Bahrain is offering e-Tendering tips to private companies to enable them to capture a bigger share of government contracts.

More than 300 companies are to be trained in using the online system, as part of the first batch.

This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding by the Tender Board and the Labour Fund to train owners and employees from the private sector on navigating the e-Tendering process.

It was signed by Oil and Gas Affairs Minister and Tender Board chairman Dr. Abdulhussain Mirza and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Labour Fund chairman Dr Nazar Al Baharna.

“The timing for such an initiative is just right,” observed Dr Al Baharna.

“With Bahrain rapidly adopting new e-Government initiatives such as e-Tendering and the kingdom going through a development boom that is seeing more and more governmental interaction with the private sector, it is imperative for companies to be able to use new technology tools such as the e-Tendering process to get their fair share of the action.

“Moreover, this initiative will expose Bahraini companies to new technology trends to streamline and simplify tendering processes, become more efficient, and lead them to embrace technology as a way to move ahead.

“This can be considered as the first practical step towards a major implementation of ICT infusion amongst the private sector within an e-market place concept which is on the agenda of the Labour Fund’s strategies,” he said.

“e-Tendering is the way forward and this initiative of training companies will empower them to play a greater role in Bahrain’s development.”

“By including the private sector and companies more strongly, the Tender Board is making a case for increased participation and fairness,” added Dr. Mirza.

“It will enable the tendering process to be conducted via the Internet. The system will automate the workflows of the tender preparation, opening, evaluation and awarding process. Approximately 2,000

tenders are processed annually, opening a huge potentially lucrative market for companies in the private sector.”

Al Nadeem Technologies, which will be the training provider, is also the development agency behind the e-tendering process, Dr Mirza said.

Hence companies will get expert training direct from the source, he pointed out.

The training provider will have the responsibility of ensuring that the selected candidate from each company is familiarised with using the system, and understand the process for submitting their tenders online smoothly without any difficulties or problems.

It will be also responsible in testing the staff and certifying their ability to use the system with minimum errors.

The training will be conducted at one or several authorised training centres in Bahrain.

The condensed eight hours training will involve minimum lecturing and most of it will revolve around actual use of the system screen and features. The material is designed based on the workflow of the system and will highly depend on screen capture from the e-Tendering system.

The training will be conducted in batches, each batch will have 12 to 15 trainees, where five batches will be trained per week and would take around three months to complete the whole 300.

“The whole process makes Bahrain a leader in the implementation of advanced solutions that improve productivity, and makes easier for businesses to transact with ministries and government agencies,” Dr Mirza said. – Trade Arabia News Service