The authority's new e-tendering portal allows any business that wants to supply the council with goods or services to register for free.
They are then alerted when any suitable business opportunities arise with all adverts for goods, works and services published on the site. It also has created a single point of contact for all council suppliers - making it easier to communicate with the local authority.
On 1 November, the council contacted all of its existing and potential suppliers inviting them to register with the new system. In just over a month around 3,250 organisations have signed up.
Councillor Andrew Johnson, Cabinet Member for Resources, said: "People have asked us to make doing business with the council easier and more efficient. The aim of the new e-tendering portal is to do just that. As a council we want businesses to thrive so we are doing all we can to make sure they don't miss out on opportunities."
Suppliers can register at the Type=links;Linkid=3106;Title=e-tendering portal;Target=_blank; free of charge through a simple and secure registration process which should take no more than 10 minutes.
As part of the new portal, when a tender or competition advert is published all registered suppliers working in that area of expertise will automatically be sent a message giving them access to the opportunity.
The new portal is part of the council's FutureWorks Programme, which sees the council working to transform its business support processes in Finance, Human Resources, Payroll and Procurement, as well as replace the council's outdated mainframe system with Agresso, in April 2014.
- released: Tuesday 17 December, 2013