As many people imagine, the tender process can be a long and winding road, with many stops along the way, with hills to climb and difficulties to overcome - so the title "The Tender Trail" seems appropriate.
If you follow the path you will understand where tenders come from, what information is made available and when, and how each step along the way interacts with all the other steps.
The first thing to establish when looking for
opportunities in the public sector is where to look for these opportunities.
Once the value of a contract exceeds the EU threshold it has to be advertised on the EU tender website.
Contracts below the threshold can be further divided into "low value" contracts, which fall between a value determined by the authority involved (often £50k) and the EU Threshsold, these opportunities must be published, but can be in a variety of places rather than just one.
Below this different authorities have different rules on how to manage the process.
There are numerous places in which a tender notice can be advertised, with supply2.gov and Tenders Electronic Daily being the most well known. In addition to these there are is the CompeteFor site, which covers the Olympics in 2012 and Bluelight which lists opportunities with the emergency services.
Other places to look for opportunities would include local authority websites and the many subscription services which are available online
The Contract Notice can be anything from a brief outline of the requirement, with links to places to find out more, or it can be a detailed notice, with lots of sections, and look quite complex to anyone unfamiliar with these notices.
Once you have identified a tender notice which is of interest to your business you will need to inform the relevant person or organisation of your interest.
Once again this is sometime very simple, and a 1 line e-mail will suffice, other times it can be a lot more involved and require registering on a tender site, completeing a company profile, and then expressing interest electronically.
On other occassions the notice will set out a set of information requirements to be submitted by any organisation which wants to express interest in the opportunity.
The key thing here is to follow the instructions as per the notice, and to comply with them precisely.
If you are not prepared to put the effort in to do this as per the requirements, simply don't bother as you will be excluded by default when the purchasing authority decides who to take forward.
The PQQ is often the key to winning tenders, if you don't get this right you can't get to the tender stage, where the level of competition is greatly reduced.
We offer a separate training module on PQQ and how to handle them, they are that important!
PQQ are used by most procurement authorities to reduce the number of companies who express interest to a managable number to invite to tender.
The simplest way to view this is as a c.v. for a job application, lots of people apply and submit their c.v. and the employer uses the c.v. to sift the candidates and decide on who to offer an interview to.
Far too many SME's see the PQQ as a nuisance document, which is too long, and too cumbersome to bother with, and don't give it the time and thought it really deserves.
Consider how you put together a c.v. to highlight your skills and achievements, and think how long you would take to do this, probably many hours in total. Also the best advice is to tailor your c.v. to the requirements of the job you are applying to, and the potential employer - who you have taken the trouble to investigate and understand.
Why then do SME's often take so little time and trouble over a PQQ document.
As with everything related to tenders, some PQQ are more involved than others, and some seem to require extreme levels of detail, sometimes appearing to want everything apart from your inside leg measurement.
The best advice is to read the PQQ through carefully, and plan your response accordingly.
If you don't have time to do it properly it is probably best not to bother as your chances of success are slim to none - if you have ever received a poorly put together c.v. or job application just think how often you invited that candidate to interview - that's right - NEVER!
So - read the PQQ carefully
Decide if you can meet the requirements
Decide if you have the time and resources to comply with the timescales
If you answer no to either of these, then withdraw from the process - in writing - it's simply good practice
If you answer yes to both of the above then plan your response, set out a timetable for completion of the document, ensuring that you finish well before the 11th hour and 59th minute.
Too many SME's do all the hard work on the PQQ, get it filled in and ready to submit, and then fall down at the last hurdle because they don't leave enough time.
It is essential that you make sure to submit your response in the format required, before the deadline - failing to do either of these things will mean that you have just wasted your time.
Once again this requires reading the PQQ properly, noting the method of response, the format required and the deadline by which the finished document has to be delivered.
PLEASE NOTE - ONE MINUTE LATE MEANS YOU ARE OUT OF CONTENTION
So if the requirement is for 5 paper copies, and an electronic copy on CD to be delivered to a given address by mid-day on Monday - make sure you post it no later than Thursday, with a guaranteed delivery - proof of posting does not count - only proof of delivery.
If the requirement is for documents to be uploaded to a web portal by 4.00 p.m. don't leave it until 3.55 p.m. as the web portal may be crowded at that time - you clicking upload does not mean you are in time - the documents have to be on the portal ready to read - or you will not be considered.
One thing often required in PQQ are copies of company documents.
Once again, make sure you supply everything required, in the format requested - or you will be excluded.
These rules and requirements are not down to procurement officers being difficult, they are required by EU law to follow procedures strictly, and they have to be seen to be meeting the letter of the law.
Just make it easy for them, submit in plenty of time, in full, and you will be in with a chance - otherwise you can waste lots of time, energy and money completing PQQ's which noone is ever actually going to see.
So here we are, having found an opportunity, taken a decision to go for it, sent in our expression of interest, obtained a huge PQQ document which we have spent hours completing and finally we made sure it was submitted in full and on time - PHEW !!
