or favoritism. Institutional purchasing procedures have become increasingly complicated. In the case of technology purchases, especially for schools, these procedures have simply become disadvantageous.

L o n g delays

The situation is this: from the time bids are submitted to the time technologies arrive in classrooms, the process can take months and sometimes even over a year. What ends up being delivered is yesterday's model or product, which doesn't perform as well as the one currently on offer, and is paid full price.

What's more, because of competition, prices fluctuate from month to month, and what may have seemed like a good deal at the time of the agreement may have become a derisory one a few months later.

In short, the deadlines imposed exceed the pace of technological evolution in a highly competitive environment.

Solutions

Digital Promise, an organization dedicated to better education through technology, proposes a series of solutions and policies.

• The first is to pool the preparatory work, as each entity responsible for purchasing often redoes the same analysis and comparison of equipment, prices, references and so on. Above all, this pooling makes it possible to see how much the others have paid in previous purchases. As the texts are produced by the buyers and not the sellers, intelligibility is much higher. Seeing the prices paid avoids large price discrepancies for the same equipment for less skilled negotiators.
  
  Sharing this information among thousands of purchasing managers is the first and most profitable step.
  
• The second is to reduce lead times, starting with those for preparing bids and analyzing the bids received. How can we do this? By pre-qualifying a certain number of suppliers or products, even if it means modifying requests at a later date. Secondly, by reducing the scope. The higher the stakes, the longer the process. It is sometimes preferable to reduce the scope and divide the stakes between several managers to speed up the process.
  
• The third is to start from the real educational needs identified by teachers or through surveys of teachers and other people involved with students. These are the people who will have to use these technologies on the front line. From there, it becomes easier to identify the functions required and which products will meet them. We can then aim for flexibility in contracts, for example, by starting precisely from the needs to be met and guaranteeing delivery of the latest model or a substantial price reduction.
  
• The fourth is to enable sellers to present their products well. They will respond to requests for information as long as they are precisely formulated. Most buyers simply consult the sellers' websites and make do with general specifications to establish their comparisons. Needs are specific; by centralizing sellers' information and allowing them to justify and update their claims, information tailored to specific needs becomes accessible and can be shared and discussed.

Surprisingly, the most frustrated by the length of the process are the suppliers themselves! If it takes too long, they lose motivation before they succeed in satisfying the customer! They'll be happy to work on making things run more smoothly, with better communication.

References

Improving Ed-Tech Purchasing - Phil Martin and Steve Pines - Digital Promise
http://www.digitalpromise.org/blog/entry/improving-ed-tech-purchasing

Procurement Power - Dian Schaffhauser - The Journal
http://thejournal.com/articles/2015/05/14/procurement-power.aspx