Prozorro Myths

Every day, more than 100 new suppliers, who have never previously offered their services, goods, or work to government customers through Prozorro, register on the SmartTender site. Some of them take part in tenders in the very first days, some of them hesitate to submit their first proposal for a long time. What stops new users one step away from victory? We offer you to find out four of the most common myths about public procurement that have existed since the preparation of tenders in paper form. They will be debunked by Maryna Tolochko, Head of Customer Relations at SmartTender.

Myth #1: Only large corporations can win in public procurement

Since the inception of the Prozorro system, more than 2 million tenders have already been held in various categories, from workwear sewing to the construction of new factories. The total number of suppliers exceeds 200,000 and continues to grow every day. Thanks to the electronic system, suppliers have concluded more than 135,000 contracts for almost UAH 27 billion. And a quarter of them are individual entrepreneurs.

Prozorro Myths

The system holds many tenders with minimum budgets: UAH 5,000, UAH 15,000, etc. They are irrelevant for the "giants", but interesting for small companies. Therefore, any enterprise, regardless of size, the profile of activity, and form of ownership, can submit its offer to the electronic public auction and win. After all, until the end of the auction, the customer does not know who exactly participates in it, and the winner of the auction is the one who was able to offer the lowest price for the subject of purchase.

So the above data convinces: everyone who has the best price for the product and the technical part meets the customer's requirements can win in public procurement.

Myth #2: It takes a large staff to prepare a proposal

Indeed, participation in tenders requires resources: time and knowledge. However, this does not mean at all that you need to first hire a huge staff of employees (tender specialists) and only then participate in the procurement.

One person can prepare tenders at first. There are examples when in companies where 70% of income comes from participation in tenders, 2-3 people are engaged in such work.

The system has a large number of simplified purchases, in which the list of required documents often does not exceed several applications and certificates. Moreover, some of them can be placed in the form of templates on the page of the tender itself. For a start, you can win in such purchases.

Prozorro Myths

If you would like to take part in procurement and need help with preparing an offer, I advise you to contact SmartTender's legal advisers. The specialists of our legal area have hundreds of successful checks and prepared tenders, thanks to which agreements were signed for a total amount of more than UAH 10 billion.

Myth #3: Public tenders are never fair, and the victory is for those who "agreed with the customer in advance."

With the new system, all purchases are as transparent as possible. This allows the public and regulatory authorities to regularly monitor public procurement.

Many public organizations, activists, and journalists regularly make sure that the tender is fair and that the supplier is not unjustifiably disqualified. In particular, representatives of the State Audit Service during the procurement prompt the customers where they made a mistake.

Thanks to this, violations on the part of the customer or participant very quickly become public. In addition, each supplier can always leave their feedback on DoZorro or file a complaint with the AMCU (Antimonopoly Committee), if they encountered unfair conditions or actions.

Prozorro Myths

Myth #4: Dumping – everywhere

Indeed, such a phenomenon as dumping can occur. But with the entry into force of amendments to the Law "On Public Procurement" in 2020, a new tool to combat dumping appeared – ALP (abnormally low price).

ALP is the price of the most favorable tender offer based on the results of the auction, which:

- less by 40 or more % than the arithmetic mean of the price proposals of other bidders at the beginning of the auction;
- and/or less by 30 or more % than the next price offer based on the results of the auction.

The system automatically determines an abnormally low price, and if a bidder could not justify a significant decrease in their price offer, the customer will disqualify them. This makes dumping ineffective in competitive procurement procedures.

ALP does not apply to simplified procurement, since it is not a competitive procedure by the Law on Public Procurement.

Prozorro Myths

I hope I was able to convince you that participation in public procurement is simple and transparent. Choose the purchase you are interested in, do not waste time, and start winning from today! The instructions for the first participation in a public tender on SmartTender.biz will help you to understand the tools of the site.