Conducting a public procurement of a new building management system is a complex process that requires careful planning and strategic decisions. By taking advantage of best practices, you can ensure a better procurement and more long-term business benefits. Here are some key steps and advice on the road to a successful procurement.
Step 1: Mapping – capturing business needs in the right way
What needs are important to identify?
Don’t just focus on the most obvious needs based on what you lack in the current solution. The combination of new ways of working and a new system is crucial in the long term. Start from the key elements of the management of the type of property being procured. Coordinate the needs of technical and financial management to realise the benefits of an integrated process.
See new technologies, innovation and regulations as an opportunity
Technology is developing rapidly. This also affects conditions in property management. Not least linked to higher demands for efficiency, security and sustainability. Mobility, AI, IoT and the management of large amounts of property data are some examples of future needs that should be taken into account as they often contribute to a more future-proof choice of property system.
Think outside the box
The most successful companies in their procurements are those that define their needs in terms of the results they want to achieve and how they want their work to improve and become more efficient in the longer term. Don’t limit your mapping and needs definition to what you have and what you do today.
Talk to several suppliers
Identifying alternative solutions on the market at an early stage provides valuable information on what is possible. It helps you understand alternative approaches to meeting your needs, what the cost drivers are and what standard processes different solutions offer. Having a dialogue with different suppliers even before the procurement is often a good way to identify reasonable requirement levels and priorities in your continued requirement formulation.
Step 2: Requirements – transforming real needs into the right requirements
Transforming needs into the right requirements
Different solutions are likely to affect working practices and results in different ways in the future. Therefore, take time and care to translate needs into requirements based on what you want to achieve. What is the vision? In what ways can a new building management system best support your organisation? A tip for anchoring and getting a broad picture of the requirements can be a needs workshop with caretakers, administrators and IT.
Striking the right balance between mandatory and desirable requirements in setting requirements
It is a delicate balance between mandatory and desirable requirements. Setting the mandatory requirements too high may exclude potential suppliers, while vague desirable requirements can lead to overly subjective evaluations. Therefore, let the mandatory requirements reflect only what is absolutely necessary for a functional delivery. Design the desirable requirements to capture added value that can be scored in an objective and predictable manner. This approach enables a more accurate comparison between the operational benefits and the cost of implementing a particular function.
Ask the right questions, in the right way
Clarity is key when setting requirements. You do this by asking the right questions in the right way, so that both customer and supplier understand what can and will be delivered. How you ask your questions will affect what a supplier chooses to emphasise and present in their response. The more specifically you can link the requirements to benefits, user experience and your goal, the easier and better the conditions for evaluating and comparing different solutions will be.
Step 3: Evaluation – systematic and grounded in reality
Choose your evaluation model carefully
An evaluation model is essential to ensure a fair, transparent and objective procurement. Determine the evaluation criteria and the weighting of the criteria to be assessed, such as price, quality, functionality, sustainability and service. A guideline is to weight price (max 30%) lower than quality and take into account the cost of the whole life cycle of the system. Ask the supplier to hold an experiential system demo. This gives a better understanding of how the work will work in practice for operational staff and management.
Stay focused on requirements and business benefits
With a well-developed and operationally anchored set of requirements, it will be easier to stay focused on the requirements set even in the evaluation. Formulate scenarios based on common workflows and real events in the administration. They can then be reflected in a demo and linked to situations, functions and processes in the building management system. An example of a question in the evaluation could be: ‘Show how to do a planned maintenance from start to finish in the system.’
Support in qualitative evaluation and decision-making
Evaluating different system options to ensure the “right choice” is always a challenge. In addition to an experiential demo, in-depth supplier dialogues, specific user tests and customer references can contribute to a more qualitative evaluation. It is also important to summarise the results of all parts of the evaluation in order to justify the final winning bid. This documentation should also be able to withstand a possible appeal.
A well-executed procurement process lays the foundation for efficient and sustainable property management. With best practice, you can better capitalise on opportunities and ensure that procurement becomes a strategic investment for the future.
Our guide ‘How to ensure quality procurement of building systems – best practice for public procurement’ provides more advice and guidance for your next procurement.
