SMEs cooperate to meet social procurement conditions

A growing amount of (semi) public organizations in the Netherlands write tenders with mandatory social conditions. It is important for SMEs to focus on social procurement in their business strategy. SMEs should be proactive and try to affect the conditions (semi) public organizations write in their tenders. On the other hand, (semi) public organizations should facilitate SMEs by developing transparent procurement processes and by organizing information meetings with SMEs. The most important factor for an effective social procurement procedure seems to be the dialogue between SMEs, purchasers and the persons responsible for matching target groups. Because it seems easier for SMEs to meet social procurement conditions if they cooperate with other SMEs and set up labour pools, we performed an exploratory research on the formation of labour pools. The labour pools can be set up by SMEs in the same branch or in a cooperation chain. Our research shows that entrepreneurs require a lot of perseverance in developing a labour pool. It also appears that labour pools without commitment of public authorities are not effective.