Programme for Electronic Commerce in the Norwegian Public Sector 1999-2004

The Norwegian government has established a four-year programme for the introduction of e-commerce in the public sector in Norway. The programme's main project has been the establishment of an electronic marketplace for public procurement in order to lower the threshold for taking e-commerce in use, both for public sector entities and their suppliers. This process is in good progress. The marketplace has been operational since June 2002 and the programme is now in its final year. This report gives a summary of the process and the major lessons learned.

Background

The Norwegian e-commerce initiative was approved by the Cabinet in 1999 and the Programme for Electronic Commerce in the Norwegian Public Sector ("the Programme";) was established for the period 1999 to 2004 with a total budget of 1.9 million Euros. Programme management responsibilities were given to a Programme Secretariat in the Government Administration services. The Programme Secretariat reports to a steering committee headed by the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration. Four other ministries are also represented in the steering committee, as well as the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities and the Office of the Auditor General. The Programme was part of the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration’s modernisation programme for the public sector, as well as the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s eNorge 2005 – the Norwegian equivalent of the EU’s eEurope 2005.

Programme goals

The overall goal for the Programme was that the use of e-commerce in public procurement shall contribute to a lowering in procurement-related costs and increase the quality of the public procurement process. Released resources from a more efficient procurement process shall contribute to an increased service production in the public sector entities and/or an increased focus on their core activities. In addition shall the Programme contribute to an increasing overall procurement competence in the public sector and help the public entities being a demanding customer in order to achieve better purchases to better terms and conditions.

Programme Objectives

The Programme established the following objectives in order to achieve its purpose:

• Establishment of an electronic marketplace for public procurement
• Recruiting public entities to test and take the marketplace into use
• Increase transaction activity over the marketplace by motivation, recruitment of suppliers, new functionality and improved external conditions
• Document cost savings and other benefits with e-commerce in order to recruit new users and increase activity.

Rationale for the establishment of a Public Sector Marketplace

Norwegian public procurement is highly decentralised in the sense that public sector entities on all authority levels can decide quite freely from whom to purchase their goods and services, as long as the purchase is made within the EU-based Norwegian procurement regulations. However, the use of framework agreements internally established or created as a result of co-operation between local and/or regional authorities, is quite common for all entities and on all levels.

As for many private sector companies, the challenge for the public sector entities is to achieve a sufficient level of loyalty in the use of framework agreements throughout their own organisations. Through the use of the marketplace, the public sector entities are offered access to an efficient tool for distributing updated information about the goods and services that are available through each framework agreement. More importantly, the public sector entities are given access to an easy-to-use e-procurement solution for placing orders in compliance with the available framework agreements. This e-procurement solution can also be used as a standard procurement solution, which is something most public sector entities stand in need of.

By establishing the marketplace the Programme is ensuring the availability of a viable and predictable party for e-commerce to the buyers and sellers, and a practical tool for entities within the public sector to achieve;

• reduced prices on purchased goods and services due to higher use of existing framework agreements;
• reduced transaction costs by a complete or partial integration with internal systems in the procuring and selling organisation; and
• improved efficiency to free key personnel so that they can do the job they are supposed to do, and not spend time on purchasing.

Download the Programme Description

• Programme description [ Download ]
  This description of the “Programme for e-commerce in the Norwegian public sector” has been developed by The Government Administrative Service, Statskjøp (Government procurement) on behalf of The Ministry of Labour and Government Administration.
   
• Programme presentation [ Download ]
  Power point presentation of the programme description.