The Swiss Confederation is a step closer to the realisation of electronic public procurement procedures with the Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (Office Fédéral des Constructions et de la Logistique - OCFL, in French) recently providing for tender submission in electronic format besides the paper-based equivalent.

Tenders are already widely submitted in electronic form for the procurement of supplies or services. This practice has been extended to construction procurement. The OCFL’s calls for tenders documents now stipulate that an entire bid must also be submitted in electronic form (CD or DVD).

The OCFL intends to strengthen the effectiveness of procurement procedures following this recent decision in support of eProcurement. It is a further step towards the establishment of a fully electronic flow for public procurement procedures, from the publication of calls for tenders to the conclusion of contracts.

The Federal Procurement Commission (FPC) commissioned the eProcurement project coordinator for the publication of an eProcurement strategy for the Federal Administration on November 2008. The strategy of the FPC serves the purpose of defining the positioning and focus of IT-based procurement practices of the Federal Administration with a time horizon of 3 to 5 years.

Other eProcurement projects spanning several federal layers are listed in the catalogue of priority eGovernment projects and coordinated by the Programme Office of eGovernment Switzerland.