How to Win More Work Through Competitive Tendering
With tendering for public sector contracts becoming more competitive than ever before, it is critical to have a thorough understanding on the tendering process and how to create effective tenders to successfully secure the contracts your business needs.
Every tender is a competition, and to be in with a chance of winning the contract you are tendering for, a significant amount of effort is required. If your business does not have the time or resources to invest into the tender process, then we would recommend outsourcing your tender to tender consultants, such as Executive Compass, who can write and manage the tender on your behalf.
However, if you do have the time and resources to invest into the tendering process, then the following tips are essential to help you win more work for your company through competitive tendering.
Avoid Over Bidding
Responding to each and every request for tender will not increase your chances of winning a tender but will wear your resources thin and deplete your team’s energy. Instead, you should identify the most suitable contracts for your business and focus your efforts into creating the highest standard of tenders for those contracts.
Plan Effectively
Planning ahead provides your company with a sufficient amount of time to take all of the necessary steps for success in the tendering process. Failing to plan effectively could result in you not having adequate time to finish all sections of your tender, resulting in a poor submission, which is likely to be unsuccessful. Ensure you have enough time and resources to complete a tender on time, otherwise you could waste a significant amount of time that could have been focused on other areas of your company instead.
Show Evidence
It is not enough to simply describe what your company can do and how you plan to deliver the contract. Instead, you should be providing evidence that backs your claims and shows what you are capable of in practise.
Adding Value
The majority of public tenders will require you to identify how your business will add social value to surrounding communities if you are chosen to carry out the contract. Social value is typically broken into three core categories: economic, social, and environmental.
If your company stands to add greater social value to a contract than other companies who have submitted tenders, then you are likely to stand out in the competitive tendering domain. Added social value can be the difference between you winning or loosing a contract.
Know Your Competition
Whilst you will not always who you are competing against for a tender, you will encounter certain circumstances where you will know your competitors. You should make it a priority to develop a thorough understanding of your competitors, knowing what their strengths and weakness are.
Where there is a blatant weakness, your tender should be tailored to emphasise your company’s strength in that area. Likewise, if your competitor has particular strength, then make sure you are identifying how your company has a different, more innovative approach that sets you apart.
Review
You should always leave enough time to review your tender and to make any last minute change. As well as reviewing the contents of the submission for spelling and grammar errors, you should also be checking for potential non-compliance errors, which could impact the success of your tender submission. It is also recommended that you have other people review your tender submission, as they are more likely to identify errors that you cannot see.
Request Feedback
If you are unsuccessful with a tender, then it is important to use this failure as an opportunity to learn and improve your future tender submissions. Requesting feedback on your unsuccessful tender submission will allow you to identify your strengths and weaknesses when it comes to tendering. This information can then be used to help you work on your weaknesses and iron them out before your next tender submission.
The tender process is highly complex and time consuming, but the potential value that can be added to a company from successfully tendering a contract is phenomenal. Whilst there is no one size fits all for tendering, ensuring you answer the questions effectively and follow the discussed tips, will significantly increase your company’s chances of success in the competitive tendering landscape.