Now we wait a while until eventually we get a response from the procurement authority.
If they say yes, we can move on to the next stage which is usually the Invitation to Tender.
If they say no we can bemoan our fate, discuss how unfair the system is, etc. etc. - and this is about as far as most SME's bother to go.
In fact many SME's go through the PQQ process a few times, using basically the same approach every time, with the same format and wording in their documents, and can never understand why they don't get anywhere - until eventually they just give up - after all what's the point !!
There is a definition of insanity which reads "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" so perhaps this way of doing things is not ideal.
One thing you need to know about government procurement is that you are entitled to feedback on things, which has to be honest and unbiased.
So always, always, always get the feedback you are entitled to.
In fact if you get written feedback which does not help you phone up the procurement officer and ask for more.
Keep asking why and what!
Why did we not succeed
Why did other people score higher than us
What could we improve
What were you looking for that we did not provide
etc. etc.
The take all this into account and go back over your submission and revise it for future reference to ensure that the same mistakes are not repeated.
There is a very high probability that you will not get through your first PQQ, in fact it may take several attempts before you get past this stage, but by getting feedback, and using it to refine and improve your offering you will eventually get to the next round.
Hurray, you've been invited to submit a tender, must be close to winning now.
Well on the plus side you will be competing against a limited number of other companies for the job, on the minus side they are all as keen as you to win, and you have no idea who they are or how strong the competition is.
Once again it is essential that you carefully read the ITT document and make sure that you can fully comply with the requirements, and submit the completed ITT within the timescale required.
If you can't meet these 2 things drop out, in writing, sooner rather than later, which will stand you in better stead with the procurement people than simply not submitting a response.
Assuming that you can meet the requirements (which one would sincerely hope, having got this far) plan your response and your timetable, to allow completion and submission in good time.
A good tip at this point is to go back to the original contract notice and the PQQ and read them both again, as they often contain information about the selection criteria, and perhaps some clues as to what the procurement organisation is looking for in terms of price v quality, or indeed other purchasing criteria.
Make sure that you answer all the requirements in the ITT document, check that you have not missed anything, and that you include any attachments that are relevant or required.
Do not include things which have been excluded - for example, if it states that you should not send sales literature, then make sure you don't
Give some thought to how you deliver the information, use this as an opportunity to show off your business to best effect, use graphics and pictures if appropriate, and ensure that your submission is easy to read, and well spaced - unless they specify font size and spacing.
As with the PQQ stage, so not assume that you can be even a second late - if you are your offer will be ignored - and you will have just wasted all the time, money and energy put into this contract so far.
Once the deadline for tender submissions has passed the procurement authority will review the various submissions, and to score them against the designated criteria.
Depending on the scale of the procurement they may convene a "Tender Board" to review the submission, or this may be left to the procurement officer involved.
Once all the ITT have been evaluated they procurement body will make a decision either as to who to award to contract to, or to invite a selected number of bidders to attend "Company Presentations" to explain their bid in more detail.
The Tender Board is usually made up of a number of people from within the procurement authority, this typically involves people from:-
Purchasing
Technical
Users
Each of these individuals, or groups, has different requirements and needs from the product or service to be purchased, and to be successful it is necessary to satisfy all of them to one degree or another.
If your company is not selected to make a presentation make sure you get feedback - see above - this is an essential part of the tender process, and can be used to help develop your skills and make you more successful on future bids.
If you are invited to a company presentation make sure that you are well prepared, that you have the required people from your team present, and that everyone is briefed on what to say and when to contribute.
It is often sensible to nominate a lead person from your presentation group, to coordinate the response, and to field all the questions from the Tender Board to the best person from the team to respond to them, this avoids confusion and reduces the chance of the wrong person saying the wrong thing at the wrong time - a simple slip of the tongue at this stage can make the difference between winning the contract and walking away with nothing.
Once the procurement authority, and you, get to the end of the bidding process they will take a decision and announce which company is going to be awarded the contract.
While many people think this is the end of the process, it actually isn't, as there is usually a time period allowed for those companies not selected to review the proposed award, and to object if they consider it to be unfair.
If you beleive that you have been treated unfairly in the tender process, and that the contract has been awarded unfairly to one of your competitors, you have an opportunity to raise an objection, through channels which will be made clear in the tender documents
While there are times when this is absolutely essential, it should be carefully considered, as a failed objection can suggest simple sour grapes, and have a negative impact on your reputation for future bids
Finally - after all that - the contract is awarded to the winning bidder, and they supply the goods or services as per the tender agreement, until the time period expires (or the contract is cancelled) - at which time the whole process starts all over again.
My final tip for everyone is to make sure you get feedback at every stage of the process where decisions are made by the procurement authority, especially here at the end.
One party which often forgets to obtain feedback is the winner of the contract - this is a mistake.
Even if you win - still get feedback
The reason for this suggestion is that you then have an idea just how well you won, was it by a short head or a country mile - could be useful to know when it comes up for contract renewal time.
