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Bahrain Electronic Tendering System
Bahrain Tender Board
Bahrain

The Problem

The Tender Board introduced the e-Tendering System in June 2009. The need of this system is vital to organize the Tenders in the Purchasing authorities and also for the creation of virtual market which was not in place before introducing the e-Tendering System.

These are some of the issues that we had before introducing e-Tendering System:

• The process used to take more time to proceed with the reviewing and approving the Tender in Tender Board as well as in the ministries.

• Suppliers used to visit Tender Board personally to submit the Tender Document.

• Suppliers used to visit their Bank to issue Manager Check, Insurance Certificate..etc.

• More of paper work.

• It used to take more time to inform suppliers about the open Tenders, publish Tenders, awarded Tenders.

• It used to take more time to communicate with ministries.

• Security issues of receiving Cash and Manger Checks in manual through Tender Board Reception office.

• Tender Board had less control about the publishing the Tenders from the ministries.

• Keeping all the Tender communications in the physical file and store it in the archive needed more efforts and took time to save and retrieve the file back when it is needed. This also necessitated large physical storage space.

• Sometimes duplication of work was done.

• Manual seeking approvals in Tender Board and Purchasing authorities used to take more time.

• Manual Board meeting every Thursday and then updating the concerns to staff manually.

• Suppliers had to carry Cash to Bank to issue Manager Cheque, which was risky and also consume time.

• The Flow of the Suppliers visiting Tender Board to submit the Bid on closing date are increasing day by day

In order to overcome the above issues an eTendering system was implemented.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The achievements on various levels are

• Within Tender Board:
Implementing the Tender Life Cycle in the automated System has speeded up the process to atleast 60% from the manual. Inadditional to that reducing the administration cost, Reduce the pager work, Minimize duplication in work, administration of the ministry users for approval, followup and security.
Tender Board weekly meeting are held using electronic means rather than manual meeting.

• Ministry (PA’s):
They can communicate electronicaly with all parties (Tender Board , Suppliers) online and well as they can attached the Tender Document Online rather than selling the document manually to the suppliers and send the list of suppliers to Tender Board for varification.Inadditonal to that Ministry can evaluate the Tender electronically and attached any document online for Tender Board weekly meeting.



• Suppliers:
Suppliers can purchase the Purchase the Tender Document, Download the Bid online rather than going to ministry for purchasing and submitting the Bid at Tender Board Office.

In General this system will increase the transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in the Public Service

General Points that can be considered:

• Automated current tendering process
• Reduced administrative costs connected with government purchases
• Time Saving
• Up-to date information
• Accurate information
• Better pricing and terms from suppliers through electronic connections
• Reduced paper work
• Minimized duplication in work
• streamlined the whole tendering process;
• provided improved and secure access to tender information;
• brings about innovative business processes;
• -initiated greater opportunities for small and regionally based businesses;
• allows downloading of electronically submitted tenders in a form suitable for
• Evaluation purposes without having to manually re-enter data; and
• Makes it easier for businesses to obtain tender documentation and to submit an offer on time.
• Furthermore, there are a lot of features in the system such as:
• Availability of two logins, which are for supplier and for BTB_users and the purchasing authorities.
• Full Tender Cycle automation and management.
• Supplier online registration
• Supplier Management
• Online Tender Creation
• Online Tender publishing
• Online bid submission
• Adhering to security standards (encryption of bids before opening)
• Online and live opening of tenders
• Electronic evaluation of bids
• Electronic award and publish of award in the supplier portal.
• Management Reports
• Online and automated approvals
• Online board meetings (unique feature in the region)
• Creation of templates of Workflow, documents and questionnaires. These are minimizing the time and effort required to duplicate the work.
• Electronic notifications for both suppliers and purchasing authorities.
• Enabling the registered suppliers from electronic submission of inquiries and complaints.
• Supports multiple Tender types (RFP, RFQ, RFI, Multi- Phase Tender, Limited
• Complete life cycle of the Tender, from preparation to Contract creation
• Dynamic Workflows, Questionnaires by type of Tender
• Multi-Stage Bid Opening
• Cross Tabulation & Evaluation
• Templates for Workflows, Documents, & Questionnaires
• Setup Spend Thresholds, Directorates

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The Tender Board initiate system study for the e-Tendering Project, then Tender Board with help of Jawad habib & Co created a Public Tender for the e-Tendering system and VARstreet got awarded and selected. They provided us with a Product called XCAP procurement solution and customized to match our requirements. The system was implemented by Varstreet (India) with local partnership from AlNadeem (Bahrain).

The system has three main stakeholders are:

Suppliers and Contractors:

The XCAP Product contains a portal for suppliers where they will Buy/ Download the Tender Document Online as well as review the status of each Tender.

Tender Board Management requested all the staff to provide the Training/ Support for all the Suppliers and Constrictors of the e-Tendering System through Presentations/ Training/ Documents Guide. In-additional to that making sure that the acceptance of the suppliers and constructors are required to success the e-Tendering Project.

