Cardiff-based company Mercateo has been awarded a contract to provide a digital marketplace solution to help the Home Office with tail spend and indirect product purchasing.
This news comes after the Home Office identified that there was a need for an integrated digital marketplace. The aim of this marketplace is to help with the streamlining of its ad-hoc, low-volume, low-end product purchasing as well as delivering cost and resource efficiencies throughout the procurement process for the department.
Mercateo UK is part of Unite Network SE, which is one of the leading B2B and B2G platform business in Europe. Mercateo delivers the Procurement Portal, which is a marketplace solution that empowers purchasers to consolidate their spot buying, multi-supplier purchasing and one-to-one supplier relationships into on digital management system.
Thousands of pre-vetted suppliers are offering over 11 million listed articles in 30 product categories on the marketplace, with the Home Office taking core interest in furniture, PPE, packaging, document destruction, operational supplies, printed products, cleaning, catering, first aid, tools and electrical goods.
Director of Commercial Enablers Vince Voon commented on the contract, saying:
“The Mercateo Procurement Portal offers the Home Office and its agencies an exciting opportunity to revolutionise the way it purchases low value, one-off purchases via the host supplier’s own online buying portal. It empowers colleagues to buy goods simply and compliantly through a self-serve system which will help them to achieve workload and cost efficiencies, and gives increased visibility of purchasing behaviour and spend across the organisation.”
One of the biggest priorities across public sector procurement is social value. Mercateo achieve this in a number of ways, but their portal contributes by helping purchasing organisations drive digital transformation throughout their processes, whilst also increasing value for their communities. Fair competition and collaboration are enabled by the platform, with 70% off the suppliers being SMEs, independent and minority-owned. The portal also lists businesses by region, with so that organisations are able to easier meet their goals to buy local, as well as filters enabling organisations to identify those with sustainable or diversity accreditation.
Sam Ulyatt, Chief Commercial Officer for the Home Office, said:
“There’s a clear need to transform public procurement and ensure organisations and agencies purchase responsibly, compliantly and sustainably. We must work to save the taxpayer money and provide social and environmental value to the communities we serve.
“Mercateo’s solution offers fair competition and will open up opportunities for small, innovative and diverse businesses to become visible to our purchasing teams and end users which is vital to support regional economic growth across the UK.”
