A look at how innovative procurement can help Thailand 4.0 achieve its objectives. We travel through Estonia, Israel, India, Singapore, the USA, Brazil, Taiwan and China to learn from their innovations. The presentation presents a vast number of procurement ideas, in a light way that enables Chief Innovation Officers to learn about their counterparts and form some ideas that they can explore further with procurement experts.
2. a l l a b o a r d
Inspired by the travels of Mr Phileas Fogg, join me
on a guided tour of 8 nations using procurement
innovation to improve their nation.
4. Keep
your
binoculars
ready
Agile procurement
AI-powered procurement
Agents of Open Government
Bulk tenders
Co-sourcing
Challenge tenders
Green lanes
Cross-country projects
Private-sector led procurement
Spiral contracting
X-roads
What are the new techniques that
we’ll spot on this safari? Keep your
eyes peeled for:
5. W E S TA R T I N E S T O N I A . . . The original Startup Nation
GDP
1992: Entire economy
valued at under 1bn euros
2018: Economy valued at
>25bn euros
Estonian GDP per capita
1991: $3,404
2018: $19,700
And perhaps most
interesting?
Estonian population:
1.3 million
Number of tech
unicorns (companies
valued over $1bn): 4
6. H O W T O P R O C U R E L I K E T H E E S T O N I A N S
1. Use outsourcing to boost local
govtech suppliers. Doesn’t use in-
house developers.
2. Procure for development of
programmes, then takes over the
management of those projects
3. Build an X Road, so everything is
interoperable
4. Mandate standards centrally,
ministries able to decide projects
5. No duplication of projects -
central registry has the power to
block or merge projects if others
are running the same type of
system already
click here
to view
click here
to view
7. W h a t i s a n X R o a d ?
Data is always stored in the same
format by each agency, and so is
reusable.
Front end systems can be different
- and built by separate suppliers.
The backend always has to fit with
this system, avoiding legacy
problems where systems don’t
connect.
X-Road introduction (longer versi…
This video
explains more
8. G O V E R N M E N T A S A P L A Y G R O U N D
Test your tech ideas
within government, then
commercialise them in
other markets.
Trialled hosting
healthcare records on a
blockchain style system -
now, software sold
commercially across the
world.
Other innovations now sold by Estonian
companies around the world include:
etax
ivoting
Digital ID
Now also trialling:
Reporting 3.0 - seamless reporting of
taxes, salaries, welfare requirements from
companies to government, to make life
easier for entrepreneurs
Cross-border govtech solutions
9. M a k e f r i e n d s a n d
i n f l u e n c e p e o p l e
Estonia is partnering with its neighbours
on similar govtech projects, rather than
buying them in isolation.
Has set out plans to build a Land
Registry that can be shared with other
countries
Likely to partner with Finland, who
already now share the X Road software
Could ASEAN nations do something
similar? A Land Registry is simple
software, the cost can be reduced for
all.
click here
to view
12. I S R A E L
Population: 8.5m
1 startup for every
1,400 people
Over 1,100 startups
founded each year
Vast amount of public
sector budget spent on
R&D
Israel is at no. 1
13. I D E A S F R O M I S R A E L
Israel exported 10% of all cybersecurity
products and services in the world in
2015.
It has made cybersecurity “sexy” - “It has
to be popular; you ask everybody, it’s sexy.
It’s something that is improving your life,”
said Brigadier General Doron Tamir.
Israel teaches key skills like cybersecurity
to high school students to inspire them
early on.
Govt funds cybersecurity startups,
expecting a 10% success rate.
Building a key national industry
click here
to view
14. S u p p o r t i n g I s r a e l i f i r m s
t h r o u g h p r o c u r e m e n t
Government will select the top
startups to come in and pitch their
ideas, which may be selected for trials.
Only once the trial proves successful,
will the government go ahead with
scaling the implementation.
