eprocurement without borders in Europe www.peppol.eu
Table of contents Editorial 3 Project Director André Hoddevik explains why PEPPOL will be the future standard for public eprocurement in the European Union. The European eprocurement initiative PEPPOL 4 The European Commission s pilot project PEPPOL is part of the Commission s European Digital Agenda. The EU s Digital Agenda for Europe gives a clear strategy to use ICT opportunities to the advantage of European society. European governments should look towards the future and grasp the opportunities ICT is providing by preparing their businesses and people for the years to come. Neelie Kroes EU Commissioner for Digital Agenda PEPPOL facilitating cross-border eprocurement 5 PEPPOL allows European businesses to widen their markets and exchange cross-border business documents. What Experts say about the benefits of PEPPOL 6 European procurement experts say why government agencies and private companies will both benefit from the project. Facts about PEPPOL 7 Frequently asked questions about PEPPOL and its influence on the European procurement landscape Become part of PEPPOL! 8 Governments, economic operators and software companies are invited to participate in the project. Governments: Why become a Pilot participant? 9 Reasons why PEPPOL could save government agencies some of their paper work and a significant amount of their costs. Suppliers: Why become a Pilot participant? 10 Reasons why SMEs and enterprises should participate in the project and how they could provide their input to the design of the specifications. Contact Information, Project Milestones and Sustainability 11 Details about the regional nodes to contact and ask for participation, about project milestones and the long-term sustainability. Imprint Publisher: Agency for Public Management and egovernment (Difi) www.difi.no Street address: Grev Wedels plass 9, 5th floor, 0151 Oslo Postal address: P.O.Box 8115 DEP, N-0032 Oslo; For the Content responsible: André Hoddevik, Project Director PEPPOL - Pan-European Public Procurement Online, www.peppol.eu, andre.hoddevik@peppol.no; Phone: +47 913 97 587; Photo Credits: istock, shutterstock, Difi; European Commission
Editorial 3 The second year of operations has resulted in significant progress towards the vision of PEPPOL that is to enable businesses to communicate electronically with any EU governmental institution in the procurement process. Now a common pilot platform is being developed where we invite any EU company to join. Governments in the EU are the largest buyers of private-sector services. Their purchases account for around 16 per cent of the EU s gross domestic product (GDP), which is equal to Euro 1,500 billion. However, governments lag behind industry in electronic data exchange with suppliers. At the same time, EU companies miss out on generating substantial business with the public sector because of extensive paperwork required to bid for government contracts, particularly across borders. Moreover, the economic power of the influential public sector has been restricted by existing islands of public procurement. This limits effectiveness and creates artificial barriers for businesses serving the public sector. The Pan-European Public Procurement Online project. It was in this environment that the European Commission established PEPPOL. The project aims to align business processes for electronic procurement across all governments within Europe. This calls for the development of agreements and standards in the exchange of business information between contracting authorities and their suppliers, on which suitable technology can then be built. Thus, standardisation will inevitably save time, increase transparency and competition. In practical terms, this means that when a Danish small manufacturer of specialised microscopes wishes to bid in a tender issued by a French hospital, they should be able to securely submit the appropriate corporate attestations and product offers in a form that is both legally and technically acceptable to the hospital. And if this Danish small enterprise is successful in its bid, then the French hospital should be able to send orders and receive their invoices following a common set of defined business rules and processes. PEPPOL plans to deliver public services more efficiently. And realise these accumulated benefits by aligning the who and what of tendering processes with the when and how much of supply processes. We will do this by a common agreement on cross-border procurement processes implemented through open standards. PEPPOL is creating a common ebusiness platform where we invite any European company SMEs as well as multinational corporations to join and engage! PEPPOL will set the future standard for public eprocurement. This will be characterised by the ability to deal with electronically signed tender documents from other member states, a common recognition of attestations, one process for providing product information through ecatalogues and uniform ordering and invoicing processes between all government agencies in Europe and their suppliers. This momentum provides the assurance needed for the ICT industry to develop low-cost and open-source solutions and provide services to encourage further participation. As the PEPPOL project enters into production at the end of 2010, we will have achieved a major milestone towards the Europe 2020 flagship initiative Innovation Union. André Hoddevik, Project Director A huge market for electronic procurement: Euro 1,500 billion spent annually by EU governments account for 16 per cent of Europe s GDP. The PEPPOL consortium comprises 18 leading public eprocurement agencies in 12 countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and the UK.
