Felicity Hawksley, journalist
This was almost impossible to imagine: a deadly pandemic, a severely restricted global economy, politicians, employers and families scrambling to reinvent healthcare, education and industry, on the fly.
To meet the immediate needs of their citizens, governments the world over have made massive amounts of money available to buy things like personal protective equipment, ventilators, tracing systems and more. And more resources are being pumped into many economies to hoist them out of the pandemic, through employment programmes, infrastructure plans and improvements to systems revealed as broken.
Most of this work will be undertaken by private companies, potentially ushering in a golden age of public procurement not seen since the New Deal, the domestic spending programme brought in by US president Franklin D Roosevelt in response to the Great Depression of the early 1930s.
Forty-six per cent of SMEs globally won't bid on government contracts because of lengthy or difficult bidding processes
Transparency key to value
Public procurement is already a massive business. Pre-pandemic, US$8.5 trillion was spent annually by governments contracting private companies to deliver vital goods and services to their citizens, according to management consulting firm Oliver Wyman.
Covid19 has seen high levels of urgent spending, with mixed results. This is a serious problem, for several reasons. First, it means that the public does not get value for money - or, worse, does not get what it needs. Second, it means that the economy suffers further, since the capital, and the work, has not been allocated efficiently. And third, it erodes public trust - which, in some cases, may help the virus advance.
Right now, in many countries, public procurement systems are not functioning efficiently. The need for speed and the amount of money involved has strained governments' capacity for oversight, and encouraged bad actors to make hasty, questionable or corrupt decisions. In addition, the systems for advertising and processing procurement contracts are knotty and error-prone.
E-invoicing can help address SMEs' concerns about late payment, and also help to reduce the procurement lifecycle
For example, according to ACCA's report New models of public procurement: a tool for sustainable recovery, 46 per cent of small private sector businesses (SMEs) globally cited a lengthy or difficult bidding process as a reason why they would not decide to bid on government contracts; 34 per cent wouldn't bid because of concern over late payments; 32 per cent said that they had limited awareness of upcoming contracts; and 23 per cent said that they didn't have the in-house capacity to make the bid.
Wariness among SMEs represents a significant lost opportunity. Public contracts for small private companies help to boost the economy, keep people in jobs and ensure prices remain competitive.
So how can governments ensure that SMEs are willing to bid on contracts, and how can they facilitate efficient deli
