2005 C.I.P.A. Winners

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Constructo

Quebec Government Electronic Tendering System

Reaching more than 11 million readers, Transcontinental Media is Canada's largest publisher of consumer magazines and second-largest publisher of newspapers. For 42 years, Constructo, a division of Transcontinental that is focused exclusively on the construction market, has been publishing a twice-weekly newspaper to 3,000 subscribers, mainly general contractors, sub-contractors and suppliers. Its content includes construction tender notices and associated value-added information pertaining to all Quebec provincial and municipal construction contracts.

Challenge

Before June 2004, an electronic-tendering company had the exclusive contract from the Quebec government for publishing tendering information, and selling supporting tender documents, for both construction-related contracts and goods-and-services contracts. Constructo, a sub-contractor to that firm, published the construction-related information in its newspaper and on its subscription-based Web site at www.constructo.ca. In addition, Constructo used its Web site to publish a variety of value-added, pre- and post-project information such as who purchased documents, who bid on the contract, who won it, and at what price - useful information to prospective bidders in preparing future tenders.

When the government's contract with the previous firm for these two services expired, it was subsequently won by Montreal-based CGI Group. Constructo established a relationship with CGI and continued to provide the construction-related services.

Both firms needed to address two significant challenges:

• How to provide accurate tendering information to subscribers cheaper, faster and easier;
• How to overcome the inefficiencies, and associated impact on subscriber service delivery and cost, that resulted from having separate tendering systems for construction and for goods and services. Suppliers interested in both construction and goods-and-services contracts had to pay for two subscriptions and search two different systems for information.

Objectives

CGI's new Système Électronique D'Appel D'Offres (SEAO), or Quebec Government Electronic Tendering System, became the official system for the publication, consultation and distribution of public-market contract opportunities, and their related tendering documents, for all municipal and provincial government agencies.

In developing the SEAO, which also includes Constructo's added-value services offering, CGI and Constructo set out to create a new, more-efficient, technology-driven process. For the Quebec government, this meant making it easier for buyers to make opportunity notices and supporting documents available to the public on a timely basis; and for subscribers, this meant delivering significantly higher levels of usability, speed and customer service.

In meeting these objectives, CGI, acting as prime contractor and systems integrator for the project, managed all IT-related aspects of developing, testing, implementing and operating the new SEAO system. Constructo assumed responsibility for marketing and client services - subscription management, billings and call centre support - and for continuing to provide value-added contract information.

Solution

The SEAO system gives subscribers a single access point at www.SEAO.ca or www.constructo.ca for notices and supporting information pertaining to all Quebec government agency tenders. By paying a slightly higher monthly subscription fee, Constructo customers can get all the same SEAO information plus Constructo's value-added project information.

"The decision to create a single system, rather than continue with separate systems for construction and goods and services as before, yielded immediate benefits for a number of stakeholders," says Alain Bouchard, director, consulting services at CGI.

Customers save money by no longer needing two subscriptions. For the government, tender notices and supporting documents can now be posted faster and more efficiently, giving bidders more time to prepare better-quality quotations.

"Having access to notices sooner should enable bidders to compete more effectively and save taxpayers money through more aggressive pricing," Bouchard explains.

In short, the system enables government buyers to go online to submit notices and upload supporting documents, which are automatically posted to the Web site for subscriber access - typically within one hour for documents and six hours for plans. Subscribers can become aware of new tender opportunities in real time, either by accessing the Web site, or through an automatic e-mail notification system.

The subscriber can preview tendering documents online before deciding to purchase them, which is also done online using the e-commerce capabilities of the system. The documents are then made available to the purchaser, either by download from the Web site or by delivery of hard copies.

SEAO went online June 1, 2004, and during its first 12 months of operation, 13,000 tender notices were published and 60,000 document orders were submitted, many of which were for multiple documents. For subscribers - typically smaller suppliers or those in smaller, remote locations - who prefer not to do business online, or simply don't have access to a computer or the Internet, the same tender notices can be seen in the Constructo newspaper and documents can be ordered by phone from the SEAO call centre run by Constructo.

"The project plan for the new system was based on us being able to reduce the number of phone calls to the call centre from the previous level of 70,000 a year to only 50,000 calls," says Daniel Barbeau, general manager & publisher at Constructo. "But we only got 30,000 calls - the new system is clearly far easier for subscribers to understand and use than the previous system."

Innovative Use of Technology

The SEAO/Constructo electronic tendering system integrates:

• An e-commerce suite, including document sales and billing management;
• Customer relationship management, including the call centre and subscriber profile management;
• Workflow management, such as automated task lists and timing measurement.

With the same database and user interface in use for all components of the system, the delays previously experienced due to using multiple systems, and trying to manage the exchange of data between them, have been virtually eliminated.

"The use of a service-oriented architecture approach to breaking down the workflow into a collection of independent and reusable pieces has also contributed to the speed with which we were able to develop and deploy the new system - and the efficiency and reliability with which it has been operating to date," concludes CGI's Bouchard.

A 2005 CIPA Winner!

For its exceptional application of information technology to solve real-world business problems and bring greater benefit to all its stakeholders, Constructo has been awarded a 2005 CIPA Silver Award of Excellence in the Customer Care, For Profit category.

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