12 January 2021

New case study on award winning procurement of ICT solutions for smart and efficient building management

New case study on award winning procurement of ICT solutions for smart and efficient building management

Image (Pixabay) by "Gerhard Bögner", licensed under CC0 License

BIG, the Austrian Federal Real State Agency, was recently awarded with the 2020 Procura+ Outstanding Innovation Procurement in ICT Award, which is supported by the EU-funded Procure2Innovate project. The Agency wanted to unify essential functions and processes in user-friendly solutions and opted for an innovation partnership as the required solution was not available on the
market. It wanted a procedure which could combine the innovative ideas of bidders with BIG’s know-how
and experience regarding public real estate. Two companies entered the partnership with BIG and are currently developing a solution, which by the end of the process will also be made available to third parties.

The procurement was conducted using a two-stage process between May 2019 and December 2019.
Stage 1 was a prequalification stage.
Stage 2 was held in the form of a negotiated procedure ending with a last and final offer. Offers were assessed by a jury compiled by the contracting authority, who were announced to the tenderers at the beginning of the negotiation round.

The call for tender attracted a lot of interest, with over 90 companies downloading the call. In the end, 11 companies from three European countries submitted applications to the prequalification stage. Out of these 11 companies, 6 fulfilled the innovation specifications, and would have qualified for stage 2. Unfortunately, formal errors in the applications meant just four companies could be invited to stage 2.

Contracts were signed with two companies in February 2020. The companies have both reported positive benefits from participating in an innovation partnership with BIG.

You can read the full case study here