4 PEPPOL The European eprocurement initiative The European Commission s pilot project PEPPOL is a major cross-border eprocurement initiative intended to provide large-scale, standards-based IT infrastructure and services to set up and run Pan-European public procurement operations online. eprocurement in the European context replaces paper-based procedures by technology-based communications across the union and throughout the entire procurement chain: publication of tender notices, provision of tender documents, submission of tenders, evaluation, award, ordering, invoicing and payment. In the current financial climate such efficiencies are particularly welcome as they help to reduce administration costs and support governments austerity plans. PEPPOL can be seen as a basic element of the Commission s European Digital Agenda which aims to use the potential of ICT and to establish interconnected public procurement solutions within Europe. At the heart of the PEPPOL architecture is a transport network allowing governments and companies to connect their IT resources to carry out reliable data exchanges of business documents. Many EU countries already use electronic procurement to make tendering of public sector contracts simpler and more efficient. Successful eprocurement platforms are securely established in many public administrations in the Member States. In addition, the acceptance of those systems is growing strongly. However, most of those solutions are solely implemented on a national or regional level with limited access to other communities. The main task of PEPPOL is to enhance the connection of existing eprocurement communities, and allow the private sector to bid for public sector contracts anywhere in the EU: an important step towards achieving the European single market. Two key PEPPOL standards: BusDox and BII PEPPOL plans to both deliver public services more efficiently and realize these accumulated benefits by aligning the who and what of the tendering processes with the what, when, and how much of the supply processes. We will do this by a common agreement on cross border procurement processes implemented through open standards. The principle standards PEPPOL uses are known as BusDox and BII. Using the BusDox standards from OASIS means that organizations participating in PEPPOL (and their network providers) can securely and reliably exchange electronic documents between each other. Although created through the PEPPOL project, BusDox can actually support different business services, such as Transportation, Insurance, Health and Service Records, etc. In fact, by establishing a BusDox network for eprocurement, PEPPOL is actually creating a common ebusiness platform for use by any European organization both public and private. It has been said that this is reminiscent of the way government s funded infrastructure in roads and rail that enabled innovation and improvements for cross border trade in the past. And if BusDox provides the infrastructure then the Business Interoperability Interfaces (BII) standards from CEN/CENELEC define the common PEPPOL business processes. For example, BII defines the process and information content to be used when invoices are sent by the Danish supplier to the French hospital. Such standardization on public eprocurement processes will inevitably save time, increase transparency, and increase competition.
PEPPOL facilitating cross-border eprocurement 5 PEPPOL allows European businesses to widen their markets and carry out cross-border public procurement transactions. A standardised electronic procurement process from ecatalogue to einvoice will contribute to a more economic and secure interoperability for enterprises and SMEs. esignature Electronic signatures based on electronic certificates identifying companies and/or single persons are in common use already. They allow the secure identification of the sender of a document and ensure that a document has not been modified. PEPPOL aims to create interoperability between the different national schemes, so that in practice a public sector entity can validate certificates issued in other member states, allowing for electronic submission of tenders cross borders. eprocurement Components esourcing PEPPOL Enablers Award Tendering Purchasing Payment enoticing etendering eattestation (VCD) eawarding & econtract ecatalogue ecatalogue eordering esignature PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure einvoicing epayment Virtual Company Dossier (VCD) The objective of the VCD is to replace paper certificates with electronic attestations. The VCD and its standardized specifications will support tenderers in creating their information and qualification package in their home country more easily and with a higher degree of quality. With the VCD it shall be easier for enterprises and SMEs to make a cross-border submission and to meet the legal and formal company qualification criteria for the awarding phase. ecatalogue A shared approach for providing product information though ecatalogues will save time for suppliers when preparing their offers and it will facilitate the evaluation of tenders for contracting authorities. Economic operators will be encouraged to invest into the creation of an electronic prospectus of their offer, because it can be reused for different tenders and across sectors. At the same time, open source solutions will benefit a large number of public administration small offices, which do not have budget for the purchase of proprietary eprocurement applications. PEPPOL Components eordering The eorder process deals with the electronic transmissions of documents. It starts with the issuing of orders by the buyer and ends with the receipt of an order response and the transmission of the delivery instructions from the supplier. Ordering is an important procurement phase as it strongly affects the other phases, from catalogue to payment. The goal is to implement a European Ordering (EOI) framework that allows SMEs to adopt eordering in an effective way to lower their cost of entry and operating costs. einvoicing The einvoicing process deals with the claim for payment for the goods and services that have been either ordered or delivered received or consumed under the conditions agreed by the buyer and supplier. einvoicing links the two important value chains, the procurement process and the payment process. PEPPOL seeks to implement and pilot arrangements for the exchange of einvoicing documents between all awarding entities and related economic operators. PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure The foundation of all PEPPOL post-award services is an interconnected eprocurement infrastructure based on common IT standards compatible with the various solutions provided on a Member State-level. Centerpiece of such an infrastructure is a messaging service enabling government agencies and private companies to exchanges of all kinds of business documents in a secure and reliable manner.
