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00:00Hello, everyone. My name is Eliana Gerardi. I am a manager at Intellera Consulting. Today,
00:12I will be guiding you through this training session focused on the EU tailor-made procurement
00:17templates that we are currently preparing to make available for European communities.
00:24Before we dive into the content, let me walk you through the agenda for this session.
00:29First, we will start by discussing the objective of this session, the learnings and target audience.
00:34Then, I will guide you through the methodology used to produce the procurement materials.
00:39Afterwards, I will provide further information on how and where to access the templates and guidelines.
00:46Finally, we will discuss how different actors can engage in the review process.
00:52Now that we've outlined the agenda, let's move on to the objective of today's session.
00:59The objective of this training is to learn how to understand and identify your procurement needs to
01:04implement enhanced ICT solutions. Additionally, I'll clarify how you can use the procurement
01:10materials provided as part of the Support Services for EU Smart Communities project for the acquisition
01:17of key technical components and the services needed to advance digital initiatives. By the end of this
01:24session, you will have a clear understanding of the procurement templates and guidelines
01:29and how to use them. This training supports and complements the previous training,
01:35building on the information provided and expanding on the procurement support.
01:41In particular, in this training, you will dive into the three key aspects of the procurement support
01:47offered. First, you will discover what the procurement support is about, including how to identify
01:53procurement needs and how to access the open procurement templates and guidelines.
01:58Then, we will dive deeper into each of these documents. You will learn how to use the procurement
02:04templates that are composed by open and MIM compliance standard and technical specification documents
02:11and are downloadable and customizable for each community. Moreover, you will find out how you can benefit
02:18from the guidelines throughout your procurement process. This training is designed for users who are
02:25looking to advance their digitalization journey and explore the potential of local digital platforms and
02:32tools. The training can be particularly useful for the following roles. Urban managers and planners,
02:38sustainability managers, digitalization and smart city experts, innovation managers, data managers,
02:45ICT managers, procurement officers. Let's dive into the journey a community carries out to implement an LTT
02:56and procure its different components. The process begins when communities develop their digitalization
03:03roadmap or strategy, as explained in the previous trainings. The roadmap is a strategy document
03:10crafted based on each community's level of digital maturity. Within the roadmap, communities define the
03:18specific initiatives they will carry out to build the technical capabilities to implement local digital
03:24platforms and twins. Moving forward, based on the roadmaps, communities are able not only to pinpoint
03:32the initiatives to be undertaken to deploy an SDT, but they can also identify their specific procurement needs.
03:39In fact, some of the initiatives will require the acquisition of specific smart city items and services such as
03:47IoT devices, data analytics platforms and so on. Having defined which procurement needs will be addressed,
03:54communities can now select the procurement templates that are useful for their needs, among all the
04:01templates provided. Communities can therefore customize these documents and use them to launch the procurement
04:09processes. Along the way, procurement guidelines provide instructions on how to use the templates and how to address
04:17specific procurement related issues. Let's go through each of these steps together now. In the previous
04:25training, you learn what a digitalization roadmap is and how to build it. Let's recap just a few aspects
04:32of the roadmaps, looking at this example of a standard roadmap. Communities can build digitalization
04:38roadmaps based on their digitalization level to clearly define a list of technical enablers and capabilities
04:46that need to be built to develop LDPs and LDTs. Some of these initiatives can consist of, for example,
04:55the development of a digital strategy and the deployment of an infrastructure strategy for storage,
05:01compute and networks. For each of the listed enablers and capabilities, a set of initiatives will be defined
05:09together with an implementation timeline. Once communities develop the roadmap describing the relevant
05:17capabilities and enablers, they also determine a list of initiatives that are considered important for the
05:24implementation of LDPs and LDTs. In order to effectively deploy some of these initiatives, communities will
05:32need to procure some items such as on-premises computing or storage tools. These items represent
05:39the procurement needs that communities will seek to solve through procurement processes. To support
05:45communities in acquiring these items, we are making available specific templates for different procurement needs.
05:52As explained before, the procurement support material that we provide consists of both open,
05:59downloadable and reusable templates as well as procurement guidelines. Let's begin with the procurement
06:07guidelines. Templates. These templates are composed of two different documents, the tender specifications
06:15which are the main documents and technical specifications, which are an index of the tender document.
06:22The procurement templates are crafted based on EU legislation and are therefore suitable for procurement
06:30above threshold. Communities are invited to customise the templates, inserting information on their national
06:36legislation, adapting the content to use the template also for procedures below threshold. In particular,
06:45the tender document mainly contains the scope and description of the procurement, general tendering
06:51information and the evaluation and award criteria. On the other hand, technical specifications cover the
06:58compliance checks and warranty, technical and functional requirements necessary for the specific procure solution
07:06application, as well as minimum interoperability mechanisms, known as MIMs, which are essential for ensuring that smart city-related
07:14products or services can be integrated with existing systems and technologies. The templates are being developed in English.
07:25In the following months, the templates will be made available online to be downloaded, providing also French and German versions.
07:34The table presented contains the procurement templates that are being prepared
07:41and the items or objects that are covered by each of them. Just to give you a couple of examples, if a community
07:49need to procure IoT devices, they can access the specific IoT devices templates. Another community might need to purchase
07:58the advanced cloud computing tools or cloud automatic computing management tools and will therefore
08:07utilize and customize the cloud computing template. Now it's the time to give you an overview of the guidelines.
08:18The guidelines aim at orienting communities in the different phases of the procurement. Broadly speaking,
08:25their first objective is to guide communities on how to use the templates. In addition, communities can refer
08:32to guidelines throughout their procurement process, especially on tender development, market engagement
08:38strategies, evaluation and award, and finally funding and financing of the needed items. The table presents the list of
08:48guidelines covering the thematic areas just described. To give you just an example, in the thematic
08:56area related to evaluation and award, you will find three guidelines focusing on methods for effective supplier
09:04evaluation processes and negotiation, conditionalities definition and contractualization, and memes standards and
09:13certification compliance. As you know, the procurement support materials are being prepared right now by our
09:22team in collaboration with many cities and communities that are providing feedback on them to ensure they are
09:28fit for them. Hereby, we invite you to get involved in this process and get in touch with us. Participating in the
09:36revision of these materials will ensure you have a say in how these documents are being prepared. You can
09:43manifest your interest by providing your contact emails accessing this QR code and we will reach out.
09:53Thanks very much for your interest in this topic. If there are any questions on any of this, please feel free to
10:00reach out to me. We will be happy to assist you with any questions you may have. Thank you again.