Hudson Archives - Tender Consultants

The 5 Steps of Bidding for a Contract

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 14 Apr 2021 07:00:52 +0000

Bidding for a contract: How to succeed in 5 steps

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 9:52 am

Bidding for a tendering contract can be overwhelming at the best of times, particularly if you’ve never done it before. However, tendering for work is a great way to grow your business.

COVID-19 has changed the way in which company’s do business. Gone are the days of face-to-face meetings and traditional networking events. As we come out of the other side, tendering is a great way to secure a pipeline of work. We have devised five steps that can help you understand what happens when bidding for a contract.

Step 1: Find the right bid for your business

Once you’ve decided to tender for work, you’ll be wondering how you can find the right contract for your business. There’s no shortage of websites that post multi-sector opportunities and leads daily. Ideally, you should be looking for a sector-specific portal that posts unique, public and private sector opportunities.

One centralised and easy-to-navigate portal can help save you time. Simply relying on CPV codes can result in missed opportunities as they are often mislabelled. Finding a portal that uploads and categorises tenders by keywords, location, budget and more can streamline the process. Our sister company, Hudson Discover, hosts 11 sector-specific tendering portals.

These sectors consist of;

Once signed up, you’ll have access to an on-hand Account Manager. They’ll be able to answer any questions you have about contract bidding. You’ll also get an email alert when new and relevant tenders are uploaded.

Book a free live demo of your preferred portal.

Step 2: Planning and research

Planning and research are a couple of the most important aspects when bidding for a contract. You want to make a note of all the important dates and what documents you’ll need. These could include:

Final submission date and time
Clarification questions deadline
Site visits deadline
Documents that need attaching
Format of submission.

When bidding for a contract, you should double-check that you meet the minimum eligibility criteria. You don’t want to waste resources starting a bid only to realise you don’t qualify on financial standing, for example.

Check that your business:

Meets the economic and financial standing
Has enough experience
Meets the minimum turnover threshold
Has the resources to carry out the contract.

When bidding for a contract, you should aim to complete it with plenty of time before final submission. This can help ease the pressure and stress. Tenders can be long and complex at the best of times, so you want to allow for plenty of time. Unexpected delays may pop up and by planning ahead you can help safeguard your response in case this happens. Setting internal deadlines for you and your team can help with this.

Step 3: Price your services right

Pricing your services right is a crucial aspect of contract bidding. You don’t want to price your services too low as it may result in the contractor questioning your legitimacy. The evaluation criteria of every contract is different and depend on the buyer’s needs. The weightings will differ, but generally speaking, you can expect a split between two or three aspects:

Price
Quality
Social value (for public sector contracts).

The private and public sector differ in how they award contracts. The private sector isn’t bound and constrained by the same rules and regulations the public sector is. If a private organisation wants to award a contract on price alone, they can.

However, the public sector has certain rules and regulations they must meet to award a bid to a supplier. Public sector organisations will award bids to the most economically advantageous tender, known as the MEAT. The MEAT seeks to achieve the most value for money from a contract. A buyer will take into account a range of factors that will be specified in the tender documents. They’ll evaluate them both individually and in combination. They might include the following:

Accessibility
Technical ability
Ability to deliver on time
Innovation
Environmental considerations
Sustainability
Customer service
Quality.

Step 4: Write a high-quality bid response

Writing a high-quality bid response is crucial. As mentioned above, even if the weighting on quality is less than cost, buyers care about the quality. You want to be persuasive when bidding for a contract. You want to convince the buyer that you are the best business for the job. When writing bids it’s worth considering:

Format

Clearly format your response with subheadings and bullet points. Often you will be able to break down the question and use these as subheadings. This can help ensure that you are covering and answering every aspect of the question asked. Bullet points can also help keep your response ordered. This will help you get in the buyer’s good books. Put yourself in their shoes. If you’re having to evaluate tens to hundreds of bid responses, you’ll favour those that are clearly laid out. This helps you outshine your competitors as opposed to submitting a chunk of text.

Assumptions

Furthermore, don’t allow the buyer to make assumptions from what you’ve written. Leaving room for assumptions can allow for the wrong assumptions to be made. Clearly explain everything and avoid overly technical jargon. Don’t assume they know anything about you, your business or your bid.

Word count

When bidding for a contract, you should aim for your response to be as close to the word or page counts as possible. They’re there for a reason. If a buyer expects a 1000-word response, simply writing one paragraph won’t do. Keep answers relevant, clear and concise.

Sector-specific contract bidding tips

Before going ahead with any tender, you must analyse your business and determine the contract values you’re eligible for. This helps ensure you can remain competitive while still making a profit.

Often the contract value will be stated in the tender specification. If it’s not, there’s a simple way you can figure it out. As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t be bidding for contracts that are more than half your annual turnover. For example, if your turnover is £100,000, you shouldn’t tender for contracts that are more than £50,000.

Contract bidding in the creative sector

The creative industry can cover many different services such as:

Marketing and PR
Design
Digital works
Event management
Videography.