We had two pilots run for the suppliers and the contractors and it’s got successful.


Purchasing Authorities (Gov. Entities)

The XCAP product contain a portal only for PA’s where they will login to do day-to-day work from creating to awarding the Tender as well as answering the inquiry’s of the suppliers..Etc

There are several ministries that support us to increase the functionality of the system through (Financial, Technical and support) like e-Gov , Bapco, MEW, MOW, and Gulf air.

We did two pilot run with Bapco and two of them gets successful.

Bahrain Tender Board

Tender Board can administrate and monitor the Tender Life Cycle, transparency, accountability, and responsiveness in the e-Tendering System.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The Strategy adopted was based on the idea that the introduction and development an electronic Tendering System to manage all the government Tenders online. Meaning that the system will help in tender creation, tender publish, receiving bids, opening bids, and announcing tender awards. The use of e-Tendering in other parts of the world has already illustrated its ability to reduce administrative costs and processing time, as well as increasing the quality and transparency of decision making and reducing the number of complaints. The e-Tendering system will enable the Tender Board to eliminate unnecessary overheads and thus further speed up the tendering process.

To achieve our goal Tender Board did a training awareness for the e-Tendering System to Suppliers and the Ministries therefore to increase the performance. In-additional to that we involved a consultancy to take suppliers training due to the high demand.

We are requested to improve the e-Tendering services to achieve our goal by involving other parties like Suppliers, Purchasing Authorities and also to get the acceptance of user testing level.

Tender Board two pilot run involving all parties (Tender Board, Bapco, Suppliers) and also we did soft the same for Gulf air and both of them are successful.

e.Gov is helping Tender Board to market the e-Tendering System nationally and Internationally as an online services in Bahrain and it is the first in the region.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
System study Phase
Customization phase:
In order to implement the e-Tendering Project, Tender Board use the concept step-by-step model

Testing Phase:
Involving e-Tendering Team to Test e-Tendering System from Mar 2008 In-additional to any new patch release applied to the system.

Pilot Run:
First pilot run was with Bapco and it was successful on May 2008. We are going to do the same for Gulf air very soon.

Go Live:
Tender Board requested Bapco to go soft live on first of 2010 and then suppliers can bid online using our system.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Transparency:
To increase the Transparency between the Governement with Suppliers developed this system. All the commnications in the system will be stamped with Date and time; Tender Board can review commnication between the minsitry and the suppliers inadditional to managing and administrating the Minisry/ Suppliers Users. Suppliers can send any protest to Tender Board any time and the request will be tamped and recorded.

Training:
Taking Training for all Suppliers and All Purchasing authorities in Bahrain and provide a guide for the international suppliers is most important to improve the awareness of the system. We are requested to manage the Training of the Suppliers in the initial stage but the high demand from the suppliers let our management to outsource the training.

Tender Board trained the Ministries staff in Tender Board offices to speed up the process and work parallel with consultancy to finish the Training on time.

Time Constrains:
To develop such project like e-Tendering we need to make sure that all the phases implemented in a secure and meet the legality with the business requirements that’s let us take more time to implement this project.
We overcome this issue by involving all the Tender Board Staff and some PA’s.

Administration:
The absence of the electronic systems keeps the Tender Board away from the administration of suppliers and Ministries. Tender Board implemented the system that can manage the ministry users, profile...etc

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Financial: Tender Board Management requested the financial department to arrange a special budget for the e-Tendering Project from Ministry of Finance. Approx. Total Cost is between BD 600,000.

Technical: All the Technical Teams (IT, Operation, Evaluation) are involved to achieve the project from Business and Technical phases.

Human Resources: Tender Board Management Requested HR to recruit 2 IT Staff to handle the workflow and take the responsibility of the e-Tendering.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
E-Tendering Project is the unique project in the region where government will interact with small – medium and large companies in one public portal accessible through the world.

This System will give the benefit of money saving to the government and opportunity of bidding small to large suppliers to bid with the transparency.

This system has been replicated in the international level, so that any supplier in the world can access, pay and bid through our system.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
• Creating strong partnership with Tender Board, Ministries and suppliers.
• Electronic systems make the life more simple and reliable.
• Improving productivity and performance of Tender Life Cycle.
• Reduce paper work between Tender Board & Ministries with Suppliers.
• Reduce the effort involve while creating/Closing/Publishing/Opening/Awarding the Tender.
• Staff (Tender Board / PA’s) can access the system from Home to do continue their work.
• Easy to work with advance technology to take Daily Backup, Monitoring, Failover...etc.
• Most of the Ministries want to integrate their systems with our E-tendering System for online publishing.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Bahrain Tender Board
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Faisal Mohammed
Title:   eTendering Project Controller  
Telephone/ Fax:   +973 39605658 / +973 17566696
Institution's / Project's Website:   +97317582145
E-mail:   faisal.mohammed@tenderboard.gov.bh  
Address:   P.O.Box 18686 Manama Bahrain
Postal Code:   P.O.Box 18686
City:   Manama
State/Province:  
Country:   Bahrain

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