Planning: Reference price quotes

[jpmckinney]

Split from #599

If a publisher performs a market study, and if this market study involves requesting prices from potential suppliers, and if this information is publishable, then we can open a new issue to discuss how to model that.

Examples

As an example from Mexico, see the issue description of #599. (Note: the term "request for quotes" should not be used for this concept, because that term is commonly used to mean a type of invitation to bid.)

Paraguay gathers this information via emails to suppliers (before the tender notice), requesting to fill out a form which then is published as a document within the tender. Email text example: "This quote will be used to average the reference price to be used in the tender process, it will not be taken into account as a bid in the tender process, nor does it represent any commitment for your company." Example (see "Antecedentes de Estimación de Costos")

This might also be relevant to Chile.

Model

In terms of modelling, we'll want to align with existing tender and bids/details models where possible. We should also be informed by what information multiple potential publishers can actually release.

Paraguay uses the (machine-translated) terms "cost estimation background" and "background for calculating referential prices".

Paraguay has the fields name, identifier (RUC), date issued (submitted), amount, currency, VAT included (see https://github.com/open-contracting/standard/issues/817).

Noting that in https://github.com/open-contracting/standard/issues/1522 there was a question (bullet 3) about adding a role for tenderers who participate in and/or submit to market consultations.

Additional context

A reference price can be determined based on multiple sources.

Here's a list of sources from a guide for medical device procurement:

• Manufacturer quotes: The primary sources for ex-works (transport and shipping costs paid by the buyer and not bundled with the price of the device) prices for medical devices are manufacturer quotes and published lists of ex-factory prices. Procurement teams across states, districts, or counties within a country can be called upon to assist in obtaining these manufacturer quotes.
• Wholesaler or retailer prices: If there are no manufacturer quotes available for a medical device, the wholesale or retail prices may be used by removing mark-ups. For ERP (external reference pricing), the mark-ups and taxes in each reference country need to be calculated and subtracted to determine the true ex-works reference pricing.
• Past purchase data: IRP (internal reference pricing) may make use of past purchase data for devices, but care must be taken to compare similar costs. The risk in using past purchase data if the previous prices were not negotiated or poorly negotiated is the perpetuation of unsustainable prices for the future.
• Price-sharing alliances, international databases: A price-sharing alliance is a collaborative approach to gathering ex-works prices from different countries for comparison with the true negotiated prices in those countries. These alliances usually share databases of medicines, diagnostics, or medical device prices that can be accessed by each of the participating countries, and may align with economic alliances or cooperative arrangements across geographies [...]. They can be used to encourage transparency at low costs of operation and promote regional cooperation for health technology supply chains.

[yolile]

More context from Chile (although it is still TBD if they are willing to publish this information)

In Chile, they open a separate process (before the actual process is created) that they call Request for Information, that is, they ask potential suppliers in a market, and it is like market research (how to buy, the price is seasonal, would you be willing to offer under X conditions, etc.). Example. In this case, they are disclosing the information about the market consultation as structured data, but the response from the suppliers can vary (see the attached PDF in the last response in the example). The structured information about the responses is the name of the person who submitted an answer, the company name, and a description.

The market consultation process and the resulting contracting process are not currently linked (but sometimes, the result is added as a document as part of the contracting process, as in Paraguay, but I couldn't find an example). They may want to start linking the market consultation process and the actual process with their new procurement law.

[jpmckinney]

Chile sounds more like a typical market consultation – where, as you note, we mostly are only able to model this as documents.

[yolile]

Note that we will have a "marketEngagementNotice" document type as part of OCDS 1.2 https://github.com/open-contracting/standard/pull/1453