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E-Procurement, from Project to Practice: Empirical Evidence from the French Public Sector

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Practical Studies in E-Government

Abstract

Public procurement constitutes a significant portion of national PIB in all countries and electronic platforms for supporting public transactions are an important application of e-government. In France, new regulations since 2005 are pushing public and private actors to adopt electronic means for handling all steps of the purchase process in public organisations. Based on quantitative and qualitative surveys made between 2005 and 2008, this chapter presents the general topic of e-procurement and specifically discusses the problem of e-procurement adoption in public institutions in France. The conclusions of these investigations spanning a three years period, are that public e-procurement is constantly progressing, although difficulties related to insufficient technical skills and the complexity of the juridical context hinder seriously its full adoption. They also show that a digital and an organisational divide is appearing between big administrations which have the adequate resources and skills to fully adopt e-procurement, and small administration (i.e. local authorities) which are still reluctant or unable to conduct a purchase in a digital manner.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The virtualisation of public procurement is based on Article 56 of the Public Procurement Code and on its two implementing decrees; the decree of September 18th, 2001 specifying the procedure for electronic tendering and the decree of April 30th, 2002 ­stipulating the conditions applying to electronic exchanges.

  2. 2.

    ADELE 2004–2007 government program “Action Plan of the Electronic Administration,” Ministry for the Civil Service, Reform and Territorial Development, Junior Ministry charged with State Reform, launched on 9 February, 2004.

  3. 3.

    The Institut Télécom is a public administration under the supervision of the Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry, which is charged with organising higher education and research in ICT.

  4. 4.

    See [GAR01] for example. Several press articles even referred to savings of 15% thanks to public e-procurement virtualisation. See “Achatpublic.com passe les ­marchés publics en ligne”,Journal du net(July 21, 2003), or “Les nouvelles ­technologies font baisser les coûts des achats publics,”Le Monde de l’économie(May 14, 2002, p.14).

  5. 5.

    A competitor excluded from the contract could use the argument that it was impossible to consult the tender documents online or to tender online to claim that there was not a level playing field between competing vendors. Although the threat is theoretical at this stage – to the best of our knowledge no litigation has yet arisen on this point – the legalistic approach of the public administrations is such that they have all endeavoured to put in place a form of virtualisation, if not within the ­prescribed time, at least in the months following the deadline.

  6. 6.

    Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry.

  7. 7.

    Agency for the Development of the Electronic Administration.

  8. 8.

    For ease of reference regarding the results of the survey, the figures (Bxx) ­correspond to question number xx in the “buyer” questionnaire and figures (Snn) to question number nn in the “seller” questionnaire. Accordingly, by way of example, “51% (B15)” means that 51% of the respondents replied “yes” to question 15 of the “buyer” questionnaire and “52% (S7)” means that 52% of the respondents replied “yes” to question 7 of the “seller” questionnaire [PRO05].

  9. 9.

    Ipsos/Club Internet survey (June 2005).

  10. 10.

    TNS Sofres/Cap Gemini survey (August 2005).

  11. 11.

    46,452 invitations to tender files were downloaded from this platform with an average of more than seven consultation files downloaded per contract.

  12. 12.

    “Marchés publics: l’Etat doit convaincre les entreprises,”Le Journal du Net, 26 January 2006.

  13. 13.

    Idem.

  14. 14.

    One can consider that this observation is the intrafirm equivalent of the Solow paradox globally: “Computers can be found everywhere except in productivity statistics.” Although the Solow paradox now seems to have been resolved through the acceleration of productivity growth since 1995, the underlying causal relations remain obscure.

  15. 15.

    This belief is firmly rooted – although badly established – in the power of an exogenous crisis to transform practices and organisation, and views very similar to those expressed regarding the Year 2000 effect on information systems, or regarding the changeover to the euro on the transformation of companies’ accounting and financial systems.

  16. 16.

    Available online athttp://www.telecom.gouv.fr/rubriques-menu/entreprises-economie-numerique/dematerialisation-marches-publics/28.html, retrieved July 12th, 2010.

  17. 17.

    MAPA:Marché à Procédure Adapté, a procurement contract in which the public actor has a certain autonomy in defining the purchasing process.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Télécom, Telecom Business School, 9, rue Ch. Fourier, 91011, Evry, France

    Saïd Assar

Authors
  1. Godefroy Beauvallet
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  2. Younès Boughzala
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  3. Saïd Assar
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Correspondence to Saïd Assar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of Information Systems, Telecom & Management Sud Paris, Evry, France

    Saïd Assar

  2. , Department of Information Systems, Institut Telecom, Evry, France

    Imed Boughzala

  3. , Information and Communication Science De, Free University of Brussels (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

    Isabelle Boydens

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Beauvallet, G., Boughzala, Y., Assar, S. (2011). E-Procurement, from Project to Practice: Empirical Evidence from the French Public Sector. In: Assar, S., Boughzala, I., Boydens, I. (eds) Practical Studies in E-Government. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7533-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7533-1_2

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