How to "control the cost" in bidding and purchasing activities

The main purpose of government procurement activities is to save procurement costs. In fact, due to many problems in operation, we inadvertently raised the cost of the whole procurement activity, and there was a phenomenon of "upside down", which was very uneconomical. It is very important to pay attention to, study and control the cost of bidding and purchasing activities. The control of procurement cost mainly includes three key links: bidding operation cost, actual procurement cost, acceptance and use cost. First, bidding operation cost control (ex ante cost control) (1) reduces the probability of invalid bidding. First of all, strengthen the planning of bidding and procurement work, and generally do not cancel the procurement task at will. When handling the bidding and purchasing affairs, the bidding and purchasing unit must prioritize and organize carefully to ensure that the whole bidding and purchasing work is step by step and avoid canceling the procurement task because of disorder. Secondly, make full use of the procurement budget, avoid wasting the tender due to unreasonable budget, and keep the procurement budget in sufficient tension, which can not only realize low-cost procurement, but also make the winning supplier profit, so that the procurement budget has the characteristics of "rigidity" and "flexibility". Thirdly, when setting up the situation of invalid bids and invalid bids, the legal situation should prevail as far as possible, and the situation of artificial agreement should be reduced. Important matters, especially invalid bids and invalid bids, should be marked in bold, which will give a "friendly reminder" to potential bidding suppliers and provide business guidance and consultation to novice suppliers. Be too careful in case the bid is scrapped. (two) the merger and subcontracting bidding of similar or similar projects. The government procurement plan should be centralized, and some general procurement projects such as computers and air conditioners should be arranged in a relatively concentrated time period according to seasonal changes or work needs, so that daily sporadic procurement projects can be gathered into large-scale procurement projects, and the scale effect that sporadic procurement cannot achieve can be realized through centralized government procurement. On the one hand, procurement projects can be merged vertically, and different procurement projects, such as product categories, properties and functions, are basically the same or similar, so they should be merged as far as possible and completed together. For example, printers and fax machines can be merged into "office automation products" for procurement, which can expand the procurement scale and improve the procurement efficiency of the group. On the other hand, horizontal integration can be applied to procurement projects. In the actual operation of centralized procurement, we can break the restrictions of units, industries and even regions, and merge similar procurement projects across units, industries and regions, thus increasing the scale of centralized procurement to a greater extent. (3) Improve operational means and vigorously promote electronic procurement. Save office consumables and venue rental costs, and reduce government procurement and operation costs. Building electronic government procurement is the trend to reduce the operating cost of procurement. The procurement trading platform should be "electronic" as soon as possible. All localities should actively establish government procurement websites to provide a platform for "electronic" transactions. Starting from agreed supply and fixed-point procurement, we have accumulated experience and gradually expanded to the whole field of government procurement. When the purchaser needs to purchase goods, projects or services, he/she will directly submit the purchase plan to the finance department at the same level through the network, and the finance department will examine and approve it through the network, and then transfer the approved purchase plan to centralized procurement. The tendering and procurement institution shall use computers to make procurement documents in common file format, and provide suppliers with both paper and electronic procurement documents to facilitate suppliers to make bidding documents. For suppliers who are far away, procurement documents should be provided by email. Some areas are actively promoting free bidding documents, and suppliers can download procurement documents from government procurement websites for free. The bid evaluation work is paperless, and places for bid opening and evaluation should be built with high standards where conditions permit, and necessary computer equipment should be added. (4) Implementing agreed supply and procurement based on regional linkage. Regional linkage is another new measure in the field of government procurement, and agreement supply is the "golden key" to open regional linkage of government procurement. The success of regional linkage mode enriches and promotes the supply of agreements. In the era of supply by agreement, city and county government procurement should not stick to the separation of management and procurement, nor should it be dogmatically set up at different levels. It is necessary to analyze the problem from a macro perspective and firmly grasp the basic principles and objectives of doing a good job in government procurement. Agreement supply is by no means decentralized procurement, but centralized procurement. Regional linkage can attract higher-level suppliers and achieve the goal of lower price, higher efficiency and better service to a greater extent. Under the premise of starting regional linkage, agreement supply will be more useful and its obvious effect will be more obvious, which is also proved by practice. Second, the actual procurement cost control (medium-term cost control) (I) Agency cost control 1. Centralized government procurement projects shall be entrusted to the centralized government procurement agencies for operation according to law. Most centralized procurement agencies are free of charge, and there are no bidding fees and agency fees. Suppliers are also willing to participate in projects represented by centralized procurement agencies, and the cost is lower. 