“This is the way to inject innovative
and creative solutions, even from
startups and not just from the
traditional big companies, into
government,” Dror Margalit, Chief
Technology Office, Digital Israel says.
click here
to view
15. C h a l l e n g e T e n d e r s
Combining tech and consultancy
“Challenge tenders are not
intended to outline a systemic
masterplan for tackling the issues
raised here, but rather to offer
technological solutions that
combine creative thinking and may
address a small or large part of the
challenge of. In each of the
challenges the Ministry initiated
the tender for, it is leading an effort
for to systemically tackle the
challenge, which goes far beyond
the digital realm, and the challenge
tenders seek to find digital
solutions that will assist in this
systemic effort.”
click here
to view
18. A N E X E R C I S E
1. Write down your Ministry or Agency
name
2. Write down a key political problem or
priority facing your agency
3. Write down 3 - 6 specific objectives that
you would want a challenge tender to
cover
Please take the next five minutes to
do this. We will then share ideas
amongst ourselves.
20. We go from nation with a
population of 8 million to a
country that’s home to over
1bn!
How can you harness that
creativity, those ideas, and bring
that into the public sector?
Challenges and ideas can be big
or small, central or local
MyGov India is the biggest
experiment in the world at
crowdsourcing citizen ideas
A V o y a g e t o I n d i a
Challenges writ large!
Tourism campaigns,
photos for the local zoo,
ideas to clean up the
Ganges river
Politics and procurement
combined
Mobilising platform that
pulls people in. Crucial
element is public voting on
suggestions.
MyGov
21. India ran an online hackathon to
automate tendering document
creation
The InnovateIndia scheme
publicises new inventions from the
nation, including solar powered
de-salination and a smart dustbin
The Innovation Design contest
allows engineering students to
submit their ideas online and be
voted on to receive prizes, funding,
and incubation for their ideas
C u r r e n t c h a l l e n g e s
o n M y G o V
click here
to view
23. S m a r t C i t y
S i n g a p o r e ’ s H i g h T e c h
P r o c u r e m e n t
3 key aims in Singaporean
tech procurement
Clean procurement
Boost local digital
economy
Build cutting edge
digital systems for
citizens
Agencies can already
compare prices for similar
products to get the best
deal. They can also combine
together for common
tenders, bulk buying
to increase
efficiency
Now, Singapore’s
Ministry of Finance is
looking at using
artificial intelligence to
improve procurement
decisions
AI-powered
procurement
24. A I - P O W E R E D
P R O C U R E M E N T
AI will scan through tenders
to find the cheapest prices
It can also look at other
criteria, such as poor
performance on previous
projects in different agencies
AI can also be used to write
the legal terms and
conditions. This already
happens in the private sector,
where AI supports insurance
claims by matching medical
records with terms and
conditions - such as at Fukoku
Mutual Life
AI procurement to reduce corruption
Singapore has suffered from some public corruption
cases in recent years, including agencies buying from
friends or inflating prices and taking the difference. AI
has been implemented to reduce these instances,
given Singapore’s strong stance on corruption.
The Ministry of Finance uses machine learning to pick
out financial anomalies and flag them for audit.
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research has
built a system to alert officials to procurement fraud
among vendors and employees.
It analyses data on HR and finance, procurement
tenders, tender approvals and workflows.
Also looks at non-financial data like links between
government employees’ family members and vendor
employees.
25. B o o s t i n g l o c a l s t a r t u p s
w i t h o u t s u b s i d i e s
The Accreditation at IMDA programme supports local tech companies to win contracts
with govt
Crucially, this isn’t subsidy based.
The unit vets startups to ensure that they have sufficient finances to implement
government projects
It then endorses them, which ensures that they have credibility in the eyes of selectors
against the big usual suspects
Accreditation also enables them to skip forwards two steps in the procurement process,
cutting the amount of paperwork they have to fill in
The scheme encourages big systems integrators to use smaller local startups when
bidding for tenders, to ensure preferential treatment
This programme is completely legal under WTO rules and guidelines. Very clever legal
innovation enables local business support.
26. O n e g i a n t
I n n o l e a p
f o r m a n k i n d
1. Thematic Workshops
Agencies run workshops on their
specific needs - ie facial recognition,
transport congestion, parking apps
and support, tourism etc
Key agencies will attend and meet
with companies who are requested
to join if they have innovative
solutions.
Each govt participant must bring
along problem statements relating
to their area of work (be it a longer
term issue, or immediate
operational issue) for in-depth
discussion with the technology
companies and to explore potential
collaboration & pilots.
2. Sharing Day
Innovative startups are invited
to share their technologies
with officers in key agencies to
help them understand what is
out in the marketplace
Sharing days are either on a
topic basis or for specific
agencies. They are managed by
the GovTech Agency of
Singapore.
