Paper issues

Although I would not question any of the facts and figures quoted and the subsequent findings of the survey and the article as a whole, I would suggest there are further fundamental aspects to be addressed that might ease the transition between the different modes of tender procurement.

The title is misleading in that Phil suggests the pen is still mightier, when the fact is that we are all generating our documentation electronically and are deciding that the most acceptable mode of issuing it is on paper.

We have all heard that people are “too busy and have not got time to play these games”, “we have always done it this way so why change” or “have not had any training in this”, and these excuses have generally maintained the status quo.

If a professional practice has a system that guarantees the quality of content, reproduction and distribution in hard copy then very little more is required to reproduce in a different mode. Unfortunately, the coherence of output suffers when the electronic documents are presented as a long list of indistinguishable file names.

Those who have tried e-tendering whether by e-mail, extranet, enterprise portals or collaborative websites, and have received this type of tender documentation use this experience as a reason why e-tendering is not working.

QS consultants must ensure their business systems have an e-business ethos so that they can produce a secure quality product that the recipients can easily read, navigate around and understand, even though they may not be computer literate.

Once this quality of product is common the benefits of issuing documentation electronically will come to the fore.

Steve Banks, knowledge and documentation manager, MDA Consulting