Public Spend Forum: Life without digital services and other news

Public Spend Forum (PSF) is a public sector procurement global community and market intelligence platform dedicated to improving public buying everywhere. GovShop is its free-to-use global government market research tool for finding and connecting with suppliers. Read more from PSF and GovShop founder Raj Sharma here: Working towards a more open and accessible public sector marketplace – for suppliers and buyers.

This week’s latest from PSF:

How different would your life be without the digital services you rely on today?

In the latest episode on the Public Sector Heroes podcast, Public Spend Forum features Kume Chibsa, Founder & CEO of Afrovalley PLC. Kume has dedicated her life to solving the lack of digital development in the African Valley. On the podcast, she discusses her creativity in solving big problems through self-funding a feasibility study and engaging with the government to help her obtain data. Listen to her incredible and inspiring story here: Digital Moses: Helping Farmers Benefit From Digitization in the African Valley

7 Economics and Market Intelligence Essentials for Public Procurement

When it comes to effectively matching buyers and suppliers in any market, there are two economics principles that are key for a good market transaction to occur:

• All parties, meaning all buyers and sellers, have equal information so no party holds an undue advantage owing to “information asymmetries”
• Low barriers to entry so the most qualified suppliers can come into the market transaction and compete effectively

The 7 Economics and Market Intelligence essentials for public procurement is a series in nine parts that includes all types of resource for the public procurement practitioner — listen, watch and read here.

And in other news …

UK Royal Navy has begun testing using jet suits to board shipping vessels

MSDUK Innovation Challenge is open to SMEs and start-ups

US government considering law change to boost fuel supply after cyber hack on the Colonial Pipeline led to shortages

UK government urged to work with the third sector on legislation to make it easier for charities to win public sector contracts

24 European Cities join ground-breaking renovation project

UK’s Sheffield Teaching Hospitals abandons £400m tender for electronic patient record over “low confidence” in the result

Night Vision Goggles for the military

UK Department for Work and Pensions awards £2.5m deal to move a major data-analytics platform into an Amazon Web Services public cloud

Pentagon may cancel JEDI cloud computing contract amid legal battle and political criticism

New UK Procurement Bill announced in Queen’s Speech

MEPs adopt Public Sector Loan Facility agreement, boosting green transition

Contact Public Spend Forum

Contact support@publicspendforum.net if you’d like to understand more about public procurement, the effect of the pandemic, where to find suppliers for a specific category, or any other burning issue you have.

PSF would also love to hear from you if you have a success story within your organization you’d like to share. If you’d like to share your opinions or insight on a public-procurement-relevant issue please see the Guest Author Guidelines here.

Schedule a free GovShop demo

You can book a free consultation and demo to learn how to best leverage GovShop! You’ll learn how to build your market research skills and use GovShop to search across 2 million traditional and non-traditional suppliers, quickly generate lists and reports in minority and small businesses, and find contracts that match your needs.

Contact Frank McNally from the Government Success Team