Writing Tenders – Top Tip

May 8th, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, Tenders & Tendering

There are a lot of hints and tips about writing tenders in Bid Management. This post deals with a fundamental issue (and common problem) regarding writing tenders and bid management – actually getting started with the tender response.

Writing tenders is not most people’s favourite pastime. Therefore they often put off looking at a tender until near the deadline. Also many agonise about what to write, leading to more procrastination. So tenders get left until the last minute and then rushed… normally resulting in a second rate tender submission and less chance of being successful.

Writing Tenders Top Tip - Get started as soon as possible!

You normally have 3-4 weeks to submit a tender or PQQ; this initially seems like a long time but it soon goes so do make a start in the first few days. This allows you to:

  • Start planning and thinking about the content
  • Consider who else you need to involve to help you win the bid (eg colleagues, bank references, accountants, suppliers etc.)
  • Get that monkey off your back! Making a start removes some of the pressure from you

Just get on with writing the tender responses!  Don’t worry if it’s not perfect or if it’s over the word limit, you can make changes later (indeed you should always review each version and edit accordingly). But you will have at least made a start and have got the brain working on the task ahead.

OK, in the real world it’s not always possible to start writing tenders immediately but starting early really does help. Conversely, not allowing sufficient time to prepare a good bid is one of the main causes for losing tenders.

It’s such an obvious thing but it’s so often ignored. Please do make an early start to writing on your next tender – it should help improve your chances of success.

 

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Get Feedback on Tenders and Proposals – Won or Lost

April 16th, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, Public Sector Tenders, Sales Techniques, Tenders & Tendering

It is recognised by most that getting feedback on tenders and proposals is a fundamental part of the sales / tendering process. If you lose a bid, you try to find out what could have been improved or how the competition beat you. You can then try and address the issue(s) in future bids – hopefully turning losses into wins.

However, it’s surprising how many people say that they have not attempted to get any feedback on a lost sale or tender. Or that they have not chased up feedback when the buyer has not responded.

Ideally always seek a meeting to get feedback on tenders and proposals or at least have a telephone discussion – especially for higher value bids when you have invested a good deal of time and effort.

A dialogue gives you opportunity to clarify and question; to properly understand what was good and bad in your bid. An email or letter only gives you what the buyer decides to set down on paper eg councils typically provide a score sheet showing how you faired against competitors but no information or details on how you could improve.

The other benefit of a meeting is the opportunity to continue the relationship. A common reaction to losing is to just walk away but if you came a close second or third, you have most likely impressed the buyers and may have chance of doing business with them in future. Or maybe get the business later on if the winner fails to supply!

Feedback should also apply to wins. It is natural to be happy with the result and simply get on with servicing the customer. But many miss this vital opportunity to get feedback on what was good and bad about their winning bid (often a winning bid has some flaws!).

Use all the feedback to build an overall picture of positives (to build upon) and negatives (to minimise). Don’t do a knee-jerk reaction to every item but look at the trends eg too dear in certain areas, missing technology or account management etc.

Win OR lose – always try to get good feedback on tenders and proposals!

 

 

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2 Comments | Filed in Bid Management, Public Sector Tenders, Sales Techniques, Tenders & Tendering

Writing Company Policies

March 12th, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

At some stage of the tendering process, eg when completing a pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) or invitation to tender ITT, you will normally need to provide some company policies.

The safest bet is to get them professionally written – especially those which have legal implications (eg health and safety or equality policies). However, you can utilise some online guides and templates to help you create your own for free – have a look at our guide to Writing Company Policies.

We always use our specialists when writing company policies for clients. This ensures that they are specific for their business and meet all legal / other requirements. Thus improving the chances of tendering success. Nevertheless, many clients use policies that they have created themselves using on-line resources and they have qualified the PQQ and won the tender.

Without doubt company policies are not always checked in detail by the tender panel. In those cases as long as they are present then the ‘box is ticked’. There is also an increasing trend in PQQs to simply confirm that certain policies are in place and available upon request. But every now and again we hear feedback about company policies being marked down for being out of date or incomplete.

Whether you write your own or get them written by experts, do make a diary note to review them regularly and update as necessary.

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No Comments | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Social Value and Public Sector Contracts – New Law

March 6th, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

The new Public Services (Social Value) Act was passed last week. When letting a contract, the public sector will have to take into account not just value for money (cost and quality) but also social, environmental and economic aspects.

This new law should certainly help social enterprises win much more council and government contracts as they are set up to re-invest profits into creating social improvements.

However, it should not necessarily exclude private companies that also show commitment to social value. For example, if their tender includes a plan to invest in supporting residents in the local community when bidding for a social housing contract.

You can read more about this in the Guardian and also see Social Enterprise UK which has a useful download on the new Public Services (Social Value) Act.

It will be interesting to see how quickly and effectively councils and other public bodies react to this.

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No Comments | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Tender Clarification Questions

February 21st, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Following on from Tendering Procedures, here is another frequently asked question regarding public sector tender procedures:

Should I ask Tender Clarification Questions?

Yes. If you have areas of uncertainty, it is generally better to ask than have any ambiguity.

If your question is regarding the specification and you don’t clarify things you might price the tender incorrectly – too high (and lose) or too low (and win but make a loss).

