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After the contributions on eProcurement in Europe by Ivo Locatelli, a href="http://ebizforum.com/about-the-presenters/timo-rantanen">Timo Rantanen and a href="http://ebizforum.com/about-the-presenters/steve-robinson">Steve Robinson, we could certainly be sure of one thing. Mandatory digitalisation of public procurement is coming to all EU countries by October 2018 and every member is at a different stage of readiness.

The British are taking everything into account, the Dutch are just about ready, the Finns have taken a big step and the Slovaks are dealing with the regulations too strictly. How it will be going in a year is yet to be seen. However, the space for e-solutions is huge. Indeed, only 17% of organisations in the Czech Republic are reported to be using it.

Let’s take a look at this year’s facts and figures. 444 attendees have joined us in Ostrava, which is 10% more than last year.

The most numerous are Czechs (208), followed by Slovaks (176), Poles (35) and the rest being other Europeans. There are representatives from 16 government ministries. The 5 stages are hosting 80 speakers presenting around 100 topics.

Ratio of private sector: public sector is 58:42, indicating an increase in interest from the private sector.

PS: Everybody makes mistakes from time to time, but it’s good if you know how to avoid them.

Tomas Kotyz, Director of the Moravian-Silesian Regional Authority, posed the question during the FSA ceremony of whether, as well as a journal, we should also publish an eBF soundtrack, due to the great musical performances of the participants.

This is certainly a thought-provoking idea. Because our festival is growing, we can tentatively promise that next year, on November 7th to 9th 2018, two more stages will be added to eBF, the Practical Arena will be enlarged and it will be possible to make reservations.

The highlight of the FSA prize-giving ceremony was the award of the Grand Prix for outstanding achievement in the field of procurement that Milan Kaplan bestowed on that legend of procurement management and our very special guest, Dr Peter Kraljič.

"It is a great surprise for me and also a great honour to receive this award," said the author of the famous Kraljic Matrix, which has been and sill is the cornerstone of procurement since its publication in 1983,

The highlight of the first day was the announcement of the 7th annual Fair Sourcing Awards (FSA), in which professionals are rewarded for the original use of digial procurement solutions. "We are surfing the right wave, which is confirmed by entries from nine countries, including Mexico, Ukraine and Portugal," said the FSA organizer Marcela Turčanová about the global reach of the competition.

And who won? In the Start category, the University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice was awarded first prize, second was PBS Velká Bíteš and third SBD Krušnohor.

The Trend category was won by innogy CR, second was the City of Eindhoven and third Erste Group Procurement.

The Master category was taken by the ProZorro Team from Ukraine, second was the Mexican Social Security Institute and third was Pavel Hrnčíř of Equa Bank.

Many professional conferences just rely on a top-class programme to succeed. However, at eBF we have a festival whose magic lies in the fact along with the excellent quality of the presentations we also do what we like to do in our free time.

As the first afternoon turned into evening, it was a beautiful change. Those who had earlier been delivering their procurement expertise picked up musical instruments and played and sang for their colleagues, friends and acquaintances just for the joy of it. What else? We are at a festival after all!

Maybe we can all agree that lemons are sour. However, they may taste even sourer if you pay for a kilo and end up only eating half. Have you ever tried to buy from a supplier a kilo of pure lemon without the peel so you’re not paying for the waste?

If so, you probably know the precise specifications of what you’re buying. Michal Kristiňák from Amazon was speaking about this on the main stage. According to him, you have to know clearly what you want to buy, explore the market, analyse it critically, know the risks, involve the suppliers and, above all, be active!

Robotics, Automation, Procurement 4.0; these are concepts that shape almost the whole procurement world. However, are they the future, or already with us? As one of the collection of insights from our festival, we were convinced by Jiří Šmela from Siemens that both are true.

Robots in the form of a variety of software that read emails, download data or fill out web-forms are already with us. They save hundreds of thousands of hours of work per year in large corporations. Smarter artificial intelligence, however, remains the domain of IT industry.

You need to choose a supplier and negotiate with them yourself. This will be the case for many years to come, as you will see in many of the presentations to come. eBF is running on full!

The Congress Hall at the Imperial Hotel in Ostrava was the venue for he start of eBF at nine on Wednesday morning, and practically everyone was there. It was indeed packed to the rafters. This year is the thirteenth anniversary, which is not a round number, but the symbolism is still strong.

"Welcome to Ostrava. I sincerely hope that you all enjoy it here and take away many good memories. And most importantly, I hope that we look forward to meeting each other again," were the words of Milan Kaplan, the festival director, who this year hardly glanced at his prepared speech.

Otherwise, everything is as always. eBF for all of us is and will be something like an extraordinary team-building exercise that we enjoy together every year.

There are many reasons why eBF in Ostrava is a procurement festival. For some, it is the number of discussion spaces, for others, the ever growing interest among participants. Yes, we are growing, but at the same time we retain what we really are: civil, human, creative, inspiring and festive.

For the third time running this was confirmed on the eve of the festival at the TOGETHER exhibition vernissage, where works of art from buyers, public procurers, the PROEBIZ team and other partners were on display.

These beautiful paintings, photographs, sculptures, metalworks and original jewellery can be admired throughout eBF in the exhibition space at Dlouhá 6. See more in our photo gallery.