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 The
City of San Jose is making it easier for businesses to sell products and services
to the City. While generally targetted at small businesses, many of the City's
improvements will be useful to companies of all sizes.
The Small Business Opportunity Program (SBOP) is increasing business access
to City procurement opportunities through increased outreach and better information
exchange; lowering barriers to competition through improvements to the City's
processes; and identifying effective program elements by tracking City performance.
And now, with the expansion of the City's local/small
preference, the field is that much more even.
The City holds quarterly outreach events to help businesses better understand
City procedures, and supplements ad-hoc stakeholder discussions with a large
annual roundtable to explore potential program improvements. Other outreach
efforts include a quarterly newsletter,
increasing departmental use of both on-line posting and e-mail notification
to inform potential vendors of open bids and contracting opportunities and
ongoing efforts to create new avenues of communication to reach businesses
that may not be aware of opportunities with the City.
While generally invisible to our clients, the City is working to make process
improvements to make it easier for companies to participate and eliminate
needless bureaucratic delays and oversight. A key partner in this ongoing
evaluation is the Small
Business Development Commission which is appointed by Council for this
purpose. Some examples of process improvements include: the purchase of umbrella
type insurance for specific construction projects to lower costs to small
construction companies, lower loan interest rates on City loan programs, and
real-time access to vendor information for City buyers of general goods and
services.
The City is also developing new performance measurements to show how many
companies, particularly small and local ones, are doing business with the
City of San Jose. This will help evaluate overall outreach and program utilization
and success.
To find out more about the Small Business Opportunity Program,
please call 408.535.8181 or to start finding out about the
competitive opportunities right away:
General Services and Goods Purchasing (General Services Dept.)
408.535.7018
website: www.sanjoseca.gov/purchasing
Professional Services Contracts - Contact Individual Departments
408.535.3500
website: www.sanjoseca.gov/depts.html
Construction Contracts (Public Works Dept.) 408.535.8471
website: https://cpms.sanjoseca.gov/pub/BidHotline/
Redevelopment Agency 408.535.8500
website: www.sjredevelopment.org
The San Jose City Council approved the Small Business Opportunity Program
in January 2003 after soliciting public input and researching programs elsewhere
in the state. City Council memorandums
are available with specific details.
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