SURF tendering procedures
European legislation obliges institutions to award the purchase of IT resources through a European tender if the contract exceeds a legal threshold value. Competition is also mandatory for amounts below the threshold. SURF takes the purchasing process off your hands and takes care of the tendering process.
What is tendering?
In short, a tender is the procedure whereby a client announces that he wants to purchase a certain service from a supplier. Interested suppliers can then submit a quotation. The tender closes on a fixed date and the client selects the supplier that best matches the order and needs and awards the order to this supplier. Tendering only takes place when the value of the contract is above the tender limit.
Tenders only take place above the tender limit
Benefits of a purchasing collaboration
The joint tendering of IT contracts offers institutions several advantages:
- You can be confident that all contracts you purchase via SURF comply with the most current legislation and regulations;
- Because of the large volume and the sharing of knowledge, capacity and experience, we guarantee an optimal contract with the best price and conditions;
- By jointly tendering, you save costs on your own purchasing process;
- You can leave most of the contract management to SURF.
Tender calendar
You can have a look at our Tender Calendar in My SURFmarket (behind login and for members and institutions only). After logging in, the calendar will be visible to SURF contacts. Here you can see all current and future tenders. This allows you to determine in advance which tenders are of interest to you. On this calendar, you can see per IT category which tenders will start in the next four years and in which phase current tenders are in.
Complaints about tenders
Are you participating in a SURF tendering procedure and do you have a complaint about this? Please read the:
- Klachtenregeling aanbestedingen SURF in Dutch (valid as of April 15, 2021).
The services provided by SURF that fall within the scope of the outsourcing relationship, involving mediation for the members, allow them to purchase services and software on the best terms. However, these services and software products themselves do not fall under the outsourcing relationship. It may therefore be the case that an institution is obliged to tender for services and software for which SURF mediates.
With regard to software and cloud services included in SURF's core package, it has been agreed with the institutions that SURF will assume responsibility for the institutions' legitimacy.
Institutions pay for the performance of all activities relating to the purchase of this core package. A large proportion of the services are paid for on the basis of the rate set per institution in SURF's Service Agreement. For a number of services in the core package, institutions will be charged an additional amount in the event of purchase.
No. SURF is not a market participant and will not bid for a public tender, regardless of whether or not the contracting authority is a member of SURF.
Yes.