Tender proposals in the sector are usually a lot more free-flowing, allowing suppliers to demonstrate their creativity. If successful, a buyer will likely require a supplier to do a presentation before the contract is awarded.

Contract bidding in the facilities management industry

Contract bidding in the facilities management industry is booming, with the cleaning sector, in particular, being flooded with opportunities. SMEs can tender for contracts that have values ranging from anything from £2,000 to upwards of £100,000.

The cleaning sector covers areas such as:

Commercial
Corporate
Education
Private and/or domestic
Local government
Industrial.

The contract bidding process is typically a two-stage process:

A contractor will release a selection questionnaire (SQ) or pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ).
Once completed, successful suppliers will be sent an invitation to tender (ITT).

This is when an interested supplier will submit their tender response. Each has the aim of convincing the buyer that they are the best company for the job.

In our experience, cleaning contracts are typically evaluated with a larger weight being placed on price. For example, 60% price and 40% quality. However, in the public sector, it’s worth bearing in mind the 10% minimum weighting on social value. Therefore, although it’s important to remain competitively priced, it isn’t the only thing to think about when contract bidding.

Contract bidding in the construction sector

The construction industry is one of the biggest industries that tender for work. Billions of pounds are being invested in the construction industry by both the UK government and the private sector.

Within construction, although you do find open tendering procedures begin used, you will more likely come across a two-stage process. Similar to the facilities industry, as mentioned above, suppliers will likely have to complete a PQQ for larger contracts. A fairly recent type of PQQ, used within the construction industry, is the PAS91.

PAS91

The PAS91 was developed by the British Standards Institute to save construction companies from filling out multiple PQQs. Although a PAS91 is slightly longer than a PQQ or SQ, it has the same ‘what have you done’ mentality. The main benefits are that once completed, you are:

Exempt from completing some core sections if you possess certain accreditations
Able to develop a standardised response to the standardised questions
Save you time the in long run.

If you’re a member of Constructionline you will automatically be exempt from completing the most time-consuming parts of the PAS91. The PAS91 demonstrates to the contracting authority that you meet the necessary requirements. Construction PQQs and PAS91s usually require the following:

Supplier and identity contract information
Financial standing
Business and professional standing
Health and safety
Equal opportunity and diversity policy
Environmental management policy
Quality management

After completing the PAS91, and the minimum eligibility criteria is met, the supplier will receive an ITT.

Contract bidding in the healthcare industry

Understandably, the healthcare industry has boomed over the last two years. The global pandemic and an ageing population have led to billions being invested in healthcare services.

There are two things to consider when undertaking contract bidding within the healthcare sector:

Experience

Providing evidence of contract experience is one of the most important aspects when tendering in the healthcare sector. This is because buyers want to be reassured that they have the experience to carry out the contract. They want to see evidence you have the resources to provide the good, service or works you are applying for.

You may be required to demonstrate up to three previous case studies within the last five years. These must be similar in scope, scale and complexity to the contracts you’re bidding for. Remember to keep the case studies relevant.

The more experience you have, the bigger contracts you can go for. The bigger contracts you go for as a business, the more income you’ll get, the bigger your business will grow.

Qualifications

Having the relevant qualifications is vital for contract bidding in the healthcare sector. Having relevant qualifications and accreditations can strengthen your tender response. Internationally recognised certifications will convey that you are experienced and safety competent. Relevant qualification could include:

CQC registered
ISO 9001; 13485; 14001; 23001; 27001
NVQs (level 3 and above)
CyberEssentials
RMADS

3 trends within procurement

Innovation

Innovation is seemingly a new trend throughout multiple industries in procurement. Buyers are wanting to see the latest innovative solutions when procuring goods, works or services. This may be innovative environmental solutions or innovative and collaborative working. Research, technology, healthcare, construction and creative are just some of the sectors that look for innovation in tendering responses.

Sustainability and environmental considerations

Sustainability and environmental considerations are taken a lot more seriously within procurement. Contractors like to see how your organisation is tackling carbon emissions, reducing waste and encouraging recycling to name a few.

This is evident within the public sector with their mandatory social value weighting. However, the private sector is also looking at the way they do business. Moreover, how they can be more environmentally friendly and sustainable. Reflecting on how they can sustainably cut emissions without comprising on quality or service is becoming a priority for many.

Local supply chains

Buyers, particularly in the public sector are seeking to establish and maintain a local supply chain. They are hoping to establish this supply chain closer to home. The pandemic has led to businesses reflecting on how they do business. Moreover, what happens when the global supply chain is disrupted. Brexit has also been a contributing factor. More and more, businesses are looking to work with local SMEs in order to secure their supply chain.

Establishing a local supply chain will enable companies to build resilience for the future. It also helps them manage risk. A lot more businesses will be forward planning. Many will now have procedures in place in order to safeguard their business from future disruptions to business.

Need help bidding for a contract?

Not everyone has the time, resources and experience to sit through the tendering process and write a winning response.. Outsourcing to bid writing experts can help you get on the path to success, helping you win your next tender.

