Asker Municipality: User-Friendliness Was Most Important
With over 700 end users, Asker municipality needed a procurement system that is easy to use. – Vieri is clear and user-friendly, says Mona Omli Landsrød, Procurement Advisor.
– The challenges with the system we used before Vieri were that nothing was standardised and much got stuck in the message flow between us and suppliers. The system was also unintuitive and difficult to use for the end user, says Mona Omli Landsrød.
User-friendliness and standardisation of message exchanges in e-commerce format (EHF) between buyer and supplier were central when Asker municipality was looking for a new procurement system.
– We have many hundreds of employees who need to make purchases, and many do this alongside their primary tasks, so we needed a system that is intuitive and easy to use, says Landsrød.
– It must be easy to order on the municipality's framework agreements. Not only are we obliged to use existing framework agreements, it also provides savings for our municipality.
Brought end users to supplier meetings
Asker municipality carried out thorough market research before choosing a procurement system provider.
– We invited market dialogue with suppliers to get an overview of the possibilities. Through the tender process, we brought along a mix of specialists and end users to ensure that the system we chose met our needs, says Landsrød.
In the end, Asker municipality chose Vieri.
– Vieri is clear, simple and user-friendly. In addition, the solution supports EHF messages in the catalogue and ordering process. With so many purchases, it is also important to have good integration with the accounting system for invoice matching. This gives us better control over our procurement and we can spend less time on invoice processing, says Landsrød.
Organised web cafes with training
With over 700 end users who will adopt a new system, good information and training are essential. Asker municipality solved this in a creative way.
– Our experience is that people need to learn when they start using a system, not before. Instead of conducting all training in advance, we organised open web cafes three times a week where anyone with questions could participate as needed. That way, people got answers to what they actually wondered about. This worked well for us, says Landsrød.
In Asker municipality, Vieri is also used for large purchases in areas such as property.
– With us, there is great variation in what needs to be purchased, from office supplies to orders worth several million. Therefore, we ran separate training for departments that do not necessarily buy articles, but large services.