What experts say about the benefits of PEPPOL. The EU-sponsored PEPPOL project aims to facilitate electronic communication between the public and private sector in cross-border and cross-regional procurement procedures. More and more public authorities are purchasing on-line, but suppliers from outside the region or Member State may have difficulty in participating in on-line procurement procedures. There is a growing need for solutions which allow public purchasers and suppliers from different regions and Member States to conclude mutually beneficial transactions on-line. Niall Bohan, Head of Unit C4 DG MARKT European Commission Per Karlsen, CFO Western Norway Regional Health Authority PEPPOL reduces costs and increase competition among suppliers and through standardization. Easy electronic cross border eprocurement delivered by PEPPOL fits our strategic goals and our operational eprocurement needs on a day-to-day basis. Public procurement accounts for 16 percent of EU GDP, but only 5 percent is conducted electronically at the moment and small part of it only is cross border. By fostering the development of converging technologies, PEPPOL prepares the e-procurement of tomorrow. The potential impact of PEPPOL on contracting authorities and businesses alike is huge. I wish businesses will start benefit from the progresses achieved very soon. Vincent Tilman, Senior Advisor EUROCHAMBRES Andreas Nemec, Head of the Austrian Federal Procurement Agency National public eprocurement has given the proof, that the public sector can save a remarkable amount of tax payers money. PEPPOL will deliver the standards and the infrastructure for European wide cost benefits, based on the removal of competition fences and the reduction of process costs in pre award and post award procurement. PEPPOL should encourage more cross border procurement and improve value for money in procurement. It is all about making the internal market working better, and improving the public sector service delivery all over Europe. Dag Strømsnes, Head of Department for Public Procurement (Difi), Norway
PEPPOL and its influence on the European procurement landscape. 7 The EU Member States have expressed a clear political will to significantly change public procurement in Europe. Although governments are the largest buyers in the European Union, the economic power of this enormous market has been constrained by being fragmented into various islands of procurement, both internally and across EU borders. Since its operational start in May 2008, the PEPPOL project has aimed to enable companies from one country to respond to public procurement procedures in another. PEPPOL will not replace but rather build on the existing strengths of national eprocurement systems by using information and communication technologies to enable them to connect with each other. This would e.g. allow a French or Swedish company to bid for an Austrian or Hungarian government contract as easily as for a contract in their home country. The results go beyond saving taxpayers money and having leaner procedures. By providing tools for businesses to access the entire European market for public services and leveling the playing field for SMEs (the backbone of Europe s economy), cross-border eprocurement can boost competitiveness. Facts about PEPPOL 1. What is PEPPOL? utilizing their existing national infrastructure. PEPPOL (Pan-European Public Procurement 4. How do users benefit from the implementation of PEPPOL? Online) aims to implement common standards enabling EU-wide public eprocurement. Existing PEPPOL will encourage all Member States to national systems of electronic public procurement capitalise on the potential of ebusiness. This will will be linked so that all participants can in turn boost innovation and strengthen the competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs across the enjoy the full benefits of a single European market. PEPPOL is operated under the European EU. The immediate benefits of PEPPOL will allow Commission s Competitiveness and businesses to widen their markets and carry out Innovation Framework Programme s ICT easier, more efficient and secure procurement. Policy Support Programme. Contracting authorities will generate savings on 2. Who can participate in PEPPOL? administrative and transaction costs. The PEPPOL project focuses on cross-border 5. What are the estimated cost savings activities within the pre-award procurement in total? process of Virtual Company Dossiers (evidentiary documents) to ecatalogues and through clearly demonstrate the significant potential Electronic public procurement initiatives to eordering and einvoicing. PEPPOL will enable cost savings. It has been estimated that if all Member States and their government contracting agencies, their suppliers (including small contracting authorities, annual savings could eprocurement were introduced over all European and medium-sized businesses) and the ICT exceed Euro 50 billion. industry to participate, follow its work and influence the definition of specifications as they standardised electronic procurement? 6. What are the challenges of implementing are developed. National systems, standards and legislations 3. What is the vision of PEPPOL? need to be aligned with common European The broader vision of PEPPOL is that any company in the EU can communicate electronically 7. What is the time frame of the project? standards, which will require some investment. with any EU governmental institution for preaward and post-award electronic procurement 2008 and is scheduled to run for 48 months (after The PEPPOL project started operation in May activities. PEPPOL will allow any supplier in the extension*). EU to respond to any European public tender From November 2010, the PEPPOL project and conduct any resulting purchasing starts its production pilot phase. Questions and Answers *Current project duration is 42 months (+6 months extension subject to European Commission s approval).
