Last year I wrote a series of articles on the BravoSolution implementation challenges with the Province of Ontario.
According to sources, the provider was using strong arm tactics in an effort to force Ontario public sector organizations to use their platform. As is the case with any investigative story that originates with unnamed sources, I reached out to Bravo for comment.
Bravo VP Dan Warn was kind enough to grant me an interview on my radio show, the PI Window On The World. You can listen to it through the following link; Up Close With Bravo’s Daniel Warn
Bravo VP Daniel Warn
This past summer I reached out to Dan once more to get an update on how the program had progressed over the previous year. Unfortunately, I did not hear back.
However, I recently received a copy of the section of the Ontario Auditor General’s report relating to the Province’s procurement practices.
While not being referenced by name, there were several sections in which the Bravo implementation was assessed.
Specifically Section 4.3 (Page 662) through to and including 4.3.2 (Page 664):
4.3 New Online Tendering System Not Widely Used
4.3.1 Concerns Raised Regarding The System’s Design
4.3.2 Suppliers Now Charged Higher Bid Fees
Also refer to 4.1.6 (Supplier Performance Not Tracked)
You can access this report, including the above referenced sections through the following link;
Needless to say, there still appears to be many challenges that are impeding the anticipated Province-wide adoption of the Bravo platform.
Once again, I reached out to Bravo VP Dan Warn for comment.
I am glad to say that this time he did get back to me, and was gracious enough to provide a response, which came in the form of the following e-mail. Note, the e-mail appears in its original form, without edits:
Commentary from Dan Warn, Vice President, Global Alliances & Americas Public Sector at BravoSolution
We support The Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services 100 percent and echo their opening response on page 651.We agree with the Auditor General, who highlighted several opportunities for continued improvement. Our sole focus is customer success – and we welcome recommendations that will help improve the service and value delivered.
We work very closely with MGCS to ensure all stakeholders (including citizens and suppliers) are supported in the optimal deployment and usage of our solution. In this opening statement, MGCS specifically calls out their desire to reduce supplier burden (a guiding philosophy they’ve held continuously from before the RFP until now) by saying, “We will continue to promote electronic tendering as a way to remove barriers for suppliers while ensuring the system design meets the highest of standards and remains open, fair and transparent to all suppliers.” We wholeheartedly agree with this statement, and as the eTendering provider, closely support MGCS in achieving this objective.
MGCS deserves a lot of credit for all they have accomplished – it’s a true testament to the strength of their procurement team. Beyond e-tendering, BravoSolution continues to support them in their overall procurement delivery. One example is our recommendation to roll out a Community of Practice model – an approach that has seen great success in the UK market. This model, which has been adopted by MGCS, enhances collaboration, peer learning and best-practice sharing by creating a two-way dialog among internal procurement stakeholders. As part of this program, we partner with MCGS procurement to equip their team with trainings, best practices, tools and templates to ensure everything they need for success at their disposal.
The observation in 4.1.6 is spot on. A core component of BravoSolution’s strategy and product suite, BravoAdvantage, is the concept of understanding the entire relationship and end-to-end engagement with each supplier. Starting with spend analysis, through tendering, the resulting contract(s), and monitoring/assessing/improving performance, our Supplier Value Management capability can provide a 360-degree view of an organization’s relationship with a supplier. This information can then be used to assess a supplier’s future potential, and if desired, used to collaborate with that supplier to proactively improve performance and/or leverage that information as part of a qualification to be eligible to participate in future procurements. BravoSolution is hopeful MGCS will explore BravoAdvantage as an option to enable the efforts they’re undertaking in response to recommendation #6.
While the observations in 4.3 and 4.3.1 – that the system is not being used to its full potential by some of the Ministries within the government – are fair, system design is not the issue. Undertaking a transformational approach to e-sourcing like this is no simple task – it’s a strategic, large and complex project, that naturally, takes time. We’re very proud of MGCS’ continuous efforts to educate the Ministries on the value of eSourcing, and we continue to support them in these efforts. We’re close to 100% fully online, and expect MGCS to achieve this target in 2017 as stated.
Some Ministries have held back from implementing the solution. While each has its own unique reasoning, we’re fully confident that our system meets the needs of every Ministry. BravoSolution has a deep and lengthy history of enabling the success of private and public sector procurement organizations around the world, including public sector procurements of the highest scrutiny and complexity, such as UK capital infrastructure procurements including the London Olympics and Cross Rail / High Speed 2 (rail transport infrastructure procurement).
