Municipality of São Paulo formed a base of 17 thousand national suppliers and the cost reduction in purchases already reaches 30%
Located in the interior of the State of São Paulo, with an estimated population of 367,289 inhabitants, the city of Piracicaba adopted the electronic purchasing platform Paradigma WBC, in April 2008, to optimize the work of the Purchasing sector and increase the number of participating suppliers bids, thus obtaining a cost reduction in the municipality's purchases.
Return on investment achieved in the first month
In the first month of use, the municipality achieved a return on investment by saving on purchases made through the new platform. Another advantage pointed out by the director of Purchasing in the municipality, Angelina Alanis, was the possibility of making quick and highly productive purchases of low-value items that move a lot. The volume of this type of purchase is large and the purchasing team found it difficult to find a reasonable number of suppliers to meet these demands in the expectation of time for the requesters.
“In the past, we sent quote requests for these smaller items via email or fax. Now, we can also make direct purchases on the platform, reaching a greater number of suppliers, who compete with each other. Today, 100% of the municipality's purchases are made through the platform and the cost reduction already reaches 30%, compared to the previous scenario”, says Angelina.
Increase in regional suppliers strengthens the local economy
The city's purchasing sector evaluated the available tools in the market and opted for Paradigma, after observing the improvements that the platform was already offering to other large municipalities in São Paulo, states and Brazilian federal and state public entities. “Implementation was very quick. In 30 days, Paradigma's consultants customized the platform according to our needs and trained our users”, he comments.
Currently, the city has 17,000 suppliers in its purchasing platform, with a significant increase in the participation of local suppliers, mainly in direct purchases, where they are already the majority. “Since the price dispute on an electronic purchasing portal is open, suppliers can assess competitors' prices and offer the best proposal", says Angelina, explaining that the increased participation of local suppliers increases circulation in the regional economy, creates jobs and income in the municipality's base of political influence and also promotes the digital inclusion of companies and citizens, preparing them to compete globally.
As verified by Paradigma, among its more than 50 electronic shopping portals in operation, when a company or public entity uses a solution from its own portal, it strengthens its regional supply chain, in addition to reducing costs and delivery time, with gains in security logistics.
This does not happen when using the services of a marketplace, even if free, which transfers wealth and income generated by regional purchasing power, failing to develop and strengthen the local economy, when more than 50% of purchase processes are usually attended by companies far from the area of geographic and political influence of the purchasing unit.
Platform meets the demand of 19 departments and 1 planning institute in the municipality
The director says that, before the new tool, her team used a closed purchasing system, with a restricted number of suppliers, without the possibility of inviting new participants or obtaining management reports. Another difficulty was the time taken to complete a purchase. “For a medicine list that normally has a large number of items, it took us up to a week to complete the purchase, as the old tool only allowed bidding for one item at a time”, says Angelina.
The WBC Paradigm platform releases the purchase of several items at the same time, which allows the Purchasing area to also assume the purchasing processes of the 19 departments and 1 planning institute of the municipality, and carry out the current demand of the municipality of around 220 bids monthly, which already move around R$ 106.8 million traded through the portal.
City Hall collaborates with tool developments
A great advantage pointed out by the director is the fact that Paradigma encourages user collaboration in the tool. Twice a year, all platform customers meet to discuss how the tool can be evolved, sharing their knowledge with the company and professional users in the sector.
“Being part of the platform's user council allows for an excellent exchange of experience, as we talk to people who experience similar situations and who can give interesting ideas and solutions to improve our work”, says the director.
According to Andréa Boudeville, President of Paradigma, this User Council has been helping the company to improve the pioneering ClicBusiness portal, which automates services and connects hundreds of purchasing units from different associated purchasing portals for collaboration in direct sourcing (supplier search) and indirect (republication of demand to capture service requests from a bank of more than 60,000 suppliers). This service reduces administrative risk for public managers in relation to the law of transparency and fiscal responsibility.
“The User Council also collaborates with Paradigma to generate up-to-date registration information and to identify the categories of products and services that each supplier serves, in addition to generating data on the experience and reputation of suppliers, informed by the portals of the ClicBusiness community. ”, says Andrea. ClicBusiness offers registered suppliers login and single users to access all portals that are accredited, with significant gains in productivity and competitiveness for managing the consolidated demand of all portals in a single interface.
Angelina also explains that this approach with the platform provider brings greater security to users. “We noticed that our employees feel safer when using a tool that they helped to design, in addition to being totally friendly”, he explains.
This ease of use is also perceived among the city's suppliers. According to Angelina, in the past, her team needed to speak directly with the supplier company to clarify doubts about prices or explain the bidding process. “Now, we are able to feed and customize the platform according to the needs of each tender, facilitating suppliers' access to any information”, concludes Angelina.
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