GeM Samvaad takes off in Four States

Voice of Customer Initiative for making improvements in the portal

A national outreach Programme, GeM Samvaad, was launched on 17^th December 2019 to reach out to stakeholders across the country and also local sellers in order to facilitate on-boarding of local sellers on the marketplace while catering to specific requirements and procurement needs of buyers.

The outreach programme began from 19^th December 2019 and during the launch week the States of Karnataka, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are being covered. The outreach programme will be on till 17^th February 2020 and will cover all the States and UTs.

GeM senior officers including CEO are steering the programs. They are also interacting with Buyers and Sellers attending the events. Arrangements for the outreach programmes including logistics are made by the respective State Governments. The target is to reach out to all stakeholders and learn from their experiences on their usage of GeM portal. Through this outreach programme, GeM expects to make the actual users aware about the new features and functionalities of the portal and collect feedback, which is the first step towards GeM’s ‘Voice of Customer’ initiative.

State Departments and Organizations and Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) have been using GeM for their buying needs. Sellers from the States are also benefitting through the access to national Public Procurement market using the portal. Through GeM Samvaad the marketplace is looking forward to receiving feedback from users which shall be used for making improvements and advancements in the system.

GeM has more than 15 lakh products and around 20,000 services, more than 3 lakh registered sellers and service providers and more than 40,000 Government buyer organizations. In its short journey of three years, GeM has processed more than 28 lakh orders worth ₹ 40,000 crores in Gross Merchandise Value out of which 50% has been transacted by MSMEs.

Public procurement outreach drives seller onboarding and feedback-led enhancements to the national government e-marketplace platform. A national outreach initiative for the government e-marketplace was launched to facilitate onboarding of local sellers, to raise awareness of portal features, and to collect stakeholder input under a Voice of Customer mechanism. Senior GeM officers engage with buyers and sellers while State Governments arrange logistics; the programme is staged across States and Union Territories with the operational aim of using user feedback to inform portal improvements and broaden participation by State Departments, Public Sector Enterprises and MSMEs.