3. Clinics
GovTech conducts one-on-one
consultation clinics with
agencies to understand the
problem statements and
facilitate the link-up with
companies. They pull in
potentially relevant suppliers to
get advanced ideas of the
problems so that, when tenders
are written, they can incorporate
potential opportunities for local
companies.
As of 31 December 2017,
GovTech has conducted
24 InnoLeap sessions
with participation from
more than 91 agencies
and 74 companies,
involving over 1,800
participants.
20 proof-of-
concepts (POCs)
have been
conducted and 12
additional POCs are
on-going.
27. E n t e r t h e
R e g u l a t o r y S a n d b o x
Regulatory Sandboxes suspend
some govt regulations in key
sectors to allow companies to
innovate and explore potential
new products.
Most commonly, they are seen in
FinTech
Singapore has also applied them
to tourism
Hotels are given permission to
trial facial recognition
technology, and overcome some
data laws
This is then combined with other
data from the tourism agency to
personalise tourism support
click here
to view
click here
to view
28. K e y t o u r i s m f i n d i n g s
Chinese and Indonesian tourists generally spend the
most when visiting key shopping districts in Singapore.
Singapore Tourism Board then informed local retailers to
create marketing plans that cater to these two markets.
STB found out that Chinese visitors generally spend
more for lengths of stay between 1-2 and 3-5 days when
visiting Orchard Road, Marina Bay and Sentosa
HarbourFront precincts, compared to visitors from
Indonesia.
One in 10 tourists would change hotels during their trip
in Singapore, and were most likely to switch hotels on the
third day if they were in Singapore for five days or less.
A large majority of Japanese and South Korean tourists
who switched hotels had switched to a higher tier hotel,
or one of the integrated resorts.
29. B u y e r b e w a r e
Regulatory sandboxes are
useful for building
partnerships with local
firms where regulations are
suspended.
They can be used by local
companies to generate
investment without
delivering returns.
Govt agencies must be
careful that there is genuine
partnership, rather than
just branding that enables
firms to approach investors
claiming a government
endorsement
30. C o - S o u r c i n g -
w h y b u i l d i t a l o n e ?
Of course, government can build
systems alongside private sector,
especially if they want to adapt
them later on.
Singapore has pursued a policy of
‘co-sourcing’ in its GovTech
Agency
Close-knit teams from both the
industry partner and government
work on projects together
Government is looking for specific
skills from the industry, rather
than totally outsourcing the
projects
click here
to view
31. C o - s o u r c i n g i n
p r a c t i c e
The government’s Business Grant Portal
was in this way. There are 40 people
working on it – 20 from government and
20 from the industry partner
In-house developers evaluate and validate
people sent by the company to make sure
that they have the right skills.
“In a pure outsourced model, you can’t do
this because the supplier is in charge of the
whole project. You don’t know what is
happening inside if you do not have the in-
house expertise and deep involvement in
the projects”, Mark Lim, former Director of
Government Digital Services
“When the team has more sense of
ownership, the delivery of the project also
becomes better because there is no such
thing as ‘blame the vendors’. Instead,
everyone on the team works together as
one to deliver the best that they can.”
click here
to view
32. M A K I N G
C O - S O U R C I N G W O R K
The Right Culture - officials must be open for
suppliers coming into their offices to build services
together
Agile Project Management - building with the
vendor enables iteration and change
Flexible procurement - the vendor must be brought
in on the basis of the journey being taken, rather
than the specific solution to be built. This may
change!
1
2
3
33. S p i r a l c o n t r a c t i n g
Singapore is splitting projects into smaller pieces
This follows an approach called ‘spiral
contracting’
Contracts are written with multiple stages, with
the project progressing to subsequent phases of
prototyping, piloting and deployment only if the
first phase is successful.
This process allows agencies to test their
proposed solutions within a single tender
process.
It also allows government to move quickly if it
hears a good new idea, without having to
complete a detailed 2-year plan
click here
to view
35. U S A
The Government Technology Service build for
govt agencies, and also sets out guidelines for
its ministries and agencies to use when
building or buying tech
Service standards created for design to
ensure a common user experience, even when
built by different vendors
Shifts tenders away from full-scoped project
details to a concise one-page summary.
“We simply say, ‘Here is our problem, we want
the most brilliant solutions out there, and
then we are going to let you fly,’”, Aneesh
Chopra, former CTO of the United States told
GovTech Magazine.
