New App to be informed of the latest news and press calls from the European Commission in Spanish

Did you know that the Representation of the European Commission in Spain launched an app in collaboration with Euroalert? You can now download for iPhone and Android a mobile app where you will be able to will find the latest European news. The app lets you see the news of the European Commission, European events taking place in Spain as well as the press calls for journalists interested in covering European affairs.

In addition to this app, you can also add this information to your personalized iGoogle gadget. With the app and the gadget, the European Commission intends to make available its activities in Spain to the public and provide to Spanish citizens a quick and easy access to European information. Francisco Fonseca, head of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain highlighted at the moment of the launching last November, that in this way, citizens will get European information without having to actively search through the new uses that are being imposed. 

Euroalert team is very proud to have participated as a developer on this project. Also today we express our satisfaction with the number of downloads that the application is having on both iPhone and Android because it means what is useful for citizens.

As you know applications can be downloaded for free from the App Store and Google Play Market and from the website of the Representation of the European Commission in Spain and of course, from the Euroalert online store. Your comments, tweets, +1' s, likes, reviews and ratings to the app will help us to further improve its implementation, making it more useful for you all.

9 of May: Celebrate the Europe Day with Euroalert

Since Robert Schuman delivered his famous 'Schuman Declaration' on 9th of May 1950, Europeans celebrated that day the Europe Day. This statement officially has started what is today known as the European Union, but back then it started the European Coal and Steel Community. 

Although 9th of May is not a national holiday in any of the 27 Member States, as you can see on the calendar that we created, Representations of the European institutions such as the Representation of the European Commission in Spain, they do celebrate that day events to promote the European spirit. Among these activities, the European Commission in Spain has made available a mobile application  for Android and iPhone, and with the collaboration of Euroalert, so as not to miss any detail of the celebrations and that also allows you to know the latest news related to the EU.

In Euroalert, most of the content is related to the European Union. You can access to the EU breaking news from our News section and select the specific topic that interests you. You can also install a widget on your website with this news and customize it. On the other hand, if the information you need is related to financing and business opportunities in the EU, you can check the grants issued by the European institutions and also adapt them to your web through a widget that you can customize. Regarding the business opportunities that are published in the EU, among other competitive intelligence products, we "alert you" on the public tenders relevant to your business through our alert system 10ders Alerts. We can not forget the European legislation that is published daily in the EU Official Journal (OJEU). You can also follow it in Euroalert through our newsletters. In the coming weeks, we will announce important developments in our products competitive intelligence in public tenders that surely will be very useful for you.

This is the way that Euroalert has to celebrate the 9th of May, Europe Day with you: bringing you the European information you may need and what else you might be interested. If you want more information about any of our products you can visit our online store or contact us via e-mail or via Twitter and Facebook.

Euroalert releases and shares for free the calendar on public holidays in the whole EU in 2012

The European Union publishes every year in the EU Official Journal (OJEU) the national public holidays that take place in Member States with information provided by the countries themselves.

The calendar is published in a PDF format into the OJEU which is not as useful as it could for businesses or citizens. For example a SME that wants to expand its market to another EU country will surely need to know in advance, in a fast and simple way, the public holidays in each EU country. European citizens that organize a vacation travel within the EU would also be interested in knowing in advance if their scheduled days coincide with a public holiday. It is unlikely that in any of these cases, users would look for the information in the Official Journal.

For this reason in Euroalert, we have decided to transform this information into data that can be easily used or re-used, i.e. into an iCalendar that can be read from Google Calendar or from many other calendar applications developed for SmartPhones, tablets or computers. We'd like to thank you for your trust in our services and that's why we have released the EU Public Holiday Calendar with a license that allows you to use it completely for free.

In order to enjoy this calendar of public holidays in the EU, you only have to download it from Euroalert and, if you have any further question, you can contact us by email or via our Twitter profile and through the Euroalert Facebook page.

Euroalert.net speaks about Competitive Intelligence and Public Procurement at Bureau Veritas Business School

On February 23 we had the pleasure to take part in a webinar organized by Bureau Veritas Business School and talk about Competitive Intelligence and Public Procurement. It was a great opportunity to share with all the participants Euroalert.net experience in creating value-added Competitive Intelligence services based in public procurement especially designed for SMEs active in exportation.

Over 45 minutes we went through the current situation in European public procurement market and how Competitive Intelligence techniques can be applied in order to enhance the commercial strategies of any company. It was also the case to explain how there are many tools beyond public contracts alerts, such as lists of successful bidders, which can help companies to translate a huge amount of data into useful and manageable knowledge to be used in strategic decisions.

You can watch the video of the webinar entitled “Commercial Intelligence and Public Procurement” at Bureau Veritas Business School on-line platform (this time there is only a Spanish version). You can also have a look at the presentation we used for the session.

Commercial Intelligence and Public Procurement (Spanish version)

View more presentations from Euroalert.net

There will be similar seminars and workshops over this year, where Euroalert.net Team will deal with some of the ways to take full advantage of all the information and opportunities brought by public contract announcements. If you want to keep track of all these events, you can do it through our Twitter profile and at Euroalert.net Facebook page.

Euroalert experience at the Open Government event celebrated at the EOI

Last week, we had the opportunity to present our work as a company powered by open data, i.e. a company that uses data from public sector to create information services to companies across Europe.  As usual, we contribute with our experience to the first #RunOgov: "Open Government: Challenge and Opportunity" event held on 28 February at the "Escuela de Organización Industrial (EOI)" organized by the "Club de Innovación" and sponsored by Telefónica.

