Mercell Tendering Turns Public Procurement Into Digital First

Public spending goes beyond numbers; it’s about building the future of our communities. It’s a delicate balance of sustainability, fair competition, and regulatory compliance, all while providing top quality services at the best value. By adopting digital solutions, public procurement can tackle these challenges effectively, ensuring services remain strong and adaptable for the future.

Digital tools simplify the entire process, cutting down on errors and freeing up professionals to concentrate on important tasks. Patrick Adams, Chief Revenue Officer at Mercell, highlights how the next generation platform, Mercell Tendering, comes to reshape procurement for public buyers of all sizes.

Q: Mercell Tendering is a new milestone for Mercell. How does the Mercell Tendering launch align with Mercell’s overall strategic vision for serving existing and new customers?

Patrick Adams: Mercell Tendering is a strategic response to the global trend of digital transformation, where procurement is taking the leap into the cloud. It's all about making public procurement more modern, transparent, and competitive, which in turn gets better value for taxpayer money. The platform is designed to handle everything from sourcing through a tender and establishing a contract, to today's complex requirements, like sustainability and compliance, in a straightforward, digital-first way. It's tailored to keep up with our customers' growing needs, fully scalable from the small municipality to the complex enterprise customer, and the changing market. By weaving in top-notch technology and a design that focuses on the user, Mercell Tendering shows our deep commitment to innovation as we navigate the evolving world of public spend.

Q: What specific market needs does Mercell Tendering address, and how do you anticipate it will benefit your clients?

Patrick Adams: Mercell Tendering really taps into what many in the market have been asking for: a scalable, unified platform that makes digital tendering more accessible.

We are introducing a new level of automation for procurement tasks across the entire tender lifecycle, from announcements, bid submissions, and evaluations. This reduces administrative overhead and shortens procurement cycles, lowering costs on both sides of the table, allowing buyers to respond more quickly to market demands and public needs. 

The platform’s transparency enhances accountability, ensuring that procurement decisions are based on clear criteria and are free from bias. This builds trust among all stakeholders and ensures that taxpayer money is used efficiently.

The new platform also supports the development of a competitive and dynamic market, creating an ever-evolving procurement ecosystem with a network of 400,000 active suppliers, spanning local, national, and EU-based businesses. This inclusivity helps diversify the supplier base, increasing competition, the quality of purchased goods, better pricing, and elevated standards for sustainable and innovative procurement.

Q: How are you strengthening efficiency in the tendering process?

Patrick Adams: With its data integration points, intuitive interface, detailed analytics, and streamlined workflows, the platform helps our clients manage tenders with much less hassle. This means fewer errors and a smoother compliance process, which, let’s face it, makes everyone’s life a bit easier.

Mercell Tendering ensures efficient and consistent data management across the organisation. This minimises manual tasks and reduces errors. Utilising data from external systems and the Mercell open APIs enhances data interoperability.

Q: If we are to consider key differentiators of Mercell Tendering, what do you offer that the competition doesn’t?

Patrick Adams: Well, what really makes Mercell Tendering stand out is how it tackles the entire tendering process head-on. While other platforms might offer bits and pieces, we've brought advanced analytics, real-time collaboration tools, and automated compliance checks all into one seamless platform. Plus, we've really focused on making it user-friendly. It's designed so that anyone can jump right in and start using all its features without any complications.

We introduce automated workflows to streamline and bring together all procurement processes, unlock access to a vast network of suppliers, ensure compliance with European and national regulations, and bring an intuitive and user-friendly interface. Additionally, we organise massive data sets by converting static documents into data points for review and action and integrating third-party information to support better sourcing and supplier strategies.

Q: What future enhancements can customers look forward to in the new product?

Patrick Adams: Oh, there’s a lot to get excited about with what's coming to Mercell Tendering. We're quickly rolling out new functionalities to keep our customers at the cutting edge of procurement technology. Future updates such as AI-driven capabilities, dynamic dashboards with real-time insights, and enhanced collaboration tools will deliver tangible benefits for buyers, exponentially accelerating time to value. 

The newly introduced AI capabilities, Tender Summarisation and Better Tender Matching are just the start of our efforts to make public procurement a more competitive landscape. By giving suppliers the right tools to turn complex tender documents into clear, easy-to-read summaries and find the most relevant opportunities for their business, we support a boost in inclusivity and competition.

Q: What steps should public buyers that are new to Mercell take to get started with Mercell Tendering?

Patrick Adams: Getting started with Mercell is straightforward. Per its modular architecture, the new platform allows customers to seamlessly add additional capabilities as needed. Whether it’s incorporating advanced spend management, migrating to a dynamic contract lifecycle management, each module can be added without any disruption.

We provide thorough onboarding support, including training sessions and detailed documentation, to help new users get up to speed quickly. Plus, our customer support team is always ready to assist with any questions or issues, both during the initial setup and afterward. If interested, you can book a discovery meeting by visiting our website.

Q: What final message would you like to share with Mercell's current and potential customers about the new platform launch?

Patrick Adams: We’re genuinely thrilled about launching Mercell Tendering and the positive changes it’s bringing to public procurement. It’s all about turning procurement into a transparent and efficient process aligned with its core mission to serve citizens by delivering the best possible services and goods, ensuring their utmost satisfaction. Finally, I’m incredibly proud of our team - they’ve poured their heads and hard work into creating a solution that pushes way beyond what’s out there right now.