2. Non-governmental centralized procurement projects, including departmental centralized procurement projects, should be operated by purchasers as far as possible. If the temporary capacity is insufficient and the agency needs to be entrusted, the centralized procurement agency should be selected first, and then the social intermediary agency should be selected to reduce the agency service fee. (2) Price cost control 1. Encourage the rational use of three bid evaluation methods for winning the bid at a low price, and attach importance to the use of the lowest bid evaluation method and the cost-effective method. When deciding which bid evaluation method to adopt, we should choose the most appropriate and standardized bid evaluation method according to the specific requirements and characteristics of the procurement project, so as to improve the pertinence and applicability of the bid evaluation method, rather than copying it mechanically. For standard customized goods and general services, the lowest bid evaluation method must be adhered to. When the lowest bid evaluation method is adopted, the price should be the main factor to determine the winning supplier, that is, under the premise of meeting all the substantive requirements of the bidding documents, the lowest bid evaluation should be carried out according to the unified price factor, and the bidder with the lowest quotation should be the winning supplier. When using the comprehensive scoring method, the weight of price score should be set reasonably. When determining the proportion of price score, we should not pursue marginalization, that is, we should not artificially set the legal minimum proportion, but should truly reflect the importance of price factors to government procurement. When determining the "benchmark price", the low-price priority method is uniformly used for calculation, that is, the bid price that meets the requirements of the tender documents and has the lowest bid price is the benchmark price for bid evaluation, and its price is divided into full marks, and the price scores of other bidders are uniformly calculated according to the weight of the price scores converted on the basis of the benchmark price for bid evaluation. 2. Introducing brand competition, the huge fund saving space generated by brand competition is impossible and unimaginable for single brand procurement. Traditionally, single brand competition inevitably has the color of price protection and source control, the purchase price remains high, and cross-bidding is common. Brand competition makes suppliers including manufacturers nervous. Brand competition is not only the requirement of government procurement law, but also the basic law of market economy. It is not only conducive to promoting free competition and fair competition, but also conducive to saving money for buyers. High quality and low price are no longer out of reach. In government procurement, the problem of inflated prices can be really solved by defining projects, allocation, quality, service and brand, introducing brand competition, and dealing a heavy blow to the behavior of accompanying inquiries and colluding in bidding, so that buyers can truly enjoy the good things with high quality and low price brought by government procurement. Only one supplier is allowed to quote the same brand and model, and the brand and model quoted by the supplier are determined in chronological order or randomly. Because of the high substitution rate of similar products, buyers have a lot of choices. Usually, in a purchasing activity, the purchaser should recommend at least five brands. 3. Control the interest cost of funds. Sign the contract in strict accordance with the bid quotation of the successful supplier, and no extra charges are allowed to prevent the supplier from looking for the bid before considering the extra charges. As for the payment method, although the current installment payment enables the purchaser to take the initiative in the process of contract performance, the longer the installment payment is delayed, the greater the interest burden and opportunity cost of the winning supplier, and these costs will naturally be passed on to the purchaser, resulting in a high purchase price. Therefore, the total payment period should not be too long, and the down payment ratio is generally not less than 70% of the total. For the performance bond, it should be set within the legal proportion, not exceeding 2% of the procurement budget. (III) Service cost control The procurement practice shows that the unreasonable free service requirements of the purchaser cannot be met or affect the product quality. The purchaser should treat the suppliers participating in the procurement activities equally and set the service requirements scientifically and reasonably, instead of deterring or restricting the free competition of suppliers through free requirements, which is not conducive to the realization of the procurement objectives and the original intention of saving costs. On the contrary, it will increase procurement costs. List the free service items and time, refer to the manufacturer's three guarantees regulations, and ask the supplier to specify them in the bidding documents. It is necessary to include non-free services that may occur during the product life cycle into the procurement cost, and ask suppliers to quote for future comparison to reduce uncertainty. Three. Acceptance and use cost control (post-cost control) (1) Promote energy-saving products in procurement requirements and form mandatory specifications as soon as possible. Government procurement management departments at all levels should promote the procurement of energy-saving products through supervision, implement the implementation opinions of government procurement of energy-saving products, increase publicity, strive to form a broad consensus among all parties in government procurement, and promote government procurement of energy-saving products. Grass-roots government procurement supervision departments should consciously safeguard the smooth flow of state decrees, timely feed back the situation and experience in the procurement process of energy-saving products in the region to higher-level supervision departments, guide government procurement institutions to standardize and do a good job in the procurement of energy-saving products, and effectively maintain openness and effectiveness. (two) the acceptance work should be mainly organized by the purchaser, and the large-scale special projects with complex technology can be entrusted to the quality inspection institutions with low fees recognized by the state for acceptance. For the equipment with complex technology, the purchaser should ask the supplier to provide relevant training and technical guidance, and the specific users of the purchaser should master the operation essentials, use it strictly in accordance with the instruction manual, take good care of it and reduce the maintenance cost. Compensation for personal injury and property damage accidents caused by product quality problems and supplier installation problems (except force majeure factors) shall be clearly stated in the tender documents to be borne by the winning supplier.