We proudly have over 60 years of bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. They offer four bid writing support services that can help you when bidding for a contract. Whether you’re completely new to contract bidding or just need your response proofread – we can help.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect contract for your business, why not send it our way? Our Bid Writers can take care of it all for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own tender response and need someone to double-check it for errors, Tender Mentor can help. The Bid Team will proofread your work for any inconsistencies, grammar or spelling mistakes. They’ll also ensure that it’s in line with the specification before you submit.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready 4-week programme is perfect for businesses that have never tendered before. A Bid Writer will work with you to make sure you have everything in place to tender successfully. Tender Ready offers your business:

A 12-month subscription to one Hudson Discover portal.
Access to Global Bid Directors and Senior Bidding Professionals.
An Organisation-wide Bid library, including 3 case studies, 5 CVs and 8 policies.
Additional flexible benefit options.

Tender Improvement

If you’ve been tendering but aren’t seeing the results you want, our Tender Improvement package can help. Our Bid Team will assess your previous responses and tender documents, working with you to improve for future submissions.

Step 5: Submit your bid

Before you submit your tender response, you should proofread it. Leaving a day or two from completion before you submit can help with this. Additionally, having someone else read over it can help spot any spelling or grammar mistakes or inconsistencies.

Once this has all been completed, you should submit your response and wait to hear back from the buyer. This can take a while, try not to fret if you haven’t heard. Some tenders can get hundreds of responses, so reviewing these can take time. Either way, the buyer will always notify you once they have reviewed all bids. They can either do this via the tender portal or email depending on the method of submission.

You may not be successful with every tender you submit and that’s ok. Ask for feedback from the buyer if unsuccessful. This can help you see which aspects you can improve on for future bids.

Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering efforts – even when you’re busy. Our two new time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and success rate when bidding for a contract.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option can help businesses that overlap two industries such as Healthcare and Technology, for example.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management, including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid
Weekly phone calls with your dedicated Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post The 5 Steps of Bidding for a Contract appeared first on Tender Consultants.

We Open Our US Head Office

Charlotte Jarvis — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 11:50:33 +0000

Expanding into the US

We are thrilled to say that we have secured our US Head Office space in Florida. The office will be crucial to our international expansion plans that are currently underway. We already support multiple businesses in the US through our Discover and Succeed services. This is our next step to establishing our presence.

Bid writing in Boston – We visit our US office space

This month we visited our new office space in the Workbar, Boston. We already support multiple businesses in the US through our Discover and Succeed services, but this is our next step for moving into the American market.

A growing team

Throughout 2019 we have been growing at an exponential rate, most recently recruiting five new team members to aid the expansion of Hudson and our sister companies.

With this extra support, now is the perfect time to expand our horizons and increase our presence in an international market.

Our team of Bid Writers, Bid Managers and Coordinators hold decades of collective experience writing and winning work for clients across multiple sectors. They have worked with global businesses previously, but this is the first time our Hudson Succeed team will be able to offer bid writing services with a base in Boston.

Bid writing internationally

As with most bid writing consultancies, we are able to work remotely to support our clients in most cases. Our team use methods such as Skype and e-mail to liaise with clients of our Succeed service. However, we do recognise the importance of a personal connection, especially for businesses with more complex requirements. When necessary, we will meet with new clients face-to-face to discuss the support that will be required. Our base in Boston will allow us to continue this level of service on an international scale.

Our Group CEO says…

“We are thrilled to have secured our Boston base. We are already working with clients on a global scale in the US, South Africa, Italy, Hong Kong, Hungary and Poland but this base will allow us to centralise our international presence.” – John Hudson.

Initially, our plan was to make this step in 2020. However, due to the pandemic and restrictions on travel, our international expansion had to be paused.

Continually growing into 2020

Throughout 2020, we have been growing at an exponential rate. Even amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, our team continued to persevere and support a record number of new clients. Our Hudson Succeed client base grew by 161% during this time. This meant we needed more hands on deck to ensure the exceptional level of service our clients expect from Hudson.

We welcomed 13 more team members from July 2020 to January 2021 and we’re continuing to recruit more talented individuals. With this extra support and the promising recovery from the pandemic, now is the perfect time to expand our horizons.

Our international reach

Recently, we announced the exciting news that we had reached a huge milestone in our international plans. Through our Succeed and Discover divisions, we reached clients in 18 countries across the globe.

Based in the North East of England, Hudson began with a small, yet ambitious, team. Our clients now stretch from the UK to 10 other European countries and from Russia to the Caribbean.

In our Hudson Succeed division, our team has supported over 700 businesses, globally, with their tendering efforts. Our Bid Writers hold an 87% success rate and help clients ranging from healthcare providers to construction and technology companies.

Our Managing Director, Jill Hudson, said…

I am delighted to see our Group reaching so many different countries. Our goal is ultimately to help businesses grow far and wide, reaching their full potential. Now we’re able to help many more organisations achieve this around the world.”