36. F i v e r u l e s f r o m u s a
1. Don’t create large
and complex contracts
“You’re only giving yourself a 6%
chance of success when you start
these types of projects”
2. Don’t write long proposals
“These long RFPs [Request for Proposals] take too
much time for your agency to write, too much time
from vendors to respond to, and discourage good
vendors from bidding. There are very few good
outcomes when this happens”
3. Don’t have narrow
skillsets in acquisition
teams
Acquisitions is more than just
buying, and it’s important to
bring key expertise, like policy,
law, engineering, design, and
security, to the table early in
the acquisitions process to
ensure a project’s success”
4. Don’t adopt
fixed mindsets
“You have to be willing to adapt,
course correct, and try new
things to get the best digital
products and services for your
teams”, the team wrote. They
advocate learning and applying
new techniques to make
“acquisitions more effective
[and] more efficient”.
5. Don’t forget
that project
management is
flexible
“Over the life of the
contract, new ideas will be
formed and business
strategy may shift”
37. A g i l e p r o c u r e m e n t
p i t f a l l s
Only works for technology, not
fixed goods such as paperclips
Must be used for ‘agile’
technology projects. Cannot be
used if combined with Waterfall
project management.
Learn from this British project,
which sought to combine
different methods of project
management and procurement,
increasing complexity and losing
track of its costs
click here
to view
39. S A O P A O L O - A g e n t s o f
O p e n G o v e r n m e n t
Government needed training and
support on tech issues such as open
source software, social media
communications, mapping technologies
These skills are hard to come by and it
was difficult to procure training
suppliers
So government turned to its citizens and
asked for help instead.
40. S A O P A O L O - A g e n t s o f
O p e n G o v e r n m e n t
Procurement doesn’t have to come from
registered suppliers at all
Citizens can be a city’s greatest resource
Vast numbers of people were willing to
give their time for a fixed price - much
lower than international training providers
Over 90% of participants rated their
experience as good or great - the quality
was high!
Crucial learning: must invest in a good
communications campaign to generate as
many applications as possible, according to
the OECD
The City Government made an open call for help with
training in key skills
Any resident of the city with the desire and requisite
skills to teach a particular subject was welcome to apply
They would have to teach a course of 10 hours per
month for six months in exchange for EUR 270
The initial call received 200 applications. 24 agents
were chosen for the initial cycle
Courses are grouped into the follow categories: open
and collaborative technology, transparency and open
data, networked communication, and mapping and
collaborative management.
Over 2016, 1 200 different workshops were held.
How it works
What this means
42. v T A I W A N
Citizens propose the tenders
Digital platform to debate new ideas
Sees citizens debate how to regulate new
industries ie Uber
Uses artificial intelligence to crowdsource
opinions and draw consensus during these
deliberations, allowing thousands of people
to participate virtually.
A tool called Pol.is is used to survey
participants who can vote to agree, disagree,
pass or share their own comments for others
to vote on.
click here
to view
44. c h i n a
Internet users: 772 million
Number of unicorns: 67
Top three web giants alone
are worth: $1.1 trillion
Growth of tech sector
forecast in 2019: 9%
45. w h y b u y i t w h e n
o t h e r s c a n b u i l d i t ?
Citizens able to pay taxes and
utility bills, gas, water,
electricity and traffic fines.
AliPay is accepted on public
transport systems in 50 cities
across China, rather than using
traditional swipe cards, and the
company plans to be available in
100 cities by the end of 2018.
Also enables people to register
for divorce
AliPay WeChat Pay
The city of Guanzhou is trialling the
use of WeChat to host a digital ID
card
This system was accredited by the
Ministry of Public Security, and
following trials in the Guangdong
province, will be expanded across
the country
Also used in Guanzhou’s healthcare
system, enabling people to pay for
their prescriptions and have
medicines delivered to their home
Govt does have control over tech companies - seeking 1%
stake of biggest tech companies, seats on the board, internal
Communist Party committees within the tech companies
But asks a crucial question - does government need to build
this at all? Can the private sector build it instead?
46. today
we have
looked
at
Agile procurement
AI-powered procurement
Agents of Open Government
Bulk tenders
Co-sourcing
Challenge tenders
Green lanes
Cross-country projects
Private-sector led
procurement
Spiral contracting
X-roads
