In today’s competitive business world, many potential services are put out to tender. That is numerous potential companies are provided with the opportunity to bid for the work.

In their bids, they will state how their company will solve your business need, provide the service required or supply the goods requested. They will also provide a price for this work.

The process of designing and writing these proposals or tenders, complete with the pricing, is called tender management or bid management.

The tender starts when an Invitation to tender has been issued. It is usually a formal document that is issued by a purchasing company in order to notify other companies that bids for a piece of work, project or service is required.

There is always a deadline for submissions of tenders, this makes bid management very time dependent.

What does tender management include?

• Analysing the requirements in the invitation to tender.
• Designing a solution that meets the tender requirements.
• Managing the staff members writing the tender.
• Developing a compelling proposal that not only meets the requirements but stands out among the other bids.
• Submitting a price that will win the bid while ensuring a profit by the for the bidder.
• Defining and minimising any risk associated with the service or product delivery while maximising the impact of the tender.
• Ensuring deadlines are met

Tenders are not Standardised documents. Each tender:

• Different needs
• Different process of request
• Different constraints
• Different regulations and laws
• Requires different response
• Require excellent negotiation and tender writing skills

Why you need us for your tender management

We can help you if you are responding to an invitation to tender.

If you are a potential supplier, we can:

• Evaluate and analyse the bid requirements
• Gather information about the scoring mechanism, competitors and the customer requirements so that we can tune the bid and differentiate you from the competition
• Make sure that all the resources are available to do what is needed
• Make sure we can get all the information together for the response
• Determine and set the timescales, allowing sufficient time to respond to the bid (agree bid/no-bid) responses and review before final submission
• Help you determine which tender best aligns with your RTO and business

We can also help you if you want invite bids.

If you are a potential supplier, we can:

• Structure the bid requirements
• Define the process
• Develop a questionnaire (if needed)
• Set the timescales
• Set the objective selection criteria for your acquisition.
• Develop the appropriate control document
• Define the supplier selection criteria
• Develop the successful bid selection criteria
• Determine whether it will be the lowest price or multi-dimensional selection?

Once the bid has been submitted (supplier) or received (acquirer) there is an evaluation period which includes:

• Short listing for presentations
• Setting relevant criteria for presentation
• Informing participants about progress
• Ensure all compliance issues are addressed
• Negotiating before the contract is awarded
• Identifying any late deal-breakers