If you are unsure about the meaning of a question (eg it can be read in two ways) you might make the wrong assumptions and therefore respond incorrectly… and lose marks… and maybe lose the tender!

Some people worry when their question is commercially sensitive but generally you can ask to keep your question private if you feel that you will lose a competitive advantage. However, it might still be better to lose an advantage and gain full clarification – weigh up the pros and cons.

Many people see the tendering process as an almost administrative task but do remember it is just a formalised way of selling; if you were at a sales appointment you would naturally ask about anything you were unsure of.

Although it isn’t often allowed, wherever possible do phone to ask your questions rather than email – a chance to start a business relationship and also to open-out the question to gain a better understanding.

Just make sure that you have double-checked your question as you don’t want to appear daft by asking about something that you have simply misread or that is answered elsewhere. Also you don’t want to overload them with questions so chose careful but do ask if unsure.

TIP: tender questions are generally shared with all bidders so don’t be the first to ask questions; let others go first and hopefully ask some of your questions thus reducing your list of queries.

Tenders take a lot of time and effort so you want to maximise your chances of winning – if in doubt ask for clarification.

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The Tendering Process

January 31st, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

The next few posts will cover some of the most common questions about the public sector tendering process.

Is the tendering process always the same for each authority?

In theory yes, they are all subject to the same EU regulations and follow the same process.

However in practice the tendering process is not always the same. The content of PQQs and tenders can vary greatly; and the price / quality criteria and weighting (eg 70/30 or 60/40 split) can again differ widely.

Furthermore, you will find that different authorities can take different approaches to questions asked and their marking. Sometimes tenders have clumsy mistakes eg questions obviously copied and pasted from another non-related ITT. Other variables include briefing meetings, interviews / presentations, site-visits and on / off-line submissions.

Therefore you will find that tenders do differ.

Nevertheless, the approach to responding to tenders remains the same – treat each one individually. You will find some commonality so do build up a file of good responses and re-use and individualise them as appropriate.

And do follow the general guidelines and hints shown in Bid Management.

 

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1 Comment | Filed in Bid Management, PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

New EU Procurement Thresholds for 2012

January 17th, 2012 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

For 2012 there are new EU procurement thresholds or limits for procurement under the EU rules.

They have increased so that might help some contracts to fall below the full-blown EU tendering process thresholds.

For full details please see European Commission and also the Cabinet Office (for UK only).

These new EU procurement thresholds will stand for 21012 and 2013.

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No Comments | Filed in Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Talking Helps Win Contracts

December 7th, 2011 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Bid Management, Negotiation, Public Sector Tenders, Sales Techniques, Tenders & Tendering

If you want to win contracts, talking does help!

It is a basic fact that having a conversation with your prospective customer increases your chances of winning business. You have an opportunity to understand their needs and also check if your solution can meet these needs (ie selling).

This is opposed to working blind: In a formal tender you normally only get the specification and generic requirements eg ‘value for money’, ‘high quality’ etc.

It would be great if ALL of the public sector adopted a more open approach to discussion. It is all too common to find that officials don’t want to discuss contracts until they get near to tendering. Then increasingly stricter tendering rules prohibit any form of discussion (eg contact by email or on-line portal only).

So it is good news that The Cabinet Office said that it will provide an ‘open door’ for current and future suppliers to discuss upcoming procurement opportunities to aid this process.

In the meantime, use any reasonable opportunity available to talk to prospects and get a real insight to their specific needs.

 

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Smaller Firms Winning More Public Contracts

November 28th, 2011 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Government contracts awarded to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) have risen to 40% in September 2011 compared with only 5% in January

John Collington, the Government’s chief procurement officer made this statement at the Cabinet Office conference ‘The Crown and Suppliers: A New Way of Working’. He intimated this rise would continue along with other improvements.

Francis Maude, the minister of the Cabinet Office, said: “Already in the last year we have started to see more transparency with the contracts finder website where businesses can survey everything on offer. I am particularly glad that over 1,600 contracts have been awarded to small and medium sized businesses via this route”.

More details are at The Guardian.

Good news! Are you winning more contracts?

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Cut in EU Red Tape for Public Contracts?

November 24th, 2011 by Tony Zemaitis | Filed in PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

Cabinet Secretary Francis Maude has spoken about plans to cut red tape in public sector procurement: “The public sector in this country spends a huge amount of money in buying in goods and services from outside, something like £230bn a year, and we don’t do it very well, frankly. We follow the European law extremely literally, and they have very legalistic processes. We have very big contracts, and we get the worst of both worlds at the moment. We don’t buy very well, we exclude a lot of competitive, innovative suppliers who will tend to be UK-based, so neither do we get good value for the taxpayer, neither do we spend the money particularly well, nor do we actually support UK businesses.”

The value of public contracts awarded to foreign suppliers is 3% in the UK Vs.  1.9% in Germany and 1.5% in France: “The difference is the governments of these countries work closely with their domestic firms so they are geared up to win contracts at home and abroad. Whereas in Britain, by over-interpreting EU law and over-reacting to fears of bias in favour of British suppliers, we take an almost deliberately short-sighted approach to working with business.”

Anything to simplify tendering and to help UK businesses would be welcomed so let’s hope something comes of this.

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No Comments | Filed in PQQ / Pre-Qualification Questionnaire, Public Sector Tenders, Tenders & Tendering

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