As with most bid writing consultancies, we are able to work remotely to support our clients in most cases. This was the way we normally worked prior to social distancing rules. Our team communicates with clients via Zoom, e-mails and phone calls regularly. They ensure that every client is kept up to date with the progress of their bid. However, we do recognise the importance of personal connections and how crucial this will be when Covid restrictions are lifted. This is especially the case when it comes to working on important bids for high-value contracts.

Welcoming our Global Bid Director

In September 2020, as we prepared to establish ourselves in the US, we welcomed Global Bid Director, Beverley Park. The main focus of Beverley’s role is to implement our growth strategy for Hudson Succeed in the US. This will see us expand into Florida, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Whilst implementing this, Beverley will also be working to significantly grow our operations in the UK, strengthening our delivery capabilities.

Beverley joined the team with over 15-years of business development experience. During this time, Beverley has supported a range of organisations from micro-businesses to SMEs and large corporations.

Most recently, Beverley worked for an American owned outsourcing company with 26,000 staff. Her role required setting up and managing their UK bid division with multiple teams, nationwide reporting to her.

Beverley’s bidding experience ranges from managing bids with values from £10,000 to complex multi-million-pound opportunities.

With Beverley on board, we are now implementing the next phase of our international expansion, beginning with our Florida HQ.

Beverley said…

I’m so happy to have this opportunity at Hudson, the opportunity to grow and expand not only the Hudson Group, but also our client’s businesses is really exciting. I’m excited to grow the Succeed division across the UK and into America.”

The next phase

The next stage of our expansion has already begun, with the development of our US-focused website. Later this year, when travel restrictions are eased, our Directors will travel to our Florida base to establish a team. We understand the importance of recruiting from the local area and we are looking forward to forming our US Team.

Our Group CEO, John Hudson, says…

We are thrilled to have secured our US Head Office. We are already working with clients on a global scale in America, South Africa, Italy and Hong Kong to name a few. However, this base will allow us to centralise our international presence.”

Access bid support

Are you currently seeking support with your tendering or procurement efforts? Our team of Bid Writing Consultants are available to advise on suitable services that will help your business grow. Contact us for more information.

The post We Open Our US Head Office appeared first on Tender Consultants.

A Guide to Crown Commercial Service Frameworks

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 07:00:31 +0000

Crown Commercial Service Framework FAQs

[Last modified: July 2021]

The Crown Commercial Service frameworks help the UK’s public sector save money when buying common goods and services. The Crown Commercial Service (CCS) is the biggest public procurement organisation in the UK.

They help buyers in the central government, public and third sectors to purchase a wide range of services and goods. From building materials to police cars and networks to nursing staff – they cover a wide and varied range. Crown Commercial Service frameworks are also referred to as Crown Commercial Service (CCS) commercial agreements.

Crown Commercial Service frameworks allow their buyers to get the best commercial deals in the interests of taxpayers. Being a supplier on Crown Commercial Service frameworks can be a lucrative opportunity for your business. Tendering for contracts has many advantages, particularly for SMEs.

If you’re wondering how Crown Commercial Service frameworks work, read our guide below.

What is purchased via Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

There are four main categories and a number of sub-categories of Crown Commercial Service framework agreements. They are as following:

Buildings

Construction
Energy
Workplace

Corporate Solutions

Document Management & Logistics
Financial Services
Fleet
Marcomms & Research
Office and Travel

People

Contract Centres
People Services
Professional Services
Workforce Health & Education
PSR & Permanent Recruitment

Technology

Digital Future
Network Services
Software & Cyber
Technology Products & Services

How to respond to Crown Commercial Service frameworks

In order to respond to tender opportunities, you will need to be registered on the CCS eSourcing tool. To register, you will need to provide the following information:

The full legal name of your organisation.
Your DUNS number (a unique nine-digit number provided to your organisation by Dun & Bradstreet).
Profile information describing your organisation and the size of your business.

What are Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

Buyers are able to purchase everyday goods and services such as office supplies from the CCS catalogue. The CCS publishes commercial agreements for more complex procurements. For example, if one is looking to buy a fleet of vehicles, they would be procured via a framework.

A framework comprises a description of common public sector requirements. They are multi-supplier agreements and these suppliers have been evaluated and deemed capable of delivering the requirements and contract. Frameworks are typically divided into lots, often by product, service type or location. There are various tendering procedures used by a buyer to purchase something. Businesses looking to buy from a framework can directly award a supplier or run a further mini competition among suppliers.

Further competitions

Further competitions enable the purchase on high-value or complex goods or services. Anything from stationary to complex facility management. These Crown Commercial Service frameworks can run from a few weeks, to several months depending on the complexity of requirements. Further competitions allow an open and fair procurement process for potential suppliers.

3 key things to note

Here are some things to consider when writing bids:

Timing

Once a framework has been awarded, additional suppliers can’t be added – unlike a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). If this is the case, you will need to wait until the next opening arises. As mentioned above, the length of Crown Commercial Service frameworks can vary from a couple of months to years.

New procurements often start several months in advance of the active arrangement’s expiry date. This is because the procurement process can take a number of months to complete. It all depends on the complexity of the goods or services being procured.

