I should be able to go online and see what my benefits will be when I retire. Although e-government is often viewed in terms of service to citizens, it also has significant implications for internal agency operations. Many agencies are eyeing online procurement technology as a way to lower the costs of goods and services and to streamline how they conduct business. FedBid allows government credit card holders to register online to purchase IT products. Buyers detail requirements such as price, past performance records or other procurement details such as a desire to buy from a small or minority-owned business.
Vendors nationwide compete for the sale, bidding their prices down to win.
Whoever has the best bid in the end wins. FedBid has 15,000 federal buyers registered to use the system, which in June closed its first auction with 34 bidders for a scanner. The system also provides buyers with detailed records of credit card purchases that can be automatically fed into agency accounting systems. FedBid estimates it will have about 25,000 federal buyers and 400 vendors registered by the end of this year. Securing E-Government Network security, now safely out of the shadow of the Year 2000 problem, is likely to be high on most federal chief information officers agendas for some time to come.