We’re confident that our offering will deliver the right value and service, no matter how complex or unique a Ministry’s needs might be. We’re committed to working one-on-one with any Ministry that needs additional support or has specific requirements. Our end goal is customer success – and we want to help any and every Ministry that needs additional support or customized engagement.
In regards to 4.3.2, it’s simply not an apples-to-apples comparison. Our solution capability far exceeds the capability and functionality of the previous solution and existing solutions in B.C. and the Federal government. Our solution is cost neutral to Ontario, but more importantly and to the point, provides a significant total cost of ownership (TCO) reduction for suppliers. The solution completely eliminates expenses related to paper/manual based bidding, and significantly lowers the cost of sales through faster response and notification times, as well as online submissions. Additionally, suppliers receive more capability than before, including:
- A more robust dashboard and complete bid history
- The elimination of duplicative data entry from tender to tender
- Proactive debriefing feedback on their bid response designed (to help improve future bid quality)
- A consistent experience from one entity to the next
- And a simplified fee structure that eliminates hidden additional fees while also allowing for unlimited bidding to any entity using the OTP.
In regards to recommendation #9, we are assisting MGCS in consistently monitoring supplier usage of our solution, including regular proactive outreaches to the supplier community, to ask for the input on ways to continue to improve their experience.
More than anything, we are committed to making this project as successful as possible, and welcome opportunities to assess how we’ve done and where we can do more. We’re proud of the traction achieved by MGCS so far, and look forward to continuing to work with their team and all the Ministries to provide the most value possible.
In an upcoming post, I will provide you with my take on both the Auditor General’s Report, as well as Dan Warn’s response.
In the meantime, I would welcome any comments you might have, including your assessment as to why these kinds of challenges continue to exist, and what needs to be done to address them.
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Procurement Insights 
Bertrand Maltaverne (@bmaltaverne)
December 21, 2016
It is an interesting story. And to some extent a familiar one. Many projects get the same outcome (a good read on that are the annual reports “Pulse of the Profession” by the Project Management Institute).
I am not familiar with the background of that particular project, and I can only imagine what is behind.
Some of my thoughts based on my experience on both side (Procurement organization and provider) and on what I’ve read and discussed with many other people in the past:
Like any implementation project of an “eProcurement” solution (eProcurement here is in the general meaning of electronic Procurement not solely eRequisitioning; it includes eSourcing, eInvoicing…), the outcome is not up to expectations… and I believe this is often a 50/50 blame between the organization implementing it and the provider (and, potentially, a 3rd party as many providers use implementation partners as they prefer to focus on their product and also understood that implementation is a very different “business”).
Typical problems on the user side:
– No business case/purpose: the decision to implement an eProcurement is without a clear “why.” Meaning weak requirement/selection of the solution, poor change management (see next point), and poor project management (deadline, quality: delivery vs. expectations…)
– Projects seen as technical/IT. Underestimated change mgmt to foster change and adoption (internally and externally)
– Technology seen as a way to solve all problems when it actually exacerbates some. Technology is a means, not an end and it even if it participates in the “Procurement operating system” (reference adapted from https://medium.com/the-ready/the-operating-model-that-is-eating-the-world-d9a3b82a5885 ): Purpose, Process, People, and Technology, it is not where to start.
– Also, the potentially transformative impact of technology is forgotten or not understood, and the way taken is to copy/paste current practices (instead of “obliterating” them; see https://hbr.org/1990/07/reengineering-work-dont-automate-obliterate ) which can lead to too much customization (esp. difficult when considering SaaS)
To the discharge of Procurement organizations, one has to consider that they do not do such projects often. Hence a low maturity that can explain the above.
On the provider side, I believe there is a “prisoner dilemma” type of situation. Providers have an extensive experience implementing eProcurement solutions. They know what it takes to be successful. But, in the early phases (RFP/Q), they minimize/forget the implementation/change management efforts to have the best-looking offer. Then, organizations do not dig or ask for clarifications on that particular effort. (Blissful) ignorance…
Also, there is often an eagerness to get business even if the project will mean a lot of customizations specific to the customer. You end up with a Frankenstein solution. Particularly in a cloud/SaaS context.
One other point mentioned in the post is about supplier fees. I have written about that several times (when I was active on Google Plus, see: https://plus.google.com/u/0/101379591877799357393/posts/f7AxtagwHbU ) and, the gist of it being, that fees are ok WHEN they correspond to additional services providing value to the supplier and WHEN the supplier asks for these services. They are NOT ok when fees are a way to minimize running costs on the Procurement side who is pushing suppliers towards the use of an eProcurement solution they selected and want to (need to) impose on vendors.