8 Governments, economic operators and software companies are invited to participate now. The project also invites all other initiatives relevant to public eprocurement to link with PEPPOL. Become part of PEPPOL! Results of the PEPPOLproject are made available to all stakeholders to ensure awareness and acceptance on all levels across Europe. As a general policy, specifications, best practices documentation, open source reference implementations of components and building blocks for interoperability are made public. This participation period is divided into two phases. In May 2010, PEPPOL entered its testing phase. Contracting Authorities and their suppliers simulate of one or more eprocurement processes to the common processes and tools developed by the PEPPOL Working Groups. From November 2010, the PEPPOL project starts its production pilot phase. It includes full operational use of PEPPOL solutions with submissions to real tenders and actual catalogues, orders and invoices exchanged between the pilot participants. PEPPOL use for etendering (pre-award) PEPPOL is covering three key elements of public tender processes identified as the most challenging for cross border tenderers:» Use of the electronic certificate of the choice of the economic operator; contracting authorities ability to validate esignatures in tenders from suppliers in other Member States (esignatures)» Submitting evidences, certificates and attestations (Virtual Company Dossier)» Submitting information about goods and services offered (ecatalogues) These are win-win situations for both Contracting Authorities and tenderers. Contracting Authorities can reduce the administrative burden of creating and evaluating tenders and tenderers are assisted to create legitimate offers. PEPPOL use for the supply of goods and services (post-award) PEPPOL can integrate the entire supply chain from ecatalogue to eorder to einvoice by using a defined set of processes sharing common business information.» Exchanging information about goods and services available under the contract (ecatalogues)» Ordering goods and services (eorders)» Requesting payment for goods and services (einvoices) Any organization implementing these processes can achieve savings of 60 to 80 per cent compared to traditional paper-based processing. Typical eprocurement projects result in a payback period of 0.5 1.5 years and a recent survey indicated that integrating the order-toinvoice process alone can save over Euro 50 per cycle.
PEPPOL could save government departments and public entities like hospitals up to 5 per cent of expenditure through more effective purchasing and lower transaction costs. 9 Governments: Why become a Pilot participant? Participation in a PEPPOL Production Pilot gives contracting authorities an early lead by gaining familiarity with and contributing to more efficient eprocurement services. For tendering (pre-award) processes, the pilot activities for a contracting authority may involve» Specification and definition of tendered goods or services through the use of ecatalogues» Submission of certificates and attestations through the use of Virtual Company Dossiers» Validation of esignatures used in electronic submission of tenders. Note: Tendering production pilots require initial commitment from contracting authorities economic operators will be included through their participation in the tendering process. For the supply of goods or services (post-award) processes the production pilot may involve» Receiving an ecatalogue issued by a supplier from another eprocurement community» Creating eorders and sending them to a supplier in another eprocurement community» Receiving an electronic invoice issued by a supplier from another eprocurement community» Connecting to the PEPPOL infrastructure (required) Note: These production pilots require commitment from both a contracting authority and its suppliers. PEPPOL benefits for governments» Make processes dealing with product catalogues, ordering, invoicing and processing tenders more efficient by reducing transaction costs» Opening new markets to local small businesses (SMEs)» Increase competition in tenders» Contribute to innovative procurement and influence the on-going evolution through direct feedback» Validate different digital certificates used in e-signatures What do interested contracting authorities need to do next?» Nominate at least one representative in their organization as contact person» Engage their personnel with relevant technical, legal, and administrative skills» For tendering have a forthcoming tender being issued.» For the supply of goods and services have established and long running contracts with suppliers» Assist in raising awareness of PEPPOL among local and cross-border suppliers» Contact their suppliers and invite them» Contact their local PEPPOL contact points and ask for advice (see page 11) What is provided by PEPPOL?» General guidance on how to implement the pilot» Advice from a local PEPPOL contact point (see also page 11)» A Starter Kit for enabling participants to connect and use PEPPOL services will be available. Who can take part? Participation in PEPPOL is open to:» any contracting authority who already has contracts with suppliers using other eprocurement communities» any contracting authority issuing a tender
