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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 and how to use them.
01:31This training supports and complements the previous training, building on the information provided
01:37and expanding on the procurement support.
01:41In particular, in this training, you will dive into the three key aspects of the procurement support offered.
01:48First, you will discover what the procurement support is about, including how to identify procurement needs
01:54and how to access the open procurement templates and guidelines. Then we will dive deeper into each of
02:01these documents. You will learn how to use the procurement templates that are composed by open and mean
02:07compliance standard and technical specification documents and are downloadable and customizable for each
02:14community. Moreover, you will find out how you can benefit from the guidelines throughout your procurement process.
02:22This training is designed for users who are looking to advance their digitalization journey
02:28and explore the potential of local digital platforms and twins. The training can be particularly useful for
02:35the following roles. Urban managers and planners, sustainability managers, digitalization and smart city experts,
02:43innovation managers, data managers, ICT managers, procurement officers.
02:50Let's dive into the journey a community carries out to implement an LVT and procure its different components.
02:59The process begins when communities develop their digitalization roadmap or strategy, as explained in the
03:06previous trainings. The roadmap is a strategy document crafted based on each community's level of digital
03:14maturity. Within the roadmap, communities define the specific initiatives they will carry out to build the
03:22technical capabilities to implement local digital platforms and twins. Moving forward, based on the
03:29other roadmaps, communities are able not only to pinpoint initiatives to be undertaken to deploy an LVT, but they can
03:36also identify their specific procurement needs. In fact, some of the initiatives will require the acquisition of
03:43specific smart city items and services such as IoT devices, data analytics platforms and so on.
03:50Having defined which procurement needs will be addressed, communities can now select the procurement
03:57templates that are useful for their needs, among all the templates provided. Communities can therefore
04:04customize these documents and use them to launch the procurement processes. Along the way, procurement
04:12guidelines provide instructions on how to use the templates and how to address specific procurement related
04:19issues. Let's go through each of these steps together now. In the previous training, you learned what a
04:27digitalization roadmap is and how to build it. Let's recap just a few aspects of the roadmaps, looking at
04:34this example of a standard roadmap. Communities can build digitalization roadmaps based on their
04:40digitalization level to clearly define a list of technical enablers and capabilities that need to be
04:47built to develop LDPs and LDTs. Some of these initiatives can consist of, for example, the development of a
04:56digital strategy and the deployment of an infrastructure strategy for storage, compute and networks. For each of
05:04the listed enablers and capabilities, a set of initiatives will be defined to get a
05:09standard with an implementation timeline. Once communities develop the roadmap describing the
05:16relevant capabilities of the enablers, they also determine a list of initiatives that are considered
05:23important for the implementation of LDPs and LDTs. In order to effectively deploy some of these initiatives,
05:31communities will need to procure some items such as on-premises computing or storage tools. These items
05:38represent the procurement needs that communities will seek to solve through procurement processes. To
05:45support communities in acquiring these items, we are making available specific templates for different
05:51procurement needs. As explained before, the procurement support material that we provide consists of both
05:59open, downloadable and reusable templates, as well as procurement guidelines. Let's begin with the
06:06procurement guidelines. These templates are composed of two different documents. The tender specifications,
06:15which are the main document, and technical specifications, which are an index of the tender document.
06:23The 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 information,
06:52and the evaluation and award criteria. On the other hand, technical specifications cover the compliance checks
07:00and warranty, technical and functional requirements necessary for the specific procure solution,
07:06as well as minimum interoperability mechanisms, known as MIMs, which are essential for ensuring that
07:13smart city related products or services can be integrated with existing systems and technologies.
07:22The templates are being developed in English. In the following months, the templates will be made available
07:29online to be downloaded, providing also French and German versions. The table presented contains the
07:38the procurement templates that are being prepared and the items or objects that are covered by each of them. Just to give
07:46you a couple of examples, if a community needs to procure IoT devices, they can access the specific IoT devices templates.
07:56Another community might need to purchase advanced cloud computing tools or cloud automatic computing
08:04management tool and will therefore utilize and customize the cloud computing template.
08:13Now it's the time to give you an overview of the guidelines. The guidelines aim at orienting communities in the
08:22different phases of the procurement. Broadly speaking, their first objective is to guide communities on how to use the
08:29templates. In addition, communities can refer to guidelines throughout their procurement process,
08:36especially on tender development, market engagement strategies, evaluation and award, and finally,
08:42funding and financing of the needed items. The table presents the list of guidelines covering the thematic
08:50areas just described. To give you just an example, in the thematic area related to evaluation and award,
08:58you will find three guidelines focusing on methods for effective supplier evaluation processes and negotiation,
09:07conditionalities definition and contractualization, and means standards and certifications compliance.
09:17As you know, the procurement support materials are being prepared right now by our team in collaboration
09:24with many cities and communities that are providing feedback on them to ensure they are fit for them.
09:30Hereby, we invite you to get involved in this process and get in touch with us. Participating in the revision of
09:36these materials will ensure you have a say in how these documents are being prepared.
09:43You can manifest your interest by providing your contact emails accessing this QR code and we will reach out.
09:50Thanks very much for your interest in this topic. If there are any questions on any of this,
09:59please feel free to reach out to me. We will be happy to assist you with any questions you may have. Thank you again.