Month: December 2019

Today is the day that has been on everyones minds since October. It’s election day. And it’s most certainly created a divided kingdom. With more political uncertainty than a lot of people have seen in a lifetime it can be hard to form your own opinion with so much noise coming from every side. Everyone thinks they’re right when in reality, who knows.

However, we aren’t here to give our opinions or try and sway any votes. We’re just here to talk about the facts and what we know best.

How does the election effect tendering?

The election has had an effect on tendering from the very beginning. From the 6^th of Novemeber, Purdah came into effect. ‘Purdah’ describes the period of time immediately before elections or referendums when specific restrictions on certain activity are in place. This means that no new public sector contracts can be released during this period. The only contracts that can go forwards are those that are continuations of tenders that have previously been signed off. Some contracts can go out to tender but will not be signed off during this period. This obviously effects all businesses working within the public sector who were looking to put something new out to tender as the election means that that is not possible.

On the bright side, this period of slow business and backed up contracts all comes to an end when the polls close at 10pm on the 12^th of December.

Although this may be the beginning of more political division and uncertainty in the country, one thing is for certain. Many new contracts are going to flood in over the coming months.

As the elected party takes power and they start to implement their policies, they will need to put many things out to tender. This will be a stark difference from the slow ‘purdah’ period as contracts that would’ve never been released before the election start to be released. Regardless of whatever party gets into power, this will be the case.

If you would like to take advantage of this period of increased contract notices, we’re more than happy to help. We have a dedicated team who will be happy to assist you. Whether it be with a review, training or writing the entire submission, we’re here to help.

We’ll leave you with this – Keith Ellison said ‘Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender,’ and we absolutely agree. A lot of people don’t vote because they don’t think it’ll make a difference when in reality our vote is what gives us power over our country’s future. Hopefully this election will bring us closer to stability and get us closer to where we want to be. All we can ask is everyone respects each others decisions and stands together regardless of the outcome so that we can move forward united rather than divided.

Get out there and vote!

Over the last couple of weeks I have written about how bid writing is a skill in its own right and a skill you must properly hone to ensure can write a winning tender submission. I have also written about how important time management is to ensure you submit a compliant and compelling tender response.

Today however, I am writing about the importance of recognising that whilst you may be extremely skilled at writing in a persuasive manner and engaging your reader, there will also be staff members in your organisation that may have more technical insight than you do into the solution you will be offering to your potential client.

Here at Bid and Research Development we recognise this and fully incorporate it into the way in which we work with all our clients. We know where our skills lie, and this is in writing strong, compliant, and compelling tender submissions. We know how to properly dissect a tender specification, and we know what a local authority wants to see when they ask particular questions. We also know that our clients have a detailed understanding of how they work, technical insights and actual service delivery in practise.

This is why we work alongside our clients to draw out the information we know that we need to write a winning tender. We need to know who does what, when, why and how. How is this recorded, what evidence do we have to show this to the would-be client.

Knowing what information the client wants to see, and then gaining this information from Technical Experts is an intrinsic part of bid writing. There may be a wide range of individuals we need to speak to, depending on the nature of the tender, the complexity of the service being tendered for, and the industry that you are in.

We thoroughly enjoy getting to speak to so many different experts on a weekly basis, and get to learn a huge amount about our clients and what truly makes them so great. This can include Registered Care Managers, Health and Safety Managers, or even the Head of Curriculum Development if we are working with some of our education and training providers.

Now, if you are a Technical Expert and you have been handed a tender by your director, you also need to recognise that whilst you may be the very best in your field, you may not actually be the best person to write about it in a tender response. And this is where we can help! We are here to take your tender off of your hands, only ask you the important questions you need to hear, and we can then translate this into strong written narrative which will give you the very best marks once evaluated by the procurement team. Feel free to contact us today for an informal chat on how we can work with your experts to produce the very bid possible.

Despite the huge political ambiguity we are all surrounded by as we plough into December with an election just around the corner, the officials at HS2 are ploughing on with costly tender exercises like there is no tomorrow and as if there is no uncertainty as to the future of the project whatsoever.

The new station in Birmingham has had the tender documentation published with a valuation of around £270 million and this is just weeks after the publication of the The Oakervee review which warned that despite the project is still considered viable, there were several major civil engineering contracts that should really be retendered.

