REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (EOI)

IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) SYSTEM AT SMART AFRICA SECRETARIAT

A. SMART AFRICA BACKGROUND 

The Smart Africa Alliance is a partnership among African countries adhering to the Smart Africa Manifesto (herein after referred to as “the Manifesto”), the African Union (AU Commission, AUDA, specialized institutions and Regional Economic Communities), the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Bank, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the Private Sector, Academic and Research Institutions.

The Smart Africa Alliance (or Smart Africa) is a bold and innovative commitment from African Heads of State and Government to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent, ushering Africa into a knowledge economy through the usage of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). 

On 30th-31st January 2014, the Smart Africa Manifesto was endorsed by all Heads of State and Government of the African Union at the 22nd Ordinary Session of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa. This development places the Manifesto at the heart of the ICT agenda in Africa beyond just the 7 original signatories at the Summit to all African countries. The Smart Africa Alliance has since grown to include 36 African countries that represent over one billion people. 

The Smart Africa Manifesto aims to put ICT at the center of the continental and national socio-economic development of Member States. This means increasing access to ICT solutions, improving accountability, efficiency, and openness through ICT, promoting the introduction of advanced technologies in telecommunication, strengthening the private sector, leveraging ICT to promote sustainable development. 

The Smart Africa Alliance is a multilateral organization and serves as the framework for implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Manifesto, designed to make it actionable. The Smart Africa Alliance is a not-for-profit organization. 

The organization develops continent-wide goals and milestones as well as best practices to guide the implementation of the Smart Africa Initiative. In light of the above, each adhering country develops and implements flagship projects with clear targets and milestones. These need to be strongly aligned to the Smart Africa Alliance principles. The Alliance provides technical support to countries in the development and implementation of the flagship projects. The organization also assists governments to the extent possible to mobilize funding from development partners and the Private Sector in order to implement their flagship projects. 

Visit https://smartafrica.org/ for more information about Smart Africa. 

B. SCOPE OF WORK 

The Smart Africa Secretariat invites competent companies to express their interest in providing services for the Implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP) at Smart Africa Secretariat.  The ERP Platform and system must be able to serve daily user access and operations from at least 50 users to the ERP system internally with authorized levels of access. 

The scope of services will include:

1. Set up, Customization and deployment of the ERP system
2. Training users and administrators
3. Transfer of Data from the existing system to the ERP
4. Provision of post sale support and maintenance

C. ERP SYSTEM NEEDS FOR OPERATIONS WORK PROCESSES 

In general, the ERP must have the following functionalities/Features:

• User Rights Management and Access Control for the authorized staff to administer and set for proper user roles/permission to allow specific users to access specific ERP Operations, data, request approval and user profiles
• An automated workflow for the business process Lifecyle, allowing specified/respective users for review, editing and approval of staff requests
• Tract the process flow to respective users of their activities and their authorization including Access, Operations and Approval logs to enable better control and monitoring of audit trail of activities performed in the system 

The ERP System is expected to integrate the following operations work processes and companies may express their interest in some or all lots. And the minimum features and functionalities on each lot is specified below: 

Lot 1. Integrated Financial Reporting and Budget Management Tool 

Lot 2. Human Resource Management Tool 

Lot 3. e-Procurement, Purchasing and Logistics process management system

Lot 4. Project Management 

NOTE: Options for ERP Software Products that integrating two (2) or more Areas of Operations Work Processes and allowing integration with other applications are highly encouraged. 

D. REQUIRED SUBMISSIONS FOR BIDDERS’ EOI 

Interested bidders must provide the following information: 

1. Company’s Details: 

1. Legal Name of Firm/Organization and place of Registration
2. Company’s Address Details: Physical Address, Tel Number and E-mail
3. Company’s Background, Specializations and Experience profiles
4. Main Contact Person: Names, Tel Number and E-mail
5. Alternative Contact Person: Names, Tel Number, and email 

2. ERP software being proposed 

1. Name of ERP software
2. One or different ERP software product(s) being proposed in response to each lot and its/their key capabilities, functionalities, and features.
3. Implementation schedule 

3. Previous Experience 

a. List of at least 5 previous similar/relevant assignments completed in the last 3 years for reference check with the following:

b. Indicate mechanisms of users and administrator training

c. Indicate mechanisms of post-sale support

d. Experience profile as well as professional and academic qualifications deployed in each assignments of key staff’s deployed on each previous assignment

e. Indicate whether or not joint ventures were constituted where applicable, indicate the names and roles of the joint venture

f. Provide/ Add Any other valuable information for the purposes of demonstrating the bidder’s experience in provision of ERP software products, key staff’s experience and availability, etc. 

E. DEMO PRESENTATIONS 

Top ranked bidders shortlisted bidders shall be notified and invited to present a demo of their ERP software product(s) before confirming the shortlist for the Request for Proposals (RFP) stage. 

F. SUBMISSION OF EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST AND ENQUIRIES 

Interested companies must submit their Expressions of interest (EOI) and accompanying required submission documents by email to procurement@smartafrica.org by 26^th January 2024 at 17:00 ( Kigali time GMT+2) with mention “EOI – IMPLEMENTATION OF AN ENTERPRISE RESOURCE  PLANNING (ERP) SYSTEM AT SMART AFRICA SECRETARIAT”. 

Bidders may obtain further information by sending their inquiries’ email to tenderenquiries@smartafrica.org up to 5 working days prior to the deadline. 

G. RIGHTS RESERVED 

This EOI does not obligate the Smart Africa Secretariat (SAS) to complete this EOI process and subsequent stages. SAS reserves the right to cancel this EOI process at any time. SAS reserves the right to amend any segment of the EOI at any time. SAS also reserves the right to remove one or more of the services from consideration for this EOI should the evaluation show that it is in SAS’s best interest to do so. 

H. ANTI-CORRUPTION PRINCIPLES 

Smart Africa is committed to preventing and not tolerating any act of corruption and other malpractices and expects that all bidders will adhere to the same ethical principles.

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