July-September 2008 (Quarterly Newsletter)
News & Events
Are you missing the boat?
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by Mary Jo Furphy
Yes, the monsoons are coming (hopefully soon), but that's not what you need a boat for. In this case the boat is VRAMP , Vendor Registration and Messaging Portal . This is the new Pima County online system that allows Internet access directly between businesses and Procurement.
This system went live the end of April, 2008 and to date almost 1,500 vendors have successfully registered. We are happy to see so many new registered vendors that we are not currently doing business with. We love the increased number of potential bidders! That is what public procurement is all about – increased competition to ensure the best value for taxpayer's resources.
However, it seems that many of our existing vendors (those that have current contracts) are missing the VRAMP boat. We have discovered that around 1,500 vendors, which have current contracts with Pima County have not yet registered in VRAMP. It is to every vendor's advantage to get registered in our new system.
In the near future we will be phasing out our past practice of sending faxes to notify potential vendors of upcoming solicitations. In place of this process, we will be sending email notification using VRAMP based on the vendor profile information that is provided to us through VRAMP If the information is not submitted you will NOT receive an email notification for current solicitations. Neither of us want that, as you do not want to lose potential business and we do not want to lose potential bidders.
It is very important that you take action NOW! Please register in VRAMP at our website http://www.pima.gov/procure/ . The direct link to register is: https://secure.pima.gov/procurement/vramp/login.aspx
If you have any questions about VRAMP or need assistance, please contact us at 520-740-8161 or 520-740-3807.
Don't miss the boat – get registered!
Mary Jo Furphy is the Systems Implementation Project Manager for the Procurement Department. She can be reached at maryjo.furphy@pima.gov.