Bedford Borough Council, (BBC), decided they wanted to negotiate more effectively on local transport and even though other tools were available, our tool offered a simple pay as you go solution with minimal training.

The Transport team at BBC manage a mainstream school transport contract providing Home to School Transport routes for students unable otherwise to access public transport to educational establishments. This involves a large number of different routes and suppliers.

BBC’s priority was to find a solution that enabled utilisation of the current framework agreements approved operator (supplier) list. The chosen option was to run an e-auction event, the first time this type of procurement exercise would be run by the Borough Council. Sourcing Dojo was chosen to host the in-house event as the solution offered a track record of producing savings from similar home to school e-auction events, a simple user interface and an extremely competitive negotiated rate. In addition, Market Dojo offered to provide as much support and assistance as required for the tender exercise which was considered essential for BBC undertaking a new procurement initiative.

The administrative benefits offered by the software were realised throughout the auction process, in particular at bid submission and award stages where evaluation timescales were greatly reduced.

The RFQ process was very successful and it was swiftly followed up with 3 reverse auctions, covering 15 routes, which they felt would yield further savings. Each of the auctions did deliver. Overall, BBC saved 18% on the total cost and was delighted with the results.

Our experience with the BBC, who were open to looking at new tools, was very rewarding and their success and drive helped underpin our philosophy and goals.