Public Procurement and Property

Celebrating an eCommerce milestone!

March 25, 2022 by Niamh Duncan No Comments | Category Best practice, Central Government Procurement Shared Services, p2p, PECOS

Today (25 March 2022) we’re delighted to share a short video celebrating the 20^th anniversary of PECOS (Professional Electronic Commerce Online System)!

PECOS is our online purchase to pay (P2P) system, and is part of our eCommerce shared service. The service our e-Commerce team provide is world-leading, and the development of PECOS since 2002 exemplifies this.

The system is provided by Elcom and is available to all Scottish public sector bodies including central and local government, NHS Boards, universities and colleges. PECOS P2P provides the ability to automate purchase to pay processes from purchase orders through to the payment of invoices. By using the system, public bodies are able to reduce the paperwork and inefficiencies associated with paper processing of purchase orders, goods receipts, invoices and returns.

We spoke to ELCOM and some of our PECOS users and asked them to reflect on the vital service:

“On the 25th of March 2002, Lord (Jack) McConnell (First Minister of Scotland 2001-07) placed the first PECOS purchase order in Scotland. Today, twenty years later, ELCOM is proud to witness that the Scottish Government’s eCommerce shared service is internationally acclaimed as the world’s most successful eProcurement service, with PECOS P2P being a core component of that service. At ELCOM, we are committed to make eProcurement smarter, more connected, and transparent. Over the last 20 years, ELCOM product offering have grown into a modular end-to-end supply chain solution. We are continuously working on further innovations in the form of data analytics, supplier services, supply chain funding, and the practical application of artificial intelligence. We are certain that these innovations will deliver even more value for the Scottish Government, the Scottish taxpayer, and the wider Scottish economy. Our strategic partnership with the Scottish Government is stronger than ever.” William Lock, ELCOM Chairman & CEO

“PECOS has been transformational for NHS Scotland creating efficiency and service improvement allowing our services to work together in a way impossible before.  Congratulations on its 20 Year Anniversary!” Gordon Beattie, Director of National Procurement NHS NSS

“Congratulations to the eCommerce team on the 20^th anniversary of PECOS.  It’s testament to the SPPD’s commitment to the product set, it’s ongoing development and improvement that it has achieved this longevity. The Scottish Prison Service has embraced various aspects of eCommerce but our lack of end to electronic P2P capability has been a gap we have been seeking to fill for some time.  We are clearly “late adopters” here. However, with the excellent support of the  eCommerce shared service team we have recently gone live with our first PECOS users. One of the benefits of later adoption is that we are able to take advantage of the advances in content management and reporting that PECOS now provides and in due course to enable e-invoicing across all SPS sites. As our project is progressed, the benefits of P2P to our service have been increasingly clear. It will transform the way we manage transactional procurement and, over time, PECOS will provide SPS with a very detailed understanding of our external expenditure and to assist us to increase the value for money derived from this.” Andrew Door, Head of Procurement Scottish Prison Service.

For further information on public procurement in Scotland please visit www.gov.scot/procurement

Please email enquiries to scottishprocurement@gov.scot

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Tags: 20th anniversary, commercial shared services, eCommerce, open and connected, p2p, pecos

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