Sub-contracting

Sometimes there may not be tendering opportunities available in your area of business. If this is the case, you may be able to sub-contract your services to suppliers on existing arrangements. For this to happen, you should directly contact the relevant supplier. Suppliers can be found on the CCS website.

The Government eMarketplace

Registering on the Government eMarketplace will enable you to advertise your capability to supply products or services. The eMarketplace is an online marketplace providing customers with a request for quote (RFQ) service for low-value, less complex purchases. This enables you to supply on a national or regional basis without the need of going through the tendering process.

Any supplier can register for the marketplace. However, it’s worth bearing in mind that registering on this marketplace does not mean you’re a CCS supplier. You will not be listed on the Crown Commercial Service website as a supplier. This shouldn’t dishearten you as it is still a great way to secure a pipeline of work.

Where can I find Crown Commercial Service Frameworks?

You’re able to find Crown Commercial Service frameworks by registering with the government’s Contract Finder and Tenders Electronic Daily (TED). These two services can be used for finding tender opportunities relevant to your business area.

TED is the online version of the supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). Contracts Finder shows the longer term and wider government pipeline. You are able to find all public sector tenders over £10,000 here. It’s automatically updated every weekday night with new notices published on TED.

Both sites will give you information about both CCS and wider government tender opportunities. You will need to constantly monitor the procurement pipeline for new opportunities. This can all take quite a lot of time out of your day or night.

What if we told you, there’s an easier way to go about this that streamlines the process, saving you time?

Enter…Hudson Discover!

Hudson Discover gives you access to all the Crown Commercial Service frameworks, unique and public sector opportunities in your industry. Find them all in one, easy-to-use, central portal.

At Hudson Discover, we house 11 sector-specific tendering portals. These consist of:

A subscription to one of our industry-specific portals will include:

Unlimited portal access. You can browse your industries portal to your heart’s content. See the hundreds of opportunities that are available, intuitively categorised and easily accessible. You’ll have access to all unique, public and private tendering opportunities in one place.
A daily email bulletin. Receive email alerts when new tenders are uploaded, straight to your inbox.
Filter results. There’s no reliance on inaccurate CPV codes. You are able to filter and search results by keyword, location budget and more. This allows you to find the perfect opportunity for your business.
A dedicated Account Manager. They’ll handle any questions or queries you may have about the portal.
A free 20-minutes phone consultation with a Bid Writer. Our expert bid consultants will chat with you for 20-minutes about anything tender-related. They can recommend all the tender searching options that are available to you.

Need assistance securing a place on a Crown Commercial Service framework?

If being a supplier on a CCS framework is something your business is interested in, we can help. It’s understandable if you don’t have the necessary resources or time to complete an application in-house. Our dedicated Hudson Succeed team have over 60 years bid writing experience, boasting an 87% success rate. We have secured direct contract wins totalling over £300million for our clients. We offer four bid writing support services.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect Crown Commercial Service framework for your business, why not send it our way? Our Bid Writers can take care of it all for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf. The tendering process is time-consuming which is why we are here to help with writing bids.

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

A 12-month subscription to one of our Hudson Discover portals.
Access to Global Bid Directors and Senior Bidding Professionals.
An Organisation-wide Bid library, including 3 case studies, 5 CV’s and 8 policies.
Additional flexible benefit options.

Tender Improvement

Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering efforts – even when you’re busy. Our two new time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and success rate.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option can help businesses that overlap two industries such as Healthcare and Facilities, for example.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management, including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid
Weekly phone calls with your dedicated Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post A Guide to Crown Commercial Service Frameworks appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to be a Successful Bid Manager for Rail Tenders

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 24 Feb 2021 07:00:20 +0000

How to be a successful bid manager in the rail industry

If you’re a bid manager for rail contracts, you know what the end of the railways franchise means for business. You’re aware of the precise and time-focused nature of rail industry contracts. The new Emergency Recovery Management Agreements (ERMAs) is most likely going to result in more tenders over a shorter period.

This means in order to keep the business running smoothly, you must have the relevant project management strategies in place. Efficiency is key as the ERMAs will need to be applied for more frequently, unlike the old franchise system. In the majority of cases, buyers will require:

Case Studies – A comprehensive collection of previous contracts that have been fulfilled
Company CVs – Relevant records of employee’s and their respective experience
Financial Accounts – Allowing you to showcase your financial suitability for the role. If your annual turnover is less than half of the contact then you’ll be unlikely to be picked
High quality written responses – Grammar, spelling and errors are high priority
Evidence of relevant qualifications, accreditations, and policies – Quality assurance policies, health & safety policy, adequate training of your employees, equality/equal opportunity
Pricing documents.

The benefits this give your company are:

Having consistent and well-developed content to showcase your business’ organisation and professionalism
Maintaining a bank of information that can be called upon with each tender
Improving consistent growth and developing a robust bid management strategy for future tenders
Showcasing your staff and company’s experience in the best possible light.

Any bid manager tendering for contracts knows these must be of the highest quality to secure a contract. The new contracts hope to drive growth while encouraging innovation. You can expect more demanding management agreements with tougher performance targets that need to be met.

