A Belgian lawyer offers advice on how we can be more competitive when it comes to public procurements.
Public procurements – up to 15 percent of the GDP of a developed country – represent a significant business, and lawfirms are not excluded from it.
This has long been a topic of interest for Pierre Philippe Harmel (EJ Belgium): “The best trait of our network is how it promotes the skills of its members – and in a collective way, the best trait of our network is to create smaller networks that can function as a group focusing on a precise topic.” This appears to be the best way to work with public institutions.
According to Harmel, this topic is a longstanding issue. “I remember a dozen years ago, we missed an occasion to be selected for a public procurement because we weren't coordinated enough. Our presentation should have been more consolidated, the repartition of costs and benefits between partners should have been defined in advance. Working together requires a framework and we could do research about this”.
What solution does he have to offer? “Those who were successful must share their experience and explain their methodology to the others. We must develop methods and be ready for any procurements when they come. If we are prepared we can compete with big international lawfirms – they are in no way better than us, they are just better prepared to give an answer.”
What are these public procurements? They come from public institutions, often from the European Commission itself. “I remember, once, the EC made a procurement about urban laws. It was not necessarily easy to formulate a proper answer in the good delays. We must have a common way of invoicing, of communicating towards our customer... we must be fast with our answers, and once again, all this must be prepared in advance.”
Now you have all the tools to conquer public markets...
