E-procurement systems enable governments to increase the transparency of public procurement activities as well as collect consistent, up-to-date and reliable data on procurement processes. This, in turn, can feed into other government information technology (IT) systems through automated data exchanges, reducing risks of errors and duplication. Furthermore, integration with other digital government systems, such as digital invoicing, are essential to make e-procurement systems fully functional during all phases of the procurement cycle, including contract execution and payment.
The ability to disseminate information is expanding with the proliferation of data and enabling technology, hence the increase in the availability of public procurement documents to the general public between 2016 and 2018. Consequently, possibilities for participation in public procurement processes, opportunities for beneficial research and competition are also increasing. Open data standards, such as the Open Contracting Data Standard, contribute to open up public contracting through disclosure, data and engagement so that contract details become traceable and auditable, including for infrastructure. However, governments need to strike a balance between accountability and competition on the one hand, and trade secrets and suppliers’ information confidentiality on the other.
OECD countries are increasingly integrating their e-procurement systems with other government IT systems, such as budgeting interfaces, business and tax registries, social security databases, public financial systems and enterprise resource planning (ERP), demonstrating the fast pace of digital government transformation and public service integration. While only 37% of OECD countries reported some kind of integration with other government IT systems in the 2016 Survey, this percentage has increased to 72% in the 2018 Survey, following the trend to cover the entire public procurement cycle with full-fledged e-procurement solutions, from planning and preparation to contract execution and payment. In Belgium, Chile, France, Israel, Portugal and Slovenia, the e-procurement system is connected with the budgeting and accounting ERP of the central government. Also, in Austria, Estonia, Greece, Latvia and the Slovak Republic, the e-procurement system is integrated with the business registry. Estonia and Latvia have integrated their e-procurement system with the local tax register. Many countries have started to integrate e-procurement systems with e-signature and e-invoicing systems. Overall, the Korean ON-line E-Procurement System (KONEPS) provides the highest connectivity to external databases, as it is interconnected to over 200 of them, out of which 65 are from public entities, others include interfaces with databases from private sector business associations, credit rating companies and the payment systems of commercial banks. Even though e-procurement systems are major drivers of efficiency in public procurement, only a minority of OECD countries measure said efficiencies.
