"Instead of keeping in the staff of authorized officials who, due to a small number of procurements, do not have enough experience to conduct tenders efficiently and effectively, and require money for salaries, it was possible to assign those procurements to CPOs (for example, schools, hospitals, etc.). This also true for the expenses associated with supporting purchases and for the need to hire additional staff, such as lawyers, accountants, and other employees who do not primarily focus on procurement within the organization."

According to the Regional Target Program for Maintenance of Municipal Enterprise of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council "Centralized Procurement Organization of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council" for 2020—2024, the expected result of the activity of the CPO is to reduce the burden on the tender committee and release personnel of institutions and organizations from performing functions not specific for them.

"The city has subordinate customers making 1 or 2 procurements annually and it is not economically feasible to hire an authorized official; it is much more logical to entrust CPOs with those procurements."

CPOs facilitate the work of authorized officials (ensuring procurements up to 100 thousand; AOs appeared only in January 2023, half-time) and cover personnel shortages and the need for professional procurements in open bidding.

"We contacted the CPO because the Lyceum does not have a procurement expert (100,000 or more). Since the Law changes very often, and an authorized official is not a professional buyer or lawyer, arranging and conducting procurements can be quite challenging."

According to the Regional Target Program for Maintenance of Municipal Enterprise of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council "Centralized Procurement Organization of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council" for 2020—2024, the expected result of CPO's operations is to ensure the unification of technical requirements and specifications for procured goods and services (except for routine repairs), the creation of standard technical specifications, tender documentation, procurement contracts during tenders held in the interests of customers.

"Standardization of specifications was supposed to be another important task for CPOs. It is worth mentioning that tender documentation where customers describe the required characteristics of goods is prepared for each procurement. If goods are similar, it's only logical to develop standard specifications for most common ones, for further use both by customers and CPOs in their work."

The key purposes of central procurement organizations are to make procurements professional, to save budget funds by aggregation and to monitor budget expenditures.

CPOs' final product are effective procurements (market prices and quality goods on time) Each procurement must end up with a fully implemented award. A CPO, thanks to its professionalism and experience, work with a buyer's request from the time when a need occured and helps to achieve an effective procurement (good price, received goods). This is also facilitated by the fact that during aggregation, CPOs create more interesting proposals for bidders thus ensuring both competition and savings."

According to the Regional TargetProgram for Maintenance of Municipal Enterprise of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council "Centralized Procurement Organization of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council" for 2020—2024, the expected result of CPO's operations is saving of budget funds.

"Perfect CPOs (agencies) arrange procurements with decent (competitive and market) prices."

"CPO's potential for aggregation is very attractive because it can get you better prices."

"Instead of keeping in the staff of authorized officials who, due to a small number of procurements, do not have enough experience to conduct tenders efficiently and effectively, and require money for salaries, it would be possible to assign those procurements to CPOs (for example, schools, hospitals, etc.). This is also true for the expenses associated with supporting purchases and for the need to hire additional staff, such as lawyers, accountants, and other employees who do not primarily focus on procurement within the organization. They could fully outsource procurements to CPOs, instead of keeping a staff of professional buyers."

"One of CPO's today's core tasks is to improve the professional level of authorized officials of customers and CPOs (training, webinars, writing articles and recommendations)."

According to the Regional Target Program for Maintenance of Municipal Enterprise of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council "Centralized Procurement Organization of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast Council" for 2020—2024, the expected result of CPO's operations is advisory, informational, and legal support to customers.

"In the future, we plan to develop the professional level of customers by arranging training courses for authorized officials."

"The CPO consults the Lyceum on all controversial procurement issues (drawing up the ToR and contracts, communication with the State Audit Service, and dealing with bidders' requirements). The Lyceum does not have a lawyer, so the help is very valuable (in particular, they help to coordinate contracts, explain the provisions of legislation, advise, etc.)."

"As the part of restoration, there should be professionals who will cover the state's need for fast and efficient procurements. We definitely need field CPOs to cover outstanding and complex directions."

"Strategic procurements are those having certain strategic effects on customers' operations. For example, they may be big-check procurements or those directly affecting a buyer's ability to function; complex procurement items, high value or high customer's need in a respective item, etc. They require deep involvement and processing, therefore highly professional and responsible buyer. According to a new strategy, strategic procurements shall be entrusted to agencies ensuring the whole procurement cycle, starting from the occurrence of a need. CPOs should become those agencies and be responsible not only for tenders but for the whole procurement process, and have appropriate influence at every stage."

"Specialized CPOs, such as SE "Medical Procurement" procuring specific and complex categories of goods, are promising. The same applies, for example, to military procurements because their goods are specific and hard to buy in the condition of high need that must be covered as soon as possible."

Now the prevailing idea in this working group under the Ministry of Economy is that everything that is well standardized should be entrusted to CPOs and Prozorro Market. The working group is planning to initiate a pilot with Prozorro Market as a priority procurement method for certain most standard categories.

"Transactional purchases involve the acquisition of items that are procured on a routine basis, in small quantities, readily subject to standardization, and have a minimal impact on customers' operational capabilities. Transactional purchases must be made through Prozorro Market which will be filled by CPOs."

"It would be convenient to have CPOs as a full-cycle procurement hub. That is, CPOs would procure all necessary goods on their behalf and store them, and customers would come to them to get necessary goods quickly, with no time wasted on procurements, working with vendors, logistics, etc. For example, CPOs could fully take over procurements for budget organizations of top 50 goods (electricity, paper, etc.), make procurements on their behalf, and then deliver such goods to end users/customers."

"CPOs are really helpful in terms of reduction of burden on the Department as a procuring entity. The Department entrust CPOs with simple standard procurements and receives more time and resources to handle more complicated procurements.

"The City Council has its own institutions (schools, etc.) with incompetent authorized officials who never follow legal amendments, so it is very convenient when CPOs help to make procurements professionally. customers develop plans and ToRs, give them to CPOs, and then just wait for contracts to be signed. In addition, CPOs keep themselves updated and follow all amendments in the Law."

"I would like to outsource all procurements of such goods as paper, office suppliers, IT equipment, furniture, medicines, school uniforms, and periodicals to CPOs. That would give customers time to handle more complex procurements such as technical supervision, emergency, restoration, or design operations, etc. In general, customers do not see the problem in entrusting CPOs with any procurements, including works and services, since CPOs are meant to make customers' operations smoother and less complicated."

"One of the tasks of CPOs is to attain self-sufficiency by delivering paid services to customers; however, there is currently no catalog of such services in place."

"Our future plans aim to encourage the voluntary assignment of procurements to CPOs, rather than solely relying on internal orders (there is currently no specific target set for the number of such procurements)."