So, these are my thoughts on the story from this posts and, more generally, on eProcurement implementations. (I will probably deep dive more and be more specific in upcoming posts on my “blog”).
I also have some thoughts (not yet fully mature and maybe a bit naive) on what to do based on the above. They revolve around creating some kind of resource/reference/standard focusing on the implementation of Procurement solutions. Sort of like the PMBOK for Project Mgmt and in the spirit of the eSourcing Wiki http://www.esourcingwiki.com/index.php/Main_Page
This could also take the form of a think tank/foundation/group… mixing providers, customers, observers, consultants… of that market. At the end of the day, we all believe in the role of Procurement and the role of technology in Procurement. Therefore, all should share the same interest of making the implementation practice stronger. It would increase awareness of organization wanting to implement them. It would also create a reference regarding methodology, develop the practice and, ultimately, increase the chances for a project to be a success.
piblogger
February 2, 2017
In reading your thoughtful commentary Bertrand, I am reminded of what IACCM’s CEO Tim Cummins once wrote about executives at the negotiating table. In his post he expressed the belief that they usually lie about what they can do, by when they can do it and, how much they can do it for.
I have always believed that many deals are struck based on the premise of “winning the business first, and worrying about making it work later.”
Either way, and I would tend to agree with you, that vendors should not be the ones to shoulder the entire blame for a failed or struggling initiative.
Corry
January 12, 2017
I finally actually read the report. Shocking. So, after years of implementing, the MGS/Bravo platform still has:
– Highest bidding fees for suppliers across all of Canada (pg 664)
– Very low eBidding usage (which was the whole point of the system) – pg 663
– “Serious concerns that a poor design of this system inhibits ministries from properly evaluating suppliers’ bids” (pg 663). Ouch. That is perhaps the deepest cut in the whole report. Wonder if unsuccessful bidders have recourse to protest award decisions now that this is known…?
– Very little usage outside of MGS by other broader public orgs even though it’s “free” for them
Not sure Dan’s paragraphs of attempted explanation could change the facts above. You can’t claim to be a more advanced/robust/etc solution when usage is poor, the auditor literally uses the term “poor design”, calls into the question the integrity of procurements done on the platform, and all but says Ontario vendors are being gouged.
I bet there’s a sizeable group of people at MGS looking back at the good ol’ MERX days when things were simpler…
piblogger
February 2, 2017
Given your points Corry, why did Ontario move away from MERX?
Corry
February 2, 2017
My personal take is that there was (1) a perceived lack of end-to-end functionality in MERX at that time, and (2) a perceived lack of innovation from the company in the years leading up to that moment.
Further, there was already blood in the water w.r.t. MERX, since the federal government had left them year before (I believe you covered that as well here on ProcurementInsights). My understanding is that MERX / MediaGrif has made a lot of positive changes in response to losing these contracts (in particular in management) but the damage was done.
So MGS decided to go back out to market via an RFP. Bravo won the RFP, although the rumour is they were the only vendor who passed MGS’ end-to-end functionality checklist. Since there was only 1 vendor left standing, MGS was beholden to the severe pricing structure offered by Bravo.
The irony, of course, being that Bravo has struggled to get MGS to even use their eBidding functionality (let alone the vaunted ‘end-to-end’ stuff). So perhaps a compounding issue is that MGS set their sights too high and Bravo was happy to over-promise / go along with it.
Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that MERX *should* have won that RFP vs Bravo. My point is that with 20/20 hindsight, it looks like MGS would have been better off to just continue with the sub-optimal MERX status quo instead of expending years worth of effort on switching, having a rocky implementation, enduring vendor backlash, getting a slap in the face from the Auditor General, etc.
Nick @ Market Dojo
February 2, 2017
Jon, this left such a sour taste to read. I cannot believe that any vendor, let alone a small business, would be charged $300 to submit a bid, especially as there is no relation to whether the bid is a success or not. It’s extortionate.
The Crown Commercial Service in the UK charge a small commission on invoices submitted via their G-Cloud sourcing tool, which is also pretty harsh, but at least that is only charged to the winning vendor upon success.
Question: do you know if this Bravo practice occurs in Europe?
As an SME, I would strongly challenge such a model if so, in that it counteracts government objectives to commit to small business, the largest employer in the country.
piblogger
February 2, 2017
Thank you for your comment, Nick. I do not know if Bravo has a similar practice in Europe. Perhaps Mr. Warn can respond to this question.