The Department of Internal Affairs is reportedly disappointed in its all of government procurement Marketplace on several fronts and is exploring a new iteration.
NZRise, which represents local IT firms, recently hosted DIA’s Marketplace team for a kanohi ki te kanohi (face to face) with the tech community at Somar Digital last month.
"It was heartening to see a formal acknowledgement from the DIA that the service has not met the expectations of either the communities of people it is serving, nor themselves," NZRise reported today.
"After a challenging last 12 months having to deal with unexpected major back end changes in conjunction with COVID-19 challenges, the DIA is ready to explore the next iteration of the service, specifically how and where they can make it easier to use, as well as also providing greater transparency to suppliers of secondary procurement and targeting greater agency uptake."
According to NZRise, DIA was disappointed in the $5 million dollar value of business traded through the Marketplace to date.
April 2020 saw a spike in suppliers joining the Marketplace, with a gradual increase since.
However, with just 122 agencies on board out of a potential 400-plus, the department was working hard to encourage uptake and was committed to improving the product.
283 suppliers had been approved to date and 104 declined with 76 currently going through the approval process.
Feedback from suppliers was that it’s not obvious upfront who should be applying for what while making secondary procurement transparent was also a key challenge.