What does it take to be a successful bid manager for rail contracts?

Time management

Time management is key to bid writing – it’s no different if you’re a bid manager for rail contracts. It might seem obvious, but you’d be surprised just how many failed submissions there are due to poor time management.

The first thing you must do is establish the submission deadlines, both date and time. It’s useful to set internal deadlines too, so you can keep on top of things. It’s best to establish the following when the tender specification is released:

Submission date and time
Site visits
Clarification deadlines
Presentation dates.

You should factor in enough time for any potential unexpected challenges along the way that may delay you. This extra time should allow for any last-minute changes before you submit the tender response.

Keep your finger on the pulse of the rail industry

You must be up to date with any new policies, qualifications and accreditations that are needed for tender responses. These are updated and renewed every now and again, and you need to know what’s changed and when. For example, a Recognised Accreditation Scheme could include any of the following diversity accreditation schemes:

Investors in Diversity
Clear Assured
National Equality Standards
Diversity Development Standard
Inclusive Employers.

Big projects such as HS2 have provided a wealth of bidding opportunities within the rail sector. It’s a landmark project that’s creating a huge variety of opportunities to those within the Logistics Sector. The government is always looking to update the rail network. This means you should be able to find the relevant opportunities for your business.

A bank of evidence

Rail tenders often require a great deal of technical responses, supported with hard evidence. A bid manager within the rail industry should have ordered, easily accessible evidence for all matters relating to the tender. There’s a great emphasis on health and safety with all rail tender quality responses. As stated above, a bid library can save you time.

It’s best to get as much evidence as you can well in advance. Responses require hard and thorough evidence of case studies or financial accounts. You don’t want to be rushing around last minute trying to collect this information.

Detailed and technical writing abilities

The quality of your written response counts. Buyers want to see technical, factual and detailed information in front of them. You and your Bid Writing Team must write clearly and concisely in line with the specification. A high level of attention to detail is an essential quality for a bid manager. Although rail tenders tend to require technical responses, you should avoid including unnecessary technical jargon.

How to make your internal processes more efficient

You must create somewhat of a masterplan to success if you’re a bid manager for rail contracts. Here are a few pointers that may help:

Block out distractions

This sounds simple but too many contractors kill time by becoming distracted from the task. This can manifest in any way such as:

Social media
Emails
Texts

All these components can detract minutes and, eventually, hours away from worktime. A good method for organising your time is through blocking your days into sizeable chunks. This allows for less wasted time.

Ultimately, ensuring that you allocate time effectively can boost your productivity.

Create a writing plan or style guide

Through the creation of a style guide, you can ensure a consistent response. This is particularly useful if multiple people are working on a tender response. It helps create a clean looking document too. You should distribute this to all team members and include things such as font, tone of voice and writing style. Buyers are expecting a coherent and consistent response.

Holding regular meetings

Team meetings are a good way to ensure your team is on the right track (if you pardon the pun). This is applicable now more than ever, as more employees working from home. Regular meetings provide time for your colleagues to voice any concerns or share useful information with each other. It also helps keep priorities straight as the project might need more attention on something one week. However, it’s also important to note that overindulging in meetings can end up being a drain of time and attention. Ensure that the meetings you have are highly efficient, and that people take accurate notes so that further meetings aren’t needed.

Back up your claims

The rail industry is precise and data heavy, and this means that you’ll be allowed less leeway for unsubstantial claims. So, make sure that whatever statistic you’re giving, or claim you’re making, is backed up by hard evidence. It won’t reflect well on the credibility of your company if you’re fact-checked and your information is false. In fact, the result of this might be the rejection of your bid from the bidding process. A good way to avoid this is through proofreading, as you’ll be able to check the document for untrue claims.

Set early internal deadlines

As mentioned in the time management section above, setting internal deadlines can be an effective bid management strategy. Allow enough time and then some in case of unexpected challenges. This will help reduce stress as the deadline approaches and enables you plenty of time to proof before submission. Time management should be key in your bid management team.

Record progress

Recording your progress is not only useful, but satisfying too. Making a checklist and being able to check tasks off is rewarding and can boost morale. Each member should have access to a bid management progress chart. Then they’re able to see the response coming together. This ultimately stimulates a sense of achievement for the team, leading to further cohesion.

Establish roles and responsibilities early on

If there are multiple people working on one tender response, establish each person’s role and responsibilities early on. This can help avoid confusion and ensure that everyone has their own task to be getting on with. You don’t want to end up with duplicated responses from miscommunication as it’s a waste of everyone’s time. Communicating this and coming up with a timetable can help, particularly if your team’s members are working remotely.

Delegation

Following from establishing roles, it’s also important to recognise your capabilities as a bid manager. There’s no shame in admitting that you need to outsource, as this can speed up productivity and efficiency considerably. Other reasons to outsource can be:

There’s a good chance that the company you’re outsourcing to is highly specialised to complete their part of the role. Due to this, when the response is complete, it reflects well on you and your company.
In some cases, its preferable to stretching resources/overreaching in your abilities to deliver a response.
The outsourced company may provide skills and knowledge you hadn’t thought of/ methods you haven’t encountered.
A fear some companies hold is the outsourced company lack of knowledge around the company. But most proficient subcontractors will consult the relevant people to gain the necessary information.
If you can’t afford to sink resources in other areas internally, outsourcing is the perfect option. Its time and cost efficient.
You’re accessing a talent pool you wouldn’t otherwise have.
Your focus can return to the other, more pressing aspects of the contract.

