General

• Reduction in Time
• Reduction in Cost
• Reduction in Tedium
• Wider Reach
• Enhanced Security
• Increased Transparency
• Availability of Supplier Profiles
• Enhanced Choice of Vendors/ Suppliers (Increased Competition)
• Streamlining of the Procurement Processes
• Should get Better Prices because of reduced overheads of Suppliers
• Assists the top-management in ensuring better Control over the procurement activities of the organization with minimal physical intervention (Better Control with enhanced Accountability)

Some Specific Advantages (especially wrt Security and Transparency)

1. The ‘Tender Notice/ Corrigenda’ which is posted on the portal will be digitally signed for greater authenticity by the concerned authorized officer of the Buyer organization.
   (Greater Authenticity and Security)

2. The ‘Tender Documents/ Addenda’ which are made available for downloading from the portal will be digitally-signed for greater authenticity by the concerned authorized officer of the Buyer organization.
   (Greater Authenticity and Security)

3. Suppliers will be able to make payments offline for downloading official copy of Tender Documents online.
   (Greater Authenticity and User-Friendliness)

4. With ‘Official Copy’ of Tender Documents downloaded, Suppliers will get a receipt with Official Serial Number.
   (Greater Authenticity)

5. Anytime a Corrigendum related to a tender created on the portal is posted, Suppliers will get an automatic e-mail alert if they have officially assigned internally the Tender Search Code (TSC) of the tender to a Marketing Department on the ETS in case of an Open Tender, and to all ‘Invited organizations’ in case of a Limited Tender.
   (Higher Transparency and User-Friendliness)

6. Anytime an Addendum is posted for a set of Tender Documents which Suppliers have downloaded as an ‘Official copy’ from the portal, they will get an automatic e-mail alert in case of an Open Tender, and to all ‘Invited organizations’ in case of a Limited Tender.
   (Higher Transparency and User-Friendliness)

7. A Supplier which has procured ‘Official Copy of Tender Documents’ can seek ‘Online Clarification to Tender Documents’ in the form of a ‘Query’, and see Buyer’s ‘digitally-signed’ response on the site. The response can be seen by all other Supplier organizations who have procured ‘Official Copy of Tender Documents’. The Buyer organization is provided facility on ETS to perform related activities with full security and transparency.
   (Higher Transparency and User-Friendliness)

8. A Supplier which has procured ‘Official Copy of Tender Documents’ can view online on the site ‘Minutes of Pre-Bid Meeting (if any)’, digitally-signed by an authorized officer of the Buyer organization. The Buyer organization is provided facility on ETS to perform related activities with full security and transparency.
   (Higher Transparency and User-Friendliness)

9. Buyer will be able to create different Tendering Departments/ Tendering Authorities and users for their organization, for use of the e-Tendering System. A person who heads each tendering department in a Buyer organization will be able to authorize various users in that department for different roles related to different tenders.
   (Higher Security and Administrative requirement)

10. Authorized users of Buyer organizations will be able to download certain ‘Reports’ pertaining to the organization’s use of e-Tendering portal.
    (Administrative requirement and User-Friendliness)

11. ETS makes extensive use of Digital Signatures for signing of important electronic postings. This will lead to -- Greater Efficiency, Greater Security, and Greater Transparency, as well as, other benefits.
    (Greater Authenticity, Security, Efficiency and Transparency)

12. Facility is provided on ETS to each Buyer organization to have a Public Page of its own. This would be akin to the organization having its own small official/ corporate website on ETS with focus on procurement related information.
    (Greater Transparency, Publicity and User-Friendliness)

13. Authorized users of Supplier organizations will be able to submit Digitally Signed and Encrypted bids in a highly secure manner to the Buyer organization.
    (Greater Authenticity, Security, Efficiency and Transparency)

14. The encryption and decryption of bids will be such that no doubt arises regarding the security, after the bid is submitted.
    (Higher Security, Efficiency and Transparency)

15. Depending on the Tender Specifications and the Policy of the Buyer, the following facilities will be offered:

    • Receipt of bids in different parts in separate or common envelope
    • Prequalification Application
    • Technical-Part
    • Financial-Part
    • Receipt of Supplementary bids, viz
    • Substitution
    • Modification
    • Withdrawal
    • Receipt of ‘Alternative’ bids
    (Higher Security, Efficiency and Transparency)

16. Authorized officers of the Buyer organization will able to conduct ‘online public tender opening event’ in the most transparent manner while complying with all legal nuances of the process. This type of secure and transparent online public tender opening event is not available in most other e-Tendering Systems.
    (Higher Security, Efficiency and Transparency)