Paperless, Efficient, and Transparent

Town of Palm Beach, FL

Dean Mealy and Duke Basha, the Purchasing Manager and Assistant Purchasing Manager for The Town of Palm Beach, FL attended the 2018 NIGP Annual Forum in Nashville with the hopes of finding a Contract Management Software. The goal for them was to find a solution to help manage the Town’s current paper contracts and find a way to digitalize their procurement process.

They proceeded by visiting every e-Procurement and Contract Management software provider at the conference. “We went from table to table hoping to find a solution for the town, and that’s where we met Mercell”, said Dean Mealy, CPPO. “When Mercell showed us the value of not only digitalizing our contracting process, but eliminating paper from our entire procurement process, we were certainly interested”.

After the conference, the town invited Mercell for a full software demonstration in front of the procurement staff and IT. “The demonstration blew us away. We had no idea many of the functionalities included in this software even existed at the time”, said Mealy. The town made sure to do its due diligence and held demonstrations from other vendors as well, however in the end they chose Mercell.

Since going live in September of 2018, Palm Beach has realized great success with the platform, both internally and from its supplier community. We have conducted a testimonial video with the town’s purchasing staff where they describe some of the great benefits they have realized with the software thus far:

“We have increased participation from not only local vendors, but to statewide and even national vendors. We see an increase of vendors participating in our solicitations by at least 150%” says Duke Basha, who has been the town’s super user of the software since go-live. As Eric Shibley, one of the Town’s Buyers mentions in the video, vendors call and praise the software for allowing them to submit their offers and proposals so easily.

Not only has the software given the town efficiency gains and increased supplier participation, but it has also made the town greener. As Natalie Downer, Junior Buyer, mentions in the video, the software has allowed the town to eliminate paper from its purchasing process. This helps the town meet its goal of leaving a greener footprint. As published on Palm Beach’s Website:

“The Town will no longer accept paper responses to solicitations which is part of our goal to leave a greener footprint. The process is 100% electronic.

We are confident this new system will benefit our Suppliers and Proposers in both time and cost savings to respond to Town solicitations. No more hand delivery of bid responses; no more wondering if FedX or UPS will get the documents delivered on-time. Responses will now be done from the comfort of our vendor’s offices.

The benefits to the Town are many: This is a fully integrated system from project planning all the way through contract award and management. Vendors are required to register with the Mercell’s system for FREE.”

"We have increased participation from not only local vendors, but to statewide and even national vendors. We see an increase of vendors participating in our solicitations by at least 150%" - Duke Basha, Assistant Purchasing Manager

To visit Palm Beach’s solution powered by Mercell, click here.