ITALIAN ELECTRONIC MARKET

Do you want to grow your business and expand into new markets? If so, we can help to drive your business growth, introducing your company into the Italian Electronic Market.

Italy is known to have an intricate bureaucracy and we are able to assist you in every step, intermediating your participation in the Italian telematic tenders.

In order to start the bidding process, you must be registered to MePA (Italian Public Authorities’ Electronic Market) and you will also need to be admitted to the SDAPA (Dynamic System for Suppliers of the Public Authorities) for the supply of standardised products in favour of the Public Bodies (pharmaceutical and sanitary products, food and catering, postal services, insurance and financial services, stationary, hardware, software, ICT).

In order to be awarded works, services or supply contracts with the Italian Public Bodies, it is essential you have a PEC (Certified Email Address) and a Digital Signature, issued by certified organisations registered with the AGID (Agency for Digital Italy).

How can we help you unravel the complex Italian bureaucratic system?

In order to participate to the tendering process, Westour Consultancy will assist in each of the following stages required to enter the Italian Electronic Market:

• PEC set up;
• Digital Signature acquisition;
• SDAPA and MePA registration;
• Translation of all the technical documents (bid documents, specifications and forms) for the registration to the Electronic Market;
• Legal advice;
• Assistance in the bidding procedure.

We will provide legal assistance as well as the support to comply with all the bureaucratic and technical procedures necessary to obtain the PEC and the Digital Signature from the accredited Italian certifying organizations, guaranteeing simplicity, speed and security throughout the whole process.

We will take you through every step, providing consultancy and assistance on the following:

• the translation and the preparation of the documents necessary to purchase the PEC and Digital Signature;
• the preparation of the activation request;
• the activation of the purchased devices;
• help desk support for the use of PEC and Digital Signature..

PEC (Certified Email Address)

This Certified Email Address is a service instituted by the Italian regulations which attributes to an email the same legal value of a traditional tracked mail, guaranteeing non-repudiation. Its contents can be certified and signed electronically or encrypted, providing authentication, confidentiality and integrity of the data.

Since 1st July 2013 communications between companies and public bodies must be made only via PEC, as hardcopy documents are no longer accepted.

Digital Signature

The Digital Signature is the electronic equivalent of a traditional handwritten signature and has the following properties:

• Authenticity: it guarantees the identity of the subscriber
• Integrity: it ensures that the document has not been altered after signing
• Non-repudiation: the digital signature provides full legal validity to the document, thus the document cannot be repudiated.

In order to generate a digital signature it is necessary to utilise a pair of digital, asymmetric keys attributed univocally to one subject, known as the holder. The private key is known only by the holder and it is used to create the digital signature, to be applied to a document. Vice versa, the key that needs to be made public is used to verify the authenticity of the signature. Therefore, using the digital signature allows to significantly reduce the interactions between public administrations, citizens or businesses, drastically reducing the handling of paper documents.