10 Suppliers: Why become a Pilot participant? Suppliers are invited to participate in a technical advisory group to get all the information, how to connect to the PEPPOL infrastructure and provide their input to the design of the specifications. Who can take part? Participation in PEPPOL is open to:» any supplier who already has contracts with a participating contracting authority» any supplier responding to a tender from a participating contracting authority What to do next» Nominate at least one representative in your organization as contact person» Contact your contracting authorities» Contact your PEPPOL contact point and ask for advice (see also page 11) Today the situation in most eprocurement communities requires that a supplier has to use different technology and processes for each different contracting authority s eprocurement platform. With PEPPOL, high processing and transaction cost can be reduced, since one common interface and standardized software can be used. Becoming a PEPPOL participant If you are delivering or planning to provide goods and services for the public sector, participation in PEPPOL identifies you as a market leader. Note for SMEs: If you don t use an electronic system to support your ongoing business, you can use simple applications developed by the ICT industry and PEPPOL to participate. A single investment to have your information systems interface with PEPPOL processes enables you to be one of the first companies ready to receive standardized orders from the participating public sector buyers. Join now and you will get to know the underlying IT concepts and have the opportunity to provide feedback based on your experience in using PEPPOL! PEPPOL benefits for suppliers» Sign documents electronically» Receive orders electronically from contracting authorities across Europe» Send invoices electronically to contracting authorities across Europe» Build stronger relationships with public sector buyers» Reduce process costs» Improve contract compliance» Improve contract management» You only have to join PEPPOL once» Use of PEPPOL will be free of charge
Contact & Participate! 11 Governments and the private sector are kindly requested to contact the regional nodes responsiblefor their respective country and register on the PEPPOL website www.peppol.eu Contact points: Regional Nodes Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Ireland Lithuania, Latvia, Norway, Sweden, UK/Scotland Please contact: Ms Gry Monica Hellevik, Email: gry.hellevik@difi.no Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Western Balkan Please contact: Mr Johannes Werner (Public Relation Director), Email: johannes.werner@brz.gv.at Germany, Netherlands Please contact: Ms Prof. Dr. Maria A. Wimmer, Email: wimmer@uni-koblenz.de Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Romania Please contact: Mr Giancarlo de Stefano, Email: giancarlo.destefano@tesoro.it France, Belgium, Luxembourg Please contact: Mr Alain Ducass, Email: alain.ducass@adetef.finances.gouv.fr Milestones PEPPOL has been operational since 2008. Since May 2010, PEPPOL has been testing pan-european eprocurement with selected pilot participants. From November 2010, PEPPOL services will support production services for real business transactions. The PEPPOL project is the result of the European Competitiveness and Innovation Programme (CIP) ICT Policy Support Programme (ICTPSP) 2007 and 2009 Call for Proposals. Pilot A objective: Enabling EU-wide public eprocurement 50% EU contribution for achieving interoperability Coordinated by the Norwegian Agency for Public Management and egovernment (Difi) Consortium Partners: Public sector entities European Commission contract 224974 Enlarged consortium and scope (1 November 2009) 18 beneficiaries partici pants from 12 countries Total budget 30.8 million Euros Project start up: 1 May 2008, duration 48 months (after extension*) Pilot production PEPPOL Roll-Out 2010 2011 2012 Pilot start 5th PEPPOL Conference Troyes Building the PEPPOL community Transfer to long term sustainable operation Sustainability The PEPPOL project is a large scale pilot project aimed at implementing European wide public eprocurement. This means that most PEPPOL consortium members are implementing PEPPOL solutions and specifications into their existing eprocurement platforms and these will continue operating after the project end. Together with the relevant Commission Services, the PEPPOL project is planning solutions for maintaining operations of the common pre- and post-award components needed beyond 2012. *Current project duration is 42 months (+6 months extension subject to European Commission s approval).
www.peppol.eu