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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.

Do you feel as if you can't believe your eyes? That's only to be expected, because right now you're looking at this year's eBF programme :-) Thanks to all those who will speak, join in the discussions or take part in any way. We are all part of an intricate mosaic that put together makes a spectacular whole. Let's do it! We look forward to seeing you all :-)

A relationship with a supplier is often like a partnership or even a marriage. There isn’t always a cloudless sky and sometimes there is a storm on the horizon which can build to a crisis needing to be resolved in some way, or at least ironed out. To find out how to maintain good supplier relationships in procurement and to share her valuable experience we have invited Petra Vrbová, who will be joined by a further trio of experts: Róbert Obmaščík, Magdaléna Slámová and Monika Weiss.

Karel Otýs has a lengthy wealth of experience as a procurement manager. He has decided to take advantage of this and pass on his professional know-how to his followers. In Wednesday’s programme he will lead the Buyers & Procurement Teams block, where he will be joined by Martin Růžička and Ctirad Fischer discussing today’s ideal buyer and whether human resources are really finding the right people for procurement teams. Completing the line-up is Vojta Klézl, who has conducted extensive research on this subject. Together, they should come up with recommendations on how to develop a modern buyer and how to strengthen their role within the company.

Our exhibition space is starting to be filled up with some interesting pieces of art from you. For example, Angus McIntosh has sent us this photograph of a concrete ceiling at Bonn airport, whose rich shades strike him as redeeming somewhat a generally ugly and badly-designed place. We look forward to hearing more stories from anyone who has at least a little artistic soul. :)

This year's eBF conference will be no exception, and will be held under the auspices of the Mayor of Ostrava. We greatly appreciate the support of Mayor Tomas Macura and our home city, which itself supports the idea of the e-enabling of public procurement. This year Mr Tomáš Kotyza, the Director of the Moravian-Silesian Regional Authority, has also added his patronage. We thank him for his support.

Jaroslav Lexa, who is seen by many as a respected authority on public procurement, is running for the Council of the Office for Public Procurement. Jarek spends a lot of time studying and analyzing European judgments, and keeps his finger on the pulse of trends in public procurement, and in many cases develops and improves them. He fights not only for transparency in procurement, but also for efficiency and logic. We're crossing our fingers! At eBF Jarek will share his experience along with Daša Paláková on Dynamic Procurement Systems and Framework Agreements and along with Mário Biňas will present revolutionary guidelines on how to apply methods from corporate procurement practice in public procurement in the case of investment tenders.

Relationships with internal clients are often very complicated. They could be compared with an Argentine tango where the experienced buyer must know all the complicated dance figures, steps and turns to be able to come out of this relationship with his head held high. Monika Weiss, the Head of Procurement at British American Tobacco for Central Europe, is coming to share her solution for elegantly dealing with internal clients with her years of experience in purchasing and supply chain management.