Government e-Marketplace has become one of the most consequential public sector digital initiatives in India's recent history. The cumulative order value crossing Rs 4 lakh crore, the seller base of over 65 lakh registered sellers, and the platform's penetration into state government procurement represent a genuine transformation in how India's government buys. Yet in most buying organisations, GeM is still being used as a basic ordering tool rather than as the strategic procurement platform it has become.
What Most Buying Organisations Are Missing
The most common GeM usage pattern in government departments is direct purchase: finding a product, verifying it meets GFR/GeM mandatory procurement requirements, and placing an order. This captures the compliance value of GeM but not the value optimisation it enables.
GeM's more powerful capabilities - Custom Bids for complex or high-value requirements, the Bid/RA (Reverse Auction) mechanism for competitive price discovery, Service categories for professional services procurement, and the analytics and reporting tools for category management - are used by a minority of buying organisations. The gap between what GeM enables and what is actually being utilised represents a material savings and governance opportunity that most departments have not yet captured.
Maximising Value Through GeM: Five Practical Steps
Conduct a procurement spend analysis through the GeM lens. Before optimising GeM usage, a buying organisation needs to understand its current procurement landscape: what it buys, in what volume, at what frequency, and what is already being procured through GeM versus traditional routes. This spend analysis typically reveals categories that should be on GeM but are not, and categories where the procurement method on GeM is not optimal.
Use Bid/RA for competitive price discovery on higher-value items. For items above the direct purchase threshold, or for any item where the department has reason to believe market prices are more competitive than current rates, the Reverse Auction mechanism on GeM provides a structured competitive process that consistently delivers better prices than direct purchase. Departments that have systematically used RA for appropriate categories report price savings of 8-15 percent compared to direct purchase rates.
Leverage Custom Bids for complex requirements. Standard GeM products cover a wide range but cannot meet every requirement. Custom Bids allow buying organisations to specify their requirements precisely and invite sellers to submit tailored responses - effectively replicating a limited tender process within the GeM framework while maintaining the compliance and transparency benefits of the platform. Departments that have been managing complex requirements through manual tender processes outside GeM can often bring those requirements into GeM through Custom Bids.
Build internal GeM capability systematically. GeM's full capability is underutilised in part because many procurement officers have been trained only in the basic usage flows. Structured training - covering the full range of GeM mechanisms, the GFR provisions relevant to GeM procurement, and the analytics tools available to buying organisations - materially increases utilisation and compliance. Several state governments have developed GeM training programmes for district-level procurement officers that have measurably improved their GeM metrics.
Use GeM analytics for category management. GeM's buyer analytics dashboard provides a view of spend by category, by seller, by time period, and by procurement method that is not available through most traditional procurement tracking systems. Using this data for category analysis - identifying categories with high spend concentration in single sellers, categories where pricing has moved significantly, and categories where compliance with mandatory procurement requirements needs to improve - is a management discipline that pays dividends in savings and governance quality.
The Compliance Dimension
Mandatory GeM procurement requirements under GFR 2017 and subsequent government instructions have expanded significantly since the platform's launch. The list of items for which GeM is the mandated procurement route continues to grow, and the thresholds for mandatory GeM usage have been revised over time. Buying organisations need to maintain current awareness of what is mandatorily required to be procured through GeM, since non-compliance creates audit risk regardless of the procurement outcome.