Once upon a time in a public institution there was a procurement poster that required very diverse and complex things with many technical eligibility requirements. In addition, it had another immense difficulty: only five days to submit bids. For almost any SME this story would have ended here had it not been for our two heroes: the digital signature (Law No. 8454) and the Integrated Public Procurement System, SICOP (Law No. 9395).
Although the contracting was direct (it is enough to invite three bidders) SICOP gave instant notice to hundreds of SMEs as well. One of these estimated that it would not be able to do the entire contracting alone, but if it pooled its strengths and those of three other SMEs in a consortium, it could. But they had to hurry: the negotiation, the consortium, the bids and the response had to be done and signed in only five days. The managers of two of the SMEs were out of the country. What a scare! Fortunately, they all had their digital signature certificates with them and could sign it from anywhere in the world.
So as not to tire them with the story, without meeting face to face even once, the four managers managed to quickly agree on responsibilities, tasks and costs, drew up a consortium agreement, signed it digitally, prepared their joint response, submitted it via SICOP and then each one signed it digitally.
He even had a few hours to review previous bids from his possibly only major competitor to make sure he submitted a very competitive bid, thanks to the fact that SICOP makes it easy to consult previous procurement files!
Who won? Costa Rica won hands down. There were only two bids: after the public opening it turned out that the bid of the SME consortium met all the requirements and was 14% cheaper than the other one (a large company). The consortium won, successfully executed the contract and received congratulations from the public institution, which was very impressed that four SMEs – combining their strengths – were able to win and do well (for a lower price) a project that they thought only a large company could have done.
The digital signature and the SICOP generate savings to the State (around 1.4% of GDP) thanks to the simplification of procedures and to the fact that they promote greater transparency and free competition, and also enable many more SMEs to participate in public procurement processes. It is a pity that the Regulation to Law No. 9395 that obliges the entire State to use SICOP has so many open loopholes that allow public institutions to continue making purchases outside SICOP.
Note taken from:
LA REPUBLICA.COM
Once upon a time in a public institution there was a procurement poster that required very diverse and complex things with many technical eligibility requirements. In addition, it had another immense difficulty: only five days to submit bids. For almost any SME this story would have ended here had it not been for our two heroes: the digital signature (Law No. 8454) and the Integrated Public Procurement System, SICOP (Law No. 9395).
Although the contracting was direct (it is enough to invite three bidders) SICOP gave instant notice to hundreds of SMEs as well. One of these estimated that it would not be able to do the entire contracting alone, but if it pooled its strengths and those of three other SMEs in a consortium, it could. But they had to hurry: the negotiation, the consortium, the bids and the response had to be done and signed in only five days. The managers of two of the SMEs were out of the country. What a scare! Fortunately, they all had their digital signature certificates with them and could sign it from anywhere in the world.
So as not to tire them with the story, without meeting face to face even once, the four managers managed to quickly agree on responsibilities, tasks and costs, drew up a consortium agreement, signed it digitally, prepared their joint response, submitted it via SICOP and then each one signed it digitally.
He even had a few hours to review previous bids from his possibly only major competitor to make sure he submitted a very competitive bid, thanks to the fact that SICOP makes it easy to consult previous procurement files!
Who won? Costa Rica won hands down. There were only two bids: after the public opening it turned out that the bid of the SME consortium met all the requirements and was 14% cheaper than the other one (a large company). The consortium won, successfully executed the contract and received congratulations from the public institution, which was very impressed that four SMEs – combining their strengths – were able to win and do well (for a lower price) a project that they thought only a large company could have done.
The digital signature and the SICOP generate savings to the State (around 1.4% of GDP) thanks to the simplification of procedures and to the fact that they promote greater transparency and free competition, and also enable many more SMEs to participate in public procurement processes. It is a pity that the Regulation to Law No. 9395 that obliges the entire State to use SICOP has so many open loopholes that allow public institutions to continue making purchases outside SICOP.
Note taken from: LA REPUBLICA.COM