Urban authority actively seeking unified system for public purchasing
A Nordic city is procuring a centralised procurement management system to standardise buying, improve data and support more strategic use of public funds.
A Nordic city is procuring a centralised procurement management system to standardise buying, improve data and support more strategic use of public funds.
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The City of Helsinki is moving to centralise how it manages procurement, going to market for a single information system that would give real-time visibility of public purchasing across the city and standardise practice between its internal units.
Published on 1st December 2025, the City of Helsinki’s contract notice for a new procurement management system service sets out an ambition for a comprehensive procurement management information system.
The aims are clear:
At present, many large cities run procurement through a patchwork of tools and local practices. By specifying an urban-level system, Helsinki is signalling that it wants a single view of how public money is spent on goods, services and works, regardless of which department is buying.
If delivered as described, the system should give the city a firmer basis for strategic sourcing and category management. Consolidated data on suppliers, categories and contracts would make it easier to see where demand can be aggregated, where overlaps exist between units, and where new sourcing strategies might bring savings or better service outcomes.
Real-time visibility across the procurement process would also change how managers work. Instead of relying on retrospective reports from finance systems, they could track the progress of live procurements, identify bottlenecks earlier and monitor whether standard processes are being followed. That in turn supports better risk management and more consistent compliance with internal rules.
The wording of the notice points to a move away from fragmented, transactional buying towards a more planned approach. Standardising operations across internal units suggests a desire to reduce variation in how tenders are run, how contracts are documented and how suppliers are managed once on board.
Other recent initiatives by the city underline this shift. In October 2025, the City of Helsinki’s urban environment division launched a dynamic purchasing system for snow management services through its Snow Management Solutions Procurement. That arrangement runs until 2033 and is designed to let suppliers join over time, giving the city flexibility to buy snow clearing and related services as needs evolve.
A central procurement management system should make it easier to oversee such long-running purchasing arrangements. With better data and process support, the city can plan competitions under the dynamic purchasing system, track supplier performance across winters and ensure that call-offs follow agreed rules.
Helsinki is also modernising more specialised parts of its operations. In July 2025, its education and training sector issued an Inventory Management System Acquisition for Stadin Ammattiopisto, seeking a tool to manage goods and materials across multiple locations, with scope to add users and integrate with other systems.
That procurement, while narrower in scope, shows the same pattern as the new city-wide tender: replacing local, possibly manual processes with structured systems that can scale, integrate and support data-driven decisions. A central procurement management platform would sit above such domain-specific tools, bringing together information on contracts and orders from many parts of the organisation.
Helsinki’s move comes amid a broader wave of system procurements across Finnish cities and welfare organisations. Together they show an appetite for software services that combine workflow, data and reporting.
In June 2025, the City of Vantaa went to market for a Training Management System, seeking a SaaS solution to manage training offerings, registrations, history and links to HR and learning systems. Where Helsinki is targeting procurement, Vantaa is doing something similar for skills and learning, pointing to a common model of cloud-based, modular management systems.
In September 2025, three Finnish welfare areas – Western Uusimaa, Central Uusimaa and Päijät-Häme – jointly issued a Service Management System Procurement. Their goal is to consolidate and replace existing systems, choosing a solution that can meet current and future needs and attract a broad supplier base.
Espoo has taken a similar route on documentation. In November 2025, the City of Espoo launched a Document Management System Procurement for its urban environment sector, seeking a software service that includes implementation, support, maintenance and consulting tailored to its needs.
At national level, the State Financial and Human Resources Service Centre (Valtion talous- ja henkilöstöhallinnon palvelukeskus, Palkeet) is following suit. On 24th November 2025 it published a notice for a SaaS solution for operations and finances, covering planning and reporting, data migration and expert services, with options for project management and visual reporting.
Taken together, these procurements show how Finnish public bodies are gradually stitching together an ecosystem of management platforms: for finance, services, training, documents and, now, procurement. Each system is targeted at a specific domain, but they share common themes of consolidation, scalability and stronger reporting.
Helsinki is far from alone in rethinking how it runs procurement. Across Europe, public organisations are investing in platforms that digitise the entire tendering and contracting lifecycle.
In June 2025, STADT UND LAND Wohnbauten-Gesellschaft mbH issued a notice for a Procurement Management System Implementation. That project aims to create and implement a procurement portal that manages the whole process digitally, enhances collaboration among stakeholders, ensures structured documentation and enables automated analysis while integrating with existing systems.
In September 2025, the City of Stockholm’s executive office, Stadsledningskontoret, launched a central procurement for a Procurement and Contract System. The aim there is to support and manage procurement and contracting processes, improving control, compliance and collaboration.
On 31st October 2025, company Bostads Aktiebolaget Vätterhem went to market for a Purchasing and Procurement System to support and streamline the entire purchasing and procurement process, with a special focus on service procurement. And in August 2025, Solna stad published a notice for an e-commerce and invoice system designed to route all appropriate purchases through a single e-commerce platform.
The similarities with Helsinki’s new tender are striking. Each organisation is looking for:
Helsinki’s focus on real-time visibility and standardised operations fits squarely within this pattern. Where some cities are concentrating on the front end through e-commerce platforms and ordering systems, Helsinki is putting emphasis on the full management information layer across its procurement cycle.
Behind these systems sit growing expectations around information governance and risk management. In October 2025, Uppsala kommun published a notice for System Support for Information Management. The system is expected to handle information management plans, security classification, risk management requirements and compliance.
Municipalities are also investing in tools that support planning and follow-up. In November 2025, Härryda kommun announced an Operational System Procurement for planning and follow-up, including operation, support, maintenance, implementation and decommissioning services.
These projects matter for procurement because they set expectations for how data should be structured, classified and monitored across the organisation. A procurement management information system like the one Helsinki is seeking will have to fit into that wider landscape, offering clear audit trails, robust access controls and reporting that meets both management and compliance needs.
Similar thinking is visible in how cities manage physical assets and public spaces. In October 2025, Gemeente Utrechtse Heuvelrug issued a Public Space Management System notice for an integrated information system that requires data collection from different supplier systems and collaboration among all teams involved.
Procurement systems are beginning to mirror that approach: integrating data from finance, contract registers, ordering tools and supplier performance records into a single, analysable picture.
Helsinki’s new tender describes its objectives in broad terms but does not yet spell out detailed technical choices, implementation phasing or how the system will link to finance, contract registers or sector-specific tools such as inventory systems.
As the procurement progresses, key points to watch will include:
For other cities and public bodies, the project will offer a further example of how procurement can be moved from dispersed, transactional activity towards a more coherent, data-driven function. The degree to which Helsinki can translate its ambitions for real-time visibility and standardised operations into day-to-day practice will be watched closely across the Nordic public sector and beyond.
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