Austin-based BidPrime announced the integration of its subsidiary Beacon, an e-procurement solution and service that enables agencies to more easily create, post, distribute and share solicitations with a large potential vendor market. With Beacon, prospective suppliers benefit from a streamlined user experience and avoid daunting registration processes that impact vendor participation in the public sector.

BidPrime is renowned for its comprehensive and real-time access to solicitations and bid documentation across North America, providing bidders access to more opportunities to support their public sector business goals. BidPrime has a strong reputation and the highest customer satisfaction ratings in the industry, with an extended vendor network of over 100,000 suppliers.

“We are thrilled that Beacon is a part of BidPrime. Beacon is a product built from the know-how, experiences, and at times, frustrations of the many vendors we have engaged with since 2009,” said Bill Culhane, VP of Operations for BidPrime and Beacon. “Beacon is a service that overcomes the needless frustration that too often shuts out small businesses and other companies from the procurement process.”

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Beacon’s main features include:

* Broadcaster: Agencies publish and distribute their solicitations to more vendors using a dedicated page or embeddable frame for their purchasing web pages.
* Tracker: Purchasing officers can invite bidders, and update and monitor solicitation planholders. Automatic alerts notify users of changes or modifications and facilitate other important communications to planholders.
* Beacon RFP Archive: A searchable database of 7 million previously published RFPs that will help users prepare accurate RFPs (Request for Proposal). In this video, see how this tool provides access to search RFPs, as well as inside of bid documents. RFP Archive is by far the largest repository of RFP specifications in North America.
* Beacon API: A free API for any data service to integrate solicitations posted on Beacon that keeps agencies in contact with all engaged planholders, to maintain communication with customers. This allows BidPrime users, and other service providers similar to BidPrime, to have streamlined access and reach across all vendor networks.

Beacon also offers automatic updates when new solicitations are released. Interested bidders can simply fill out a form to receive emailed updates and a secure link to download attachments.

Beacon was designed to yield more exposure to vendors for agencies and increase response rates on solicitations by making the process compliant, transparent, and free.

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The core suite of services, including Beacon’s Broadcaster and Tracker are completely free for small and medium-sized municipalities and agencies. As part of its 2022 launch, Beacon is also offering complimentary access to the 7 million RFP templates in its RFP Archive for the first 500 agencies who register to post their solicitations through Beacon’s free Bid Broadcaster.

“BidPrime’s success is attributed to being a user experience-focused company, and we will carry that same focus into Beacon,” said Stephen Hetzel. “Most e-procurement solutions are designed to only serve agencies, not suppliers and bidders. Beacon’s solution serves both agencies and suppliers. When you add complex requirements, registration holds, and fees just to view the specifications of an opportunity, it makes the cost of doing business with the government too burdensome for many prospective contractors.”

Beacon’s support, service, and engineering units will be included as part of BidPrime’s expanded headquarters in Austin.