Proofread before submitting

Proofreading before you submit your tender response is a critical step that shouldn’t be overlooked. It may be best if you’ve been working on the tender to get someone else to have a look over it. A fresh set of eyes can help identify any spelling or grammatical errors that you may have missed. They will also be able to identify whether the response answers the question within the specification.

As the ERMAs are for shorter terms, there’s no doubt going to be an increase in competition. You need to stay ahead of the game and ahead of your competitors to win contracts. If you lack the know-how and expertise to stand out from the competition, it may be best to outsource this.

Summary

So, we’ve reached the end of this blog about bid managing in the rail industry. For those who need it, here’s a short recap.

We covered:

What it takes to be a bid manager including:

Keeping a finger on the pulse of the rail industry
Ensuring time management
Having a bank of evidence
The importance of having and maintaining a good level of writing skills

We then went on to some tips that help with efficiency:

Proofreading before submitting
Blocking out distractions throughout the day
Delegating tasks/the power in outsourcing
Establishing roles and responsibilities
Finding the balance between efficient and overly long meetings
Setting internal deadlines
Recording progress
Creating writing plans
Ensuring your claims and statistics are truthful/factual.

Now you’ve got a great idea of how to improve as a bid manager, you may be wondering what we offer…

How can we help?

The tendering process is long and complex but the team are here to assist you writing bids. You can outsource the role to our dedicated Hudson Succeed team. They have 60 years bid writing experience and an 87%I didn’t success rate. Our team have secured contract wins totalling over £300 million for our clients.

We offer four bid writing packages:

Tender Mentor Services

Send your completed rail tender response over to our team. They can take a look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. They’ll notify you of any grammatical or spelling errors before you submit.

A Tender Ready Programme

The Tender Ready programme is for those who have never tendered before. We work with you to ensure you’re on the right track to submitting a successful bid. The 4-week programme will develop your branded corporate literature and case studies. Our team will advise you on what tendering opportunities you should go for and guide your through your tendering response.

Ad-hoc Tender Writing

If you’ve found the perfect rail contract for your business but don’t have the time – we can help. Send it over to our Bid Writing Team and they’ll take care of the rest. They’ll even submit it on your behalf and provide a full Tender Writing breakdown.

A Tender Improvement Package

If you’ve already tendering, but aren’t seeing the desired results from your efforts, the Tender Improvement package can help. Our Bid Writers will assess your submissions and provide guidance and feedback.

Additional support

If you only need the assistance with PQQs or SQs we can help. Send the information over to us and we can provide you with a quote for the work involved.

Sourcing rail opportunities

We source tenders within the Logistics Sector on a daily basis off thousands of sites across the UK. Any bid manager for rail contracts knows how important it is to source the right tender for your business. It can be easier said than done.

You can sign up to our Logistics Tenders portal and start receiving business leads today. Our Opportunity Trackers manually upload thousands of live tenders daily. You’re able to filter the results by keyword, location, budget and more. You no longer have to rely on inaccurate CPV codes to find the right opportunity for your business.

Hudson Elite

Our recently launched Hudson Elite service offers an upgraded level of support to our Discover portals. We can help you with an even more efficient service offering a fully managed tender tracking approach.

Your Account Manager will personally find opportunities for you. They are on hand to help you decide on the ever-important bid question. This can help save you even more time to focus on running your business. This package includes an annual subscription to the portal of your choice and weekly phone calls to discuss new opportunities.

Get in touch for more information.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
An annual subscription to a maximum of two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This option can help businesses that overlap two industries such as Healthcare and Technology, for example.
Pre-market and award engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Buyer portal management, including registration, password management, downloading documents and assessing viability based on your bid or no-bid strategy.
Weekly phone calls with your dedicated Account Manager to discuss viable tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. It will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

On Logistics Tenders, we post contracts for:

Rail contracts
Courier services
Public transport
Transport services
Logistical planning consultancy
Recycling logistics
School taxi contracts
Bus tenders
and supply chain solutions.

Book a free live demo today for a quick tour of our portal. Get in touch to learn more about our bespoke bid writing services.

Want to save even more time?

Upgrading to Discover Elite can save you even more time, helping you identify tendering opportunities even when you’re busy. Our two time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and bidding success rate.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post How to be a Successful Bid Manager for Rail Tenders appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to Bid for Funding Efficiently

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 17 Feb 2021 07:00:18 +0000

Bid for funding efficiently with these 10 tips

[Last modified; July 2021]

It’s not surprising that there has been an increase in companies wondering how they can bid for funding. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in organisations reassessing how they do business.

