Supplier Portals

At a glance

  • Supplier portals are highly effective in reducing the information barrier between extractive industries and local businesses because they provide reliable information on available tenders and procurement opportunities.

  • Supplier portals also improve access to opportunities for local suppliers, improve competitiveness, increase access to targeted support, reduce costs and time for both buyers and suppliers, and build trust within the supply chain.

  • Addressing the information barrier can be one of the lowest hanging fruits (in terms of resources required) in efforts to advance local procurement.

Case Studies

Key Resources

Topic Briefing

Supplier portals are increasingly used as effective tools to increase local procurement. Often their objective is to reduce the information barrier between the extractive industry and local businesses by providing reliable information on available tenders and procurement opportunities. Other possible objectives include improving access to opportunities for local suppliers, improving competitiveness, increasing access to targeted support, saving costs and time for both buyers and suppliers, and building trust within the supply chain.[1] These portals can serve a single extractive industry company or an entire industry as a national platform, such as the well-known cases in Ghana (African Partner Pool) and Australia (ICN Gateway). When used as an industrywide portal, these platforms can streamline business registration processes and reduce the time required to submit an expression of interest.

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Accessibility is a fundamental component of the procurement process. If a supplier does not know how to find or access procurement opportunities or how to register in an extractive company’s database, it will not be able to participate in the procurement process of that company. Addressing the information barrier can be one of the lowest hanging fruit (in terms of resources required) to advance local procurement.

Below, different types of supplier portals are outlined, including portals that are internal and external to extractive industry companies.

  • Internal
    • Open: Supplier registries on companies’ websites, announced widely so that suppliers know how to register and enter a prescreening process
    • Closed: A company’s private database of recommended local suppliers
  • External
    • These are typically government initiatives aimed at fast-tracking companies’ identification of local suppliers. For example, the government of South Africa maintains a registry for local suppliers and carries out the initial due diligence on suppliers in an effort to reduce the burden on companies and increase local procurement. Key challenges of this type of program include maintenance and sustained financing. Databases that do not allow suppliers to register on an ongoing basis or are not updated can quickly fall out of use. Overall, these databases address issues related to burdens for local suppliers, particularly small businesses, in coping with company-specific registration requirements and can be designed to serve multiple industries.
  • Internal
    • Open: When companies have supplier registries on their website and/or announced widely so that suppliers know how to register and pass the pre-screening processes.
    • Closed: When a company identifies suppliers or suppliers are recommended to it, they are entered into the company’s database of local suppliers.
  • External
    • These are typically government initiatives aimed at fast-tracking companies’ identification of local suppliers. For example, the government of South Africa maintains a registry for local suppliers and carries out the initial due diligence on suppliers in an effort to reduce the burden on companies and increase local procurement. Key challenges of this type of program include maintenance and sustained financing. Databases that do not allow suppliers to register on an ongoing basis or are not updated, can quickly fall out of use. Overall these databases address issues related to burdens for local suppliers, particularly small businesses, to cope with company specific registration requirements, and can also be designed to serve multiple industries.
    • Industry associations: Associations, such as the Chamber of Mines in Ghana, are also working to identify local suppliers and encourage their members to increase local purchasing.[2]
    • Private: These portals are set up by private enterprises that are not buyers. Examples include the Africa Partner Pool and OMX.
View footnotes

[1] World Bank Extractives-led Local Economic Diversification Community of Practice (ELLED CoP), “Buyer-Supplier Portals in Extractives: Strategic Choices and Practical Lessons to Enhance Local Procurement,” Webinar, June 12, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa0s7P0kD_Q&feature=youtu.be.

[2] Ghana News Agency, “Ghana Chamber of Mines to Launch Online Portal on Local Content,” Ghana Investment Promotion Centre, June 3, 2017.