Building a safe and vibrant city for the Greater Dandenong community through a procurement platform

The City of Greater Dandenong is a 129-square-kilometre municipality in south-east Melbourne, covering suburbs such as Springvale, Dandenong, Keysborough and Noble Park. Since the 1994 amalgamations, the City has grown into one of Australia’s most culturally diverse communities, with an estimated population of 169,000 and a forecast of 197,000 by 2029. With strong representation across health care, retail, transport, warehousing and manufacturing—accounting for 22% of all manufacturing jobs in Victoria—the City also delivers comprehensive youth, family, disability and positive ageing services.

Unimarket Implementation

The City of Greater Dandenong embarked on the implementation of the Unimarket (formerly VendorPanel) Source-to-Contract platform to simplify procurement and supplier management, reduce risk, maximise savings, and support positive social and economic outcomes.

Across 38 business units, Unimarket has been deployed in IT, Major Projects, City Improvement Program and Greater Dandenong Business. Remaining units are being progressively onboarded, with full rollout targeted by June 30, 2020. Where implemented, the City is already realising benefits such as streamlined processes, improved visibility, and a single portal for all tendering activity.

The purpose of this case study is to outline the sourcing challenges prior to adopting Unimarket, highlight the implementation experience, and share benefits achieved and future plans. This case study was completed by Deloitte in collaboration with the City of Greater Dandenong.

Context: Sourcing Before Unimarket

Prior to implementing Unimarket, the City of Greater Dandenong faced several sourcing challenges:

Manual and time-consuming quotation processes—especially within the Fleet Business Unit, which relied on Word, Excel, email and phone calls to engage suppliers.
Lack of consistent documentation and no clear visibility on whether buyers were identifying and engaging the best possible suppliers.
Difficulty engaging local, social and Indigenous-owned suppliers due to manual processes.
Poor visibility across 38 business units, making it hard to identify all active suppliers and sourcing activities.

Implementation Experience

During rollout, the City observed that Unimarket training was easy to follow, and end users required minimal intervention. The Unimarket implementation team was professional, organised, and equipped with clear templates and rollout plans, supporting a smooth transition.

Unimarket also worked closely with the Council to confirm that the implementation strategy aligned with its needs and long-term procurement objectives.

Current Benefits

After adopting Unimarket, several business units—including Fleet—reported key improvements:

Streamlined business processes, particularly the quotation workflow.
A single source of truth for procurement activity—eliminating the need for separate registers.
User-friendly functionality that supports easy file uploads and document sharing during tenders.

Integrated Supplier Intelligence

Through integration between Unimarket and Rapid Contractor Management, staff can now view supplier compliance data at the point of procurement. A traffic-light indicator displays supplier status, ensuring that buyers only engage compliant suppliers.

This level of transparent supplier compliance significantly reduces organisational procurement risk.

Future Benefits

As the rollout continues, the City expects additional benefits, including:

Transparency: Full visibility of procurement activities, spend and quotations across all business units.
Risk Reduction: Comprehensive audit-ready data demonstrating adherence to policy and compliance requirements.
Analytics: Organisation-wide insights into spend distribution, equity, and opportunities for optimisation.
Collaboration: Potential for cross-council collaboration to create shared supplier networks and unlock additional savings.

Future Plans for Unimarket

The Council is actively onboarding the remaining 30+ business units, with full adoption targeted for June 30, 2020. Key next steps include:

Analysing spend across all units to identify further savings and value opportunities.
Expanding supplier lists to include more local and social enterprise providers, including disability service providers.
Collaborating with neighbouring councils and regions to improve supplier engagement and strengthen service delivery.

The City has already observed clear value from the rollout and is eager to accelerate adoption across the entire organisation.