The first Procure plenary meeting: an important milestone for the project

On the 17^th and 18^th of April, all the partners of the project have met in Dijon for two intensive days of work and sharing of experience.

Thursday: global review of the Procure project and its advancement 

After being welcomed by Martine Vandelle, the regional council chairwoman in charge of e-bourgogne and Procure, the partners had the opportunity to present the evolution of their task and to get to know what others are currently working on, what results they have achieved and what difficulties they can face. It is important that the division of the project in tasks does not result in partners having limited knowledge of what other do and of how the whole project is moving on.

In the morning, transversal work packages were reviewed: after an introduction by Louis-François Fléri, project Coordinator, the dissemination strategy was presented by Maciej Murmylo and Julien Carnot (e-bourgogne). Then, Benjamin Lang, consultant for Sopra Group, presented transborder issues and the e-bourgogne case, and Hyacinthe Charrier, consultant for Sopra Group, pointed out the best practices and functions in e-procurement solutions across Europe. The SMEs were not left behind, with the intervention of Georges Fischer, from the CCIP, who reminded everybody with their specificities.

In the afternoon, legal studies were presented by Ralf Cimander and Meik Hansen from the University of Bremen. It confirmed the adaptation of the solution to different national legislations, and allowed to clarify the problems relating to mutual recognition of electronic signature by Member States. The intervention of Véronique Vogel, legal specialist from the French ministry of Finance, helped to point out potential improvements.

Then the state of evolution of each pilot was presented:

• Uddevalla, by Jerker Lilliesköld (Uddevalla Municipality), Lars Ringsby and Rajaratnam Sundaresan (Marakanda / eBuilder)
• Catalonia, by Juan Bosch (Localret) and Raul Pablos (Generalitat de Catalunya)
• Brittany, by Ronan Dollé (Megalis Bretagne)
• Guadeloupe, by Fabrice Morvan (Regional council of Guadeloupe)
• Central Bohemia, by Martina Outlá (Central Bohemia region)

This global review allowed to point out particular stakes, such as the need for political support in order to carry out the experiment successfully.

In the end of the first day, participants had the opportunity to discover Dijon and to experience the Burgund lifestyle around a convivial and informal dinner.

Friday: Best practices sharing and steering meetings 

On Friday morning, after an opening speech from François Patriat, president of the Burgundy regional council, the public could hear four presentations that emphasized the best practices and conditions for success from three different projects.

The e-bourgogne case was presented by representatives of the public buyers (Florence Trinh, Burgundy regional council; Catherine Lambert, Côte d'Or general council), who pointed out the advantages of a common tool for all buyers of a region to improve their performance and improve relations with contractors. For representatives of the SMEs (Gilles Delamarche, in charge of training plan for e-bourgogne ; Sylvain Pigault, from the French Building federation ; Aline Mériau, entrepreneur; and Ludovic Simon, Burgundy representative of the French Building federation), the bottom-line is to adopt a user-centric strategy for the adoption of the solution by all potential users, in order to provide them with the necessary skills and to convince them of the benefits of such a platform (see presentation part 1 and part 2).

The CSI-Piemonte was presented by Vania Rostagno, who delivered an encouraging message on how a regional concentrator can improve the situation for local authorities and deliver feature-rich services, with reverse-auction and e-catalog capabilities (see presentation).

Last but not least, the Basque Government eTendering Public Model was presented by Aïtor Orobengoa Ortubai. The advanced Basque service will inspire the Procure project, which will also learn from its lessons: while SMEs are not necessarily the most reluctant users, the training initiatives and services are critical. However, the need for harmonization in legislations, but also in technical solutions (interoperability) is a major challenge to improve e-procurement, alongside with technological limitations (see presentation).

The afternoon was devoted to steering meetings for each pilot regions, in order to fix the next steps for the deployment of the solution.

The video interviews of the participants will be online as soon as possible.