It was a pleasure to share a very interesting day with leading people in the Spanish open data community and with others who are bursting with strength and also, to help make the community more stronger -at least, a little more. Throughout the morning, we learned that, Neelie Kroes, Vice president of the European Commission answered in her blog to the campaign for a single Open Data licence in the European Union. Of course it was something very commented among the attendees, having regard that the campaign had its origin in Spain and it is a great example of Open Government.

At the event, it was also discussed very important issues as the announcement made by the Spanish government on its works in a Spanish Digital Agenda. Given Euroalert involvement in the European Digital Agenda, we look forward to it because it should mean a boost for our digital economy. Besides, it was also relevant the announcement made by the Director General of Analysis and Planning from Castilla y Leon (Spanish region), on the upcoming launch of an Open Government strategy for this region. Within this strategy, it will be launched an Open Data portal that we hope we can use it to extend the governments contracts data, that feed our international market intelligence services.

As usual, we provide you the presentation we made at the event.

Euroalert, una compañía open data

More presentations from Euroalert.

We also put at your disposal all the resources created by the “Club de la Innovation” about the event, such as the summary of the speakers presentations and the videos in the media library of the EOI (or in Youtube) since all sessions were streamed. There is also a photo gallery on Flickr and of course, you can check all what it what said at the event through Twitter at hashtag #runogov. We hope you find interesting all the material provided in order to learn more about Euroalert and the exciting world of Open Data.

Euroalert.net spends one day with SMEs and entrepreneurs at the “Salón Mi Empresa 2012”

Last February 15 we had the opportunity to spend one day at the “Salón Mi Empresa”, My Business Exhibition, an event held in Madrid for the third consecutive year. The forum brought together experts, companies and public bodies aiming to bring solutions for the issues which most concern small businesses and entrepreneurs. As a company dedicated to develop commercial intelligence tools for SMEs based on public procurement and government contracts, knowing at first hand what these kind of businesses expect and which are their needs, is something Euroalert.net is particularly interested in.

At the exhibitors area delegates had access to solutions adapted to their businesses as well as to public institutions which can help them to launch their projects and make them grow, such as the Spanish Directorate General for SME Policy, the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX), the Spanish High Council of Chambers of Commerce, or Madrid Emprende Economic Development Agency, among other organizations and associations which provide help for businesses and entrepreneurs. Besides these contact points, “Salón Mi Empresa” also consisted of 6 conference rooms, where speakers from different backgrounds addressed topics such as financial aspects for entrepreneurs and small businesses, how social media can be used to increase small businesses' performance, aspects related to franchising or issues related to SMEs internationalisation process, a field where Euroalert.net is working intensively to provide quality services.

It was an intense work day which brought us an occasion to meet companies and organizations we already had the opportunity to collaborate with, as well as a good opportunity to meet new people and greet some old friends, like those from Gestiona Radio with whom Euroalert.net was happy to collaborate a couple of months ago in their programme “Esto es Europa”, This is Europe, and who were making their programme “Primera Hora”, First Hour, at the Salón Mi Empresa.

It was also quite a rewarding experience to see how, despite current difficulties, there are still people willing to start up businesses, sharing innovative ideas and with loads of optimism to move their projects forward. For all of them, Euroalert.net will keep on improving to offer the best available information services and commercial intelligence tools such as our public contracts winners lists or our tender alerts for contracts available in any EU country.

A new review of the functioning of the Common Procurement Vocabulary CPV is on track

Although there is no mandatory frequency, a review of the Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) is made about every four years. Since the Official Journal of the EU has recently published the award of the contract for the review of the functioning of the CPV Regulation and codes, a new revision seems to be already on track. These process started back in August 2011, when the DG for the Internal Market and Services announced a contract notice to make a study on the review of the functioning of the coding currently applying to public tenders.

The Common Procurement Vocabulary published by Regulation (EC) 2195/2002 aims to provide public authorities with a common base to formulate their procurement needs and for companies to better identify business opportunities in public procurement procedures. Choosing the right codes according to the purpose of a contract notices is, indeed, one of the key elements to match both parts of the procurement process: the contracting authority and the potential bidders.

CPV codes contribute to define the object of the contract in public procurement notices, easing the purchasing process. Furthermore, this common coding system enhances the cross-border element in procurement by facilitating companies to bid for contracts in other Member states, therefore contributing to a better functioning of the EU Single Market.

The Danish company to whom the contract has been awarded will have to assess whether the current CPV coding system meets the objectives it was established for. It will also have to evaluate if these objectives are actually relevant and if they are achieved in an efficient and effective manner. The contractor will have a period of twelve months to deliver the works, while interviews, analysis, questionnaires and all the necessary evaluation processes will be performed.

Whatever the results of the study and the proposed changes to the CPV will be, Euroalert.net will be vigilant and will adapt all the services just as it was done for the 2008 CPV codes review. These commercial intelligence services based on public procurement designed for SMEs are those which allow, e.g., to track the publication of this particular tender for the review of the CPV, and to know afterwards which company has won the contract.

By the way, if you feel curious, these are the CPV codes applied to the tender for the CPV review: 79313000, 79419000, 72330000, 79330000, 72221000. Do you think they meet their objectives? If you want to know which services they describe and know a bit more about the system itself, you can always have a look at the CPV codes lists description page at Euroalert.net website.