The City of Long Beach has launched Long Beach Buys, a new purchasing platform and marketplace that is free for all businesses and organizations seeking to do business with the City. The new procurement software positions the City to more effectively engage with local, diverse and disadvantaged businesses and facilitates the lowering of barriers for prospective businesses to contract with the City with easy-to-use technology, a landing page and instructions available in multiple languages, and an expeditious vendor onboarding process. Long Beach Buys is part of the City’s Extreme Procurement Makeover initiative, which aims to enhance the City’s procurement process to be more efficient, results-driven, equitable and sustainable.
“We’re making it easier for all types of businesses to connect to possible opportunities with the City,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “This new portal will help diverse local businesses become City vendors and make the process easier than ever.”
New contracting opportunities with the City will be posted on Long Beach Buys webpage. Registering allows potential vendors to submit proposals to the many various opportunities with the City.
Long Beach Buys is part of a comprehensive evaluation and reform of the City’s procurement processes and includes recommendations related to the City’s Language Access Policy, the “Everyone In” Initiative, and the Framework for Racial Equity and Reconciliation. The platform’s data and reporting module provides dashboards and reporting on vendor demographics and other statistics, supporting the tracking of progress on equity goals and providing potential for greater transparency to the public on the City’s procurement activities. The contract milestone tracking and management feature also makes it easier for City staff to effectively manage contracts, which means fewer City resources spent on administrative functions and more value out of contract performance.
To ensure local businesses were aware of the development and launch of Long Beach Buys, City staff provided targeted direct outreach to more than 5,000 small businesses within the City’s business licensing database, in addition to email notifications to over 25,000 current vendors.
Long Beach Buys Informational Meetings
The City is hosting free informational meetings to help local businesses become familiar with the Long Beach Buys platform and learn how to sign up as a vendor. For additional information, businesses can visit the City’s Purchasing webpage at longbeach.gov/purchasing. Interpretations will be available in Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. Meetings are being held on Zoom at the following dates/times:
Contracting Process Informational Meetings
The City is additionally hosting free informational meetings about the City’s general contracting process. Businesses can sign up to participate at longbeach.gov/recovery. Interpretations will be available in Spanish, Khmer and Tagalog. Meetings are being held on Zoom at the following dates/times:
This effort is made possible in part by funding from the Long Beach Recovery Act, a plan to fund economic and public health initiatives for Long Beach residents, workers and businesses critically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. A portion of the funding has been allocated to support procurement innovation and improvement. Additional information about the Long Beach Recovery Act is available at longbeach.gov/recovery.
The Long Beach Buys effort aligns with the Office of Equity Race and Reconciliation Initiative: Goal 1, Strategy 7C: Create and implement policies and associated programs that help ensure City contractors, vendors, and consultants embrace and reflect the City’s diversity.