Improving Public Procurement Workflow-Online Shopping and Ordering

Improving Public Procurement Workflow-Online Shopping and Ordering

By
Jack Pellegrino, Director, Purchasing & Contracting County of San Diego
Sean Behan, Chief Operations, Purchasing & Contracting, County of San Diego
Gerry Plummer, Division Manager, Purchasing, County of Los Angeles

Challenge
The ideal scenario for Public Procurement online shopping and ordering is a central agency eMarketplace. This eMarketplace would seamlessly connect agency buyers to the agency suppliers’ online catalogs. Purchases would be integrated with the agency’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems-accounting and other core business processes. The ultimate result would be to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of government business operations.

Among the 90,000 independent units of local government-Counties, Cities and Special Districts-most are challenged by lack the money, time, and human capital to establish an ERP supported eMarketplace. ERP systems and related eProcurement modules are expensive, time consuming, take years to fully implement and demand dedicated agency program specialists and scarce agency IT resources.

In the reality of ERP, the need for improved workflow and more effective Public Procurement shopping and ordering options may fall behind an agency’s higher priority business systems including budget and accounting, financial and risk management, regulatory compliance and public engagement systems.

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