Before Contracts Advance how were you sourcing public sector contracts/frameworks?
Prior to adopting and implementing Contracts Advance’s platform, our Bid Coordinators time utilisation was taken up with managing a vast amount of procurement portals to source potential new business opportunities. Our prior process was cumbersome and time consuming, and therefore Contracts Advance’s platform has created efficiency and greatly reduced the time spent identifying new business opportunities.
What were your frustrations about working in this way?
Previously, our Bid Coordinator spent valuable time in appraising numerous procurement portals identifying new business opportunities, which created frustration pertaining to the length of time consumed within this exercise. Further frustrations were pertaining to duplication of effort, in terms of appraising the same opportunity notification from several procurement
portals.
What were the key factors that led you to Contracts Advance?
A key factor that led to our request to Contract Advance to deliver a system demonstration was to identify a platform that provided an efficient opportunity notification appraisal solution, which was tailored to our business requirements. Having appraised several platforms,
Contracts Advance was selected based on:
- Ease of implementation.
- Ease of platform set-up.
- Ease of user permission management.
- Ease of search facility based on key words, CVP codes, sectors and potential
customers. - Ease of quick search facility.
- Ease of use.
- System navigation.
- Simplified training requirements.
- Ease of sales specific search for prior notification, award notification, sector specific
searching, spend analysis, etc. - Value added webinars.
How easy did you find the onboarding process and set up?
Directly following selection and confirmation of the Contracts Advance solution procurement, onboarding was seamless. Contracts Advance provided access to an Account Manager, who provided training to our selected users. System access was, again, effortless and further support was provided by Contracts Advance during the implementation phase to answer any questions or provide further system navigation training. Contracts Advance onboarding process was highly professional and mitigated any impact which may have been experienced by the adoption and implementation of a new system to our business.
What benefits does the Contracts Advance software provide you?
The benefits Contracts Advance provides are:
- Efficient and effective search notification (daily searches and reports).
- Market and sector appraisal.
- Competitor analysis.
- Spend analysis.
- Refined individual potential customer search.
- Simplified onboarding and set-up.
- User and permissions management.
- Provides several alternative search parameters (key words, customer or CPV codes).
- Access to informative webinars pertaining to new procurement initiatives and
directives. - Professional Account Management.
- Value for money.
I would recommend Contracts Advance to any organisation who is looking for a fit for purpose procurement tool.
What have you found the most valuable aspects of the service?
The benefits obtained from using Contracts Advance are the delivery of a feature rich solution, which meets our business requirements, new business opportunity prospecting and the greatly reduced time impact. It has also proved valuable to us in the ability to conduct market / sector analysis, drill down into specific potential customer data and spend analysis, whilst also providing a competitor analysis facility.
What other Contracts Advance services have you explored?
Contracts Advance provides exactly what we currently require, therefore we haven’t explored any other services, at this stage.
How happy are you to recommend Contracts Advance to a colleague or peer?
I would recommend Contracts Advance to any organisation who is looking for a fit for purpose procurement tool.