Oakervee has been very critical of the procurement process that has been used so far which he claims has completely misjudged the risk transfer process from contractor to authority and that contractors have hugely inflated their costs to cover risks that they are simply not bearing. The report has been quoted saying HS2 is “carrying most of the risk and all of the pain with little gain”.

Household name major contractors stand accused of lining pockets with taxpayers money and the review states that these contracts should be re-procured to get best value for those who will be footing the bill for the project. It has been revealed in the review that instead of the originally claimed economic benefit of £2.30 back for every £1 spent on this project instead we are looking at only £1.30 to £1.50 – still viable, but the gulf looks like it is being swallowed by not just contractors, but the fact that these procurement processes are costly exercises in themselves.

One must wonder what kind of salary the HS2 officials are taking from all of this as well. The £1.5 tender for overhead power cables and new tracks has been torn up and started afresh, and the Curzon street station has also had to be restarted due to lack of interest shown by the market.

The bid teams at the likes of Skanska/Costain/Strabag; Bouygues/VolkerFitzpatrick/McAlpine; Eiffage/Kier; Balfour Beatty/Vinci; and Mace/Dragados will be thoroughly stretched if they decide to retender these contracts. These tenders are huge undertakings and can often take over 12 months to properly prepare. Thankfully most of the bids we see day-to-day are not such a daunting size, but can still be a stretch to our clients who either do not have the time or skill to complete them to a high standard. Christmas time can also be a challenge for resources so don’t be afraid to drop us a line if you have some January deadlines that you need some expert input on over the festive period.

In my last blog I wrote about the skill of persuasive writing and just how important that is in setting you apart from other tenderers and engaging your reader. If you do not get them enthused in your proposed offering and solution, its difficult for them to justify awarding you top marks.

Today however, I want to stress another skill that is imperative to a successful tender submission, and that is time management. There is no point dedicating days or even weeks of precious resource to a tender if you are not going to submit it on time. Conversely, there is no point attempting a huge tender if you have put it off for weeks and we are now only a few days aware from the deadline; you will rush, make mistakes, miss key points, lack evidence you have not had time to gather and give a very poor reflection of your company to an organisation you want to do business with. Not good!

When you first get ahold of the ITT from the local authority’s procurement you need to assess the Tender Timetable and understand the deadline for raising clarifications as well as the deadline for submission itself. You should also properly understand what the process for submission is. I think the days of hardcopy ringbound submission with CD copies etc. is nearly behind us for SMEs tendering in the public sector, but that doesn’t mean that some of the lovely portals some authorities are geared for a simple submission process. We have had tenders that LITERALLY take hours and hours to submit on certain portals, but we wont name names.

Some councils give minimal instructions and a digital postbox – fine! Some also give you the most comprehensive list of requirements in the land! PDF each response. Label each PDF. Use a specific filename structure eg Company Name – Tender Name – Lot Number – Section Number – Question Number, with each response needing submitting to a different section on the portal. If you do not realise the task that is ahead of you when it comes to submitting your tender return, and you leave it too late, then you run the risk of it being submitted late.

A late submission is technically non-compliant and gives the authority fair reason to exclude you from the process, wasting all the time you put into a potentially winning tender submission. It also creates a poor first impression of your organisation and you will be starting on the back foot if they do decide to evaluate your tender return. It can absolutely be the difference in the evaluation process and it is such an easy mistake to avoid with proper planning and time management.

We recommend never waiting until the deadline day to start submitting your tender return. If you have parts complete, reviewed and ready to go, get them up there on the portal so that you don’t have to worry about them later on. ‘Submit as you go’ so-to-speak. Plan backward from the deadline and set aside proper time to submit and make you know exactly what you need to do to submit a compliant tender return. If you are not sure – ask a clarification question, the procurement team at the authority are there to help and there is (almost) no such thing as a stupid question. Tenders are tricky beasts and time management is an important skill in your arsenal to slay them.

If all of the above seems like an overly onerous task, or you simply do not have the time available to give submitting a tender the attention it deserves, don’t worry because we certainly do! Feel free to get in contact to discuss how we can help you submit high quality submissions in a timely manner maximising your chances of contract award.