Member Article

Bloom launches the UK’s first source-to-pay procurement solution for the public sector

Fully compliant offering promises process efficiencies and savings for local and central government departments.

Award winning procurement specialist Bloom Procurement Services has partnered with JAGGAER, the world’s largest independent spend management company, to develop a technology platform specifically customised to the needs of the public sector, offering customers a source-to-pay solution.

Amabel Grant, chief technology officer at Bloom Procurement Services, said: “Bloom has a unique set of challenges, we are growing at a rate of 80-90% of spend under management per year and we are significantly changing our service offering and capability. We needed a platform that was both scalable and flexible to incorporate our specific workflow and approach to procurement.

“We selected the JAGGAER ONE platform because we wanted to partner with industry leaders in procurement technology and wanted to work with an organisation that understands the unique challenges of public sector procurement. JAGGAER fully met these demanding criteria.”

Established in 2012, Bloom currently works with more than 320 central and local government departments and government agencies, such as the NHS. At present, the growing company employs 65 staff across offices in Newcastle, London and Manchester, providing access to a growing network of over 6,500 suppliers.

Public sector organisations must comply with a raft of national and European Union procurement regulations, including publication of all tenders above a certain value in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). At the same time, they are striving to adopt procurement best practices from the private sector to maximise process efficiencies and improve outcomes while driving down costs.

Bloom’s technology platform is supported by JAGGAER to streamline the relationships between the three key parties: customer, supplier and Bloom. It will enable robust and tailored supplier onboarding and ongoing management, whilst providing enhanced functionality for spend controls, spend management, specification development, evaluation and payment. In addition, the platform will offer the flexibility needed to evolve and respond to ongoing demands in the public sector.

Bloom first approached JAGGAER in August 2018 to develop the solution, which was first launched in November 2018 and is being rolled out across Bloom’s sizable customer and supplier base via a phased approach.

Richard Hogg, managing director at JAGGAER, commented: “The combination of Bloom public sector expertise and JAGGAER technology will provide public sector procurement organisations with a fast and robust solution to deliver better value to users of public services, taxpayers and other stakeholders.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Bloom Procurement Services .