In order to promote the development of public markets in the territory, numerous initiatives have been taken over the past two years by the HCCP, including the 2021 survey carried out with the assistance of the consular chambers of Reunion. Its objective, interview all Reunion companies, all sectors of activity combined, on their uses in terms of digital access to public procurement.
With an amount of 1,2 billion euros in 2020 (i.e. more than 10% of Reunion’s GDP) and around a hundred public buyers, public procurement is a very important structural lever of the Reunion economy, that European recovery plans reinforce, national and regional. “Wanting to simplify and strengthen the digital access of VSE-SMEs in Reunion to public markets presupposed, beforehand, to understand their habits and their expectations” underlines Dominique Vienne, president of the High Council of Public Orders to explain what motivated the carrying out of this investigation last June. “The lessons learned from this feed our thinking and complete our work to prefigure the regional public procurement platform for a desired implementation in 2022. This platform should make it possible to simplify and strengthen the accessibility of VSE-SMEs to local public procurement, thus meeting the expectations expressed during the survey.. Reviving the local economy through public procurement requires a better match between local demand and supply and greater collaboration between public and private actors.” The High Council of Public Ordering of Reunion entrusted the prefiguration of the future platform to eight working groups set up in 2020 around public and private actors. “This project is included in the 2021-2022 roadmap which aims to restore public procurement in Reunion to its economic dimension, social and environmental : on the one hand by making the act of purchase an act of territorial co-construction, on the other hand by including the question of public procurement in a strategy of good sustainable purchasing. »
Two major findings at the origin of the investigation
In the first place, the HCCP noted that the multiplicity of institutional and private buyer profiles (PLACE platforms, Megalis, AWS-Purchasing…) requires companies to aggregate data from disparate sources. Hence the impossibility, as the survey shows, to have an overview of calls for tenders in a territory. A second observation, corollary to the first, is the one that a company that connects to a buyer profile can only, in most cases, download the DCEs (market consultation documents), then submit your offer. Other tools that would be useful, like sourcing and SEO, knowledge of public buyers' forecasts or even data from awarded markets, are not accessible on these buyer profiles, which forces us to increase the number of searches for information. “From our point of view, this context does not allow the development of the territorial anchoring of public procurement, deplores Dominique Vienne. Hence our desire to better understand the economic fabric of Reunion, in particular VSE-SMEs by questioning them on their practices in terms of public procurement, the obstacles and difficulties encountered in responding to markets, their uses of platforms and their needs. »
A look at the main results
249 VSE-SMEs responded to the survey and shared their experience of digital access to public markets. Main lessons ? On the brakes to respond to a public contract (for companies that have never responded to a public contract), lack of knowledge of the various public purchases is the most cited obstacle (49% of responses). 
Then comes the difficulty of making oneself known to public buyers and finding orders suited to the company.. On the difficulties of responding to a public contract (for companies that have already responded to a public procurement), the complexity of procedures is the most cited answer (49 %), monitoring the financial capabilities of the company (46 %). Writing your response is also a difficulty encountered (39% of responses). To overcome these difficulties, more than one in two companies express the need to follow training. Concerning uses for identifying calls for tenders, 54% of companies go online to find public procurement announcements, 31% say they use publishing sites and buyer profiles. Other sources of information cited : the local press (28% of responses) or information received directly from public buyers, consular chambers and professional organizations (29 %). As for the appropriation of digital tools : there is clearly a long way to go. Less than half of companies (47 %) say they are comfortable with digital tools while 44% of them consider their appropriation to be average, involving three main difficulties : the use of internet platforms and buyer profiles, electronic invoicing (Chorus Pro) and appropriation of digital tools.
The High Council of Public Orders of Reunion
Created in 2010 by the Prefect of La Réunion Michel Lalande and chaired by former minister Margie Sudre, the HCCP originally had a triple mission : work on the programmatic aspects of public procurement, on the training of public procurement actors (buyers and businesses) and on aspects related to the business environment (social measures, abnormally low offers…). In 2019, the Minister of Overseas Annick Girardin and the Prefect of La Réunion Jacques Billant wished to renew the dynamic of the HCCP missions with a new presidency entrusted to Dominique Vienne and a new road map. The HCCP is today a network of more than 400 public or private actors engaged in responsible and sustainable public procurement., brought together to share and pool good practices and knowledge. Its main mission is to establish a space for dialogue and territorial intelligence.
