EATTA - East African Tea Trade Association

EOI/IT-EATTA/01/2010

THE EAST AFRICAN TEA TRADE ASSOCIATION

Expression of Interest

For: Design, Development, Implementation and Commissioning of Electronic Auction system

Ref. EOI/IT-EATTA/01/2010

Date September 2010

Download copy of EOI

Background of EATTA

The East African Tea Trade Association (EATTA) is an association body established in 1957 to market tea to the rest of the world through the Mombasa Tea Auction, facilitate effective access to market and other relevant industry information, and promote industry interests rough proactive lobbying and advocacy measures. EATTA has been undergoing major strategic change in all areas including its Business Processes and Service Delivery.

EATTA has conducted a Feasibility study to guide its Business Process Re-engineering process.

EATTA is now looking for partners to implement a Distributed system to support it’s Reengineering process to E-auction.

Objective

EATTA wants to engage a competent IT vendor/ firms with experience in turn-key solutions towards the development and installation of a distributed IT solution with the view to automate the Tea trading procedures with special interest in E-auction.

The software system should enable member of the tea trade to conduct auctions online, buy/sell tea products on retail, offer payment settlement, generate statistical reports,

A company can present a proposal for either:

i. Software solution–Distributed system available via web with the following components:

a. Enterprise database solution preferably Oracle database

b. E-auction module

c. E-commerce platform

d. Banking module for settlement & disbursement

ii. Hardware and Infrastructure solution

a. Data centre with off-shore backup capabilities

iii. Both software and hardware & infrastructure solution

All of the above solution will be as an outsourced service by EATTA and a firm can present aproposal to carry out the project either on its own or in conjunction with her subsidiaries or partners.

EOI SUBMISSION & EVALUATION

The bidders are required to submit their EoIs in the following indicative format:

General Organization Capacity

Organization legally established
Organization registered / accredited in Kenya or in any other state
Appropriateness of Organizations Mandate and/or Mission
Organization’s oversight / governance structures
Current staff that are permanent and with relevant experience base to support the
implementation of the IT project (programming, monitoring, reporting, finance,procurement, logistics, etc.)
Outsourced personnel for specific assignments and their roles
Proposed partnership arrangements (i.e. partnerships with local service providers where need be)

Technical Capacity

Demonstrated technical capacity of the organization
Availability of in-house technical skills
Demonstrated ability to achieve results
Demonstrate Business Continuity plans
Demonstrate Disaster Recovery structures in place

Experience of Organization in IT turn-key Solutions

Demonstrate technical capacity to successfully manage the project, based on experience on similar projects
Demonstrate experience on projects of similar scope and scale.
Demonstrate experience or understanding of auction systems
The EOIs will be evaluated based on the information provided and shortlisted firms will be issued with Request for Proposals (RFP)

Reputable Consultants are invited to express interest for Consultancy service and installation of the system. Interested firms MUST provide any relevant information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services through submittal of (Profiles, description of similar assignments, experience in similar conditions, availability of appropriate skills among staff,

Submission of EOIs

Interested vendors should submit their EOI document on or before 24th September, 2010 by

5.00 pm. The EOI document should be addressed to:

The Managing Director,

East African Tea Trade Association,

P. O. Box 85174 80100,

Mombasa

Download copy of EOI

Tea Quality & Processing Training - Kericho, 14-16 October 2010

East African Tea Trade Association organized a Tea Quality & Processing Workshop on the 14th and 16th October, 2010 in Kericho at the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya.

The workshop was officially opened by the Chairman of the Board of Directors of EATTA - Mr. Nelson Orgut. The participants had been drawn from Kenya, Rwanda, Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. The facilitator of this training was be Prof. Martin Obanda a renowned Tea scientist with the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya.

WTCEX - Webinar

The world Tea & Coffee ExchangeSM in conjunction with EATTA conducted a webinar on a practical demostration of an e-auction on Wednesday 21st July 2010. The webinar was conducted with presenters in differents states in America between 4.00 P.M - 6.30 P.M East African Time.

Objectives:

To showcase the functions of e-auction through a practical session where members participate in real-time

Participants: EATTA Members, although the most represented were buyers, brokers and warehousemen.

Presenters: Mike Maigua, Charity and the team from WTCEX in USA

Areas covered

The webinar presentation covered the following areas:-

Advantages of e-auction
WTCEX understanding of the EATTA and tea industry
Electronic payment
Trading platform
Retail market segment for value added products
Practical participation
Questions and answers

Members had a chance to try out practically buying teas on an online system, the bidding was alot of fun as participants tried to outbid the other buyers. Members then had a chance to ask the presenters their questions and got clarifications on different functions of the WTCEX system.

Though there were some teething challenges at the start of the webinar, the event was a success and members have been requesting for another presentation as they get to understand how online systems work.

This is a first presentation cum workshop in a series of workshops that will be held by EATTA as part of the Business Re-engineering process towards full automation of the auction process.

To try out the WTCEX system kinldy log on www.wtcex.com and go to trading platform, you will need to register either as a buyer, seller or warehouse for demo purposes. Use your mobile number so that you can get notifications when you bid or complete a transcation.

Food Safety Management Training

FSMS - ISO 22000 Awareness / Internal auditor training - July 2010

EATTA in Conjunction with SGS Kenya conducted a three (3) day training on Food safety Management (FSM) ISO-22000 awareness and internal auditor training. The training targeted members in the tea warehouses.

A record 30 participants attended the the training for the three days. Workshop participants were drawn from different warehouses within the tea trade. This marks a major milestone in the quest to have EATTA members achieve ISO certification standards.