Innovative Development of the Contract System: Transition to Smart Procurement

Abstract

Digital transformation affects almost all areas of government management, including public procurement. World experience shows that the procurement sector acts as a driver of digital transformation of corporations. According to the authors, digitalization of public procurement should not be an end in itself, a balanced approach is needed to make the contract system more open, accountable to citizens, convenient for business, cost-effective and anti-corruption. Currently, there have been significant changes in the public procurement system in the direction of its electronicization, electronic platforms, electronic stores for small purchases have appeared, all competitive procurement methods have switched to electronic format. The next stage in the development of the contract system is digitalization due to the transition to smart technologies, including blockchain, smart contracts, cloud services, artificial intelligence, bigdata. The purpose of this article is to show how digital technologies, including those successfully used in corporate procurement, will help move to state “procurement 4.0” and lead to the formation of an intellectual contract system, including eliminating the influence of the subjective “human” factor as much as possible, by transferring the collateral function making managerial decisions to artificial intelligence.