The start-up taking on the $9.5 trillion dollar competitive bidding industry
10 September 2019
Software start-up
Bidhive is on a
mission to modernise the global USD 9.5 trillion1 procurement industry
by helping companies
tender more efficiently for contracts through the
competitive
bidding process.
The bid management platform uses a combination of eLearning,
collaboration and data analytics
technology to break down the complexity
of the process with a seamless project management tool.
The platform works similarly to how
Atlassian’s Jira software is used
for managing software development projects, in the way that it helps to
manage the many requirements of the bidding and tender process, which
becomes especially complex when working across dispersed teams.
Bidhive founder and CEO Nyree McKenzie
says the
procurement industry is inefficient and stuck in old and
irrelevant practices.
“Most tenders are based on physical paper trails and poor data sources.
This takes many months as proposals get bogged down in cumbersome,
time-consuming paperwork and the suppliers bear the brunt of the
inefficiency,” Ms McKenzie said.
“We’re seeing huge stress levels in the industry, and it’s not limited
to public sector bidding either. Corporate governance reform has sent a
ripple effect through the commercial sector too.
“Suppliers have been largely neglected by procurement when it comes to
technology tools, training and education, so we’re focusing on this
market first.”
Bidhive’s end-to-end platform helps suppliers change the way they work
by centralising their content, and analysing the flow of data within the
system to provide valuable insights back to them.
By guiding users through a repeatable process, companies are able to
scale their bidding and tender activity to achieve improved compliance
and bidding success.
Users can also find out what factors led to their bid’s success or
failure, and they can continue to build their data sets to understand
and shape a winning bid in the context of each new opportunity.
“Winning or losing a major contract can greatly impact the success or
failure of a company’s future. Through the use of data analytics
companies can make better decisions about the opportunities they pursue
by breaking down the time, cost, resources and potential return on
investment to their business. This is game changing for them,” Ms
McKenzie said.
Bidhive trialled its technology with
QUT for 12 months before rolling
out the platform commercially, and has customers in Australia, US and
the UK including Independent Clinical Services, a workforce management
company with 23 brands across the globe.
“We’re finding that as customers come on board the value is quickly
realised, so additional business units are approaching us.”
Ms McKenzie also says the low cost of Bidhive’s platform will help open
up the market to improve participation rates for small to medium
enterprises (SMEs) and importantly, minority businesses.
“With the
Australian Government committed to sourcing 35 percent of
contracts worth up to $20 million from SMEs, businesses need to be ready
to take advantage of these opportunities”, she said.
Ms McKenzie also said a three percent Indigenous procurement policy
target had also been set by government and business leaders need to be
aware of what it takes to make it through tendering qualification
stages.
To enable businesses to upskill, Bidhive has developed
Bidhive Academy – an
eLearning platform to help companies navigate the complexities of
competitive bid management.
“As we were developing the platform and engaging with users we
discovered that companies wanted resources to help them prepare in
advance so they could learn how to compete for government and commercial
share of spend. We used our deep industry experience, scanned thousands
of tenders, consulted the industry globally and then developed the
curriculum.
“We can set the targets and provide the technology, but if people aren’t
submitting compliant bids then the market still doesn’t benefit.
Participation rates will improve only when we build capability, and with
that will bring improved compliance and economic benefits all round.”
Based in Brisbane, the Bidhive team members come from strong industry
backgrounds. Nyree McKenzie has 25 years experience in bid management.
The product development team includes engineers, designers, digital
marketers and data analysts. Each of the team members were selected to
participate in Steve Baxter’s River City Labs’ Accelerator program where
they initially joined as separate teams but later merged during the
program when they saw the enormous potential of their complementary
skills.
Bidhive is already on the lookout for experienced robotics processing
automation, machine learning and AI engineers to help the team scale
with demand.
--ENDS--
Source: Bidhive - www.bidhive.com
Contact: N/A
External Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nyreemckenzie
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