Common Data Environment (CDE) in the Public Sector: State of the Art of Leading Products in the Italian Market and Comparison with Regulatory Demands

Italian public authorities, as public tendering and awarding organisations, will be required to adopt BIM for public contracts over one million euros from 2025. This requirement is included in the current Public Procurement Code (PPC) (Legislative Decree No 36/2023), which also stipulates that one of the requirements for public authorities is to implement an adequate Common Data Environment (CDE) to manage the procurement process. The CDE assumes contractual relevance, particularly during the contract execution, and must be interoperable with, or even integrated into, a recognised public e-procurement platform. Furthermore, although a CDE is typically designed as an ecosystem for the orderly management of information containers related to a project or its phases, the Italian PPC stipulates that it must serve as a structured environment for portfolio management according to a three-year investment plan. In collaboration with a local Italian authority, the authors investigate whether suitable CDE solutions are available on the Italian market to meet the requirements of the PPC. In addition, the specifications contained in the international technical standard series ISO 19650, which is mentioned as a reference in the PPC, are considered. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 leading CDE suppliers in the Italian market. Prior to the interview, a list of sixty-two questions was shared with the interviewees in order to adapt their product presentation. The analysis of the qualitative data collected made it possible to examine and compare the state-of-the-art of the CDEs available on the Italian market, and to assess how well these solutions meet the needs of the interested public administration and comply with national regulations.