Businesses can’t network like they used to. With social distancing and working from home, there are no business lunches or face-to-face meetings. This has forced businesses to look into other options on how they can grow. Because of this, tendering for contracts and bids for funding and grants are on the rise. They’re becoming increasingly competitive and you want your bid for funding to stand out from the crowd.

There are generally two types of funding bids. One, is a bid to a public sector commissioner such as a local authority, to deliver a service. The other is an application for funding to companies or foundations. They require you to explain why you need the money, and what impacts it will have.

Here’s our guide on how to bid for funding efficiently.

Ask yourself – are you eligible?

Ensure that the funder’s aims, objectives and eligibility criteria fit with your bid. Carefully read the guidelines on how to apply and establish what additional documents and information you may need.

You need to ask yourself if the funder’s aims and objectives align with your application. If not, then maybe they aren’t the most suitable funder for you. Are you asking for an appropriate amount of funding? What size grants do they offer?

The use of a SWOT analysis would come in handy here. It’s a great way to analyse if this is the right opportunity for you. You should assess the:

Strengths
Weaknesses
Opportunities
Threats

Plan efficiently and well in advance

Bid writing for funding may take a couple of weeks or even months. You’ll want to plan well in advance, particularly as some grant programmes are only open once a year.

It’s important to be realistic when planning. Set yourself realistic time constraints and internal deadlines. Give plenty of time for any unexpected issues to pop-up along the way. If you need anything from your colleagues, remember to give them enough time too. If you set unrealistic or unachievable deadlines, it will just put a strain on things. It’s better to be over-prepared than under-prepared!

Make a checklist of the requirements of the application. For example:

Submission deadline date and time.
The number of pages or words.
Support material needed.
The format required.
Attachments.
The number of copies required.
If they want it submitted online or as a hard copy.

When planning your bid for funding, try using bullet points. They’ll help identify where more detail is needed and identify where there are gaps in information.

Look at things from the funder’s perspective

Put yourself in their shoes – what would you want to know?

Address their aims directly. If the programme aims to strengthen and connect communities then you need to emphasise this in your opening.

Funders will have an overall vision they’re trying to achieve and a key set of guiding principles. Your bid response needs to explain how you’ll achieve this. The awarding body wants to feel like the bidder has truly understood their agenda. They want to feel that a bidder is bidding for funds that link to their own objectives.

Make life a little easier for the funder, by clearly formatting your response. Use heading and subheadings that are in the guidance notes and review criteria. This will also help ensure that you have answered every point within the review criteria.

Be clear and concise

Try not to use technical jargon and aim to be as clear and concise as possible when writing bids. Remember that the funder has a lot of responses to get through. If you make your bid clear and concise, they’ll thank you for it.

Try and stay away from using four words when one will suffice. For example, instead of writing ‘for the purpose of’ simply use ‘for’. Another example is instead of saying ‘in order to’, ‘to’ will be enough.

A commissioner wants to see a well-articulated response that is comprehensively thought through. Before you submit, you should double-check for any errors. It’s best to also get someone else to do a proofread of your proposal. A fresh set of eyes can help see if it’s coherent and flows well. Reading aloud is another great way to ensure it makes sense.

Include facts and stats

It’s always worth adding credible statistics to emphasise your point. Siting a valid source and back up your point with facts. This cannot be stressed enough!

Do your homework and produce evidence that backs up your point. A good way to create a strong response for your bid for funding is by using P.E.E.:

Point
Evidence
Explain

This helps create a strong point that’s then backed up with evidence. The evidence could include stats and facts to drive your point home.

Don’t assume anything

Don’t assume the commissioner knows anything about your organisation or what it does. Explain everything clearly. Leaving room for assumptions can allow for the wrong assumptions to be made. You should also clearly state how you will monitor, measure and report your progress. Don’t assume they will know how you’ll report back

Demonstrate sustainability

Grant-makers want to see how your solution and their money will have a lasting impact. They don’t want to keep pumping money into short-term solutions. They are looking to give it to an organisation that is finding a solution to the source of the problem. In your bid response, you want to show how the grant will be sustainable and long-lasting.

No matter the sector, you must include the social, economic and environmentally beneficial factors of your bid. Social value is of high priority in any form of grant or procurement process – particularly in the public sector. You must include the positive outcomes and how these will continue after the funding has come to an end. If you do this, your chances of a successful bid for funding will increase.

Innovation

A winning bid will have innovative solutions. Commissioners love to see innovation and that’s true for any sector and any type of tendering. Ground-breaking and exclusive solutions that lead the way are what funders are looking for. Think outside the box and ask yourself if your organisation has a truly unique solution to an issue.

Realistically evaluate the running costs

When writing your bid for funding, funders want to see that you know how to handle money. You will need to have a sound methodology for money management and use. You may want to include past projects where you have managed the cash-flow, demonstrating your capabilities. This will reassure them that their money is going into safe hands. You should present:

A business plan for the implementation of the project.
A cash flow analysis for the use of money.
A fully costed project.
The financial controls and safeguards you have in place.
The degree of financial skills and knowledge within your organisation.
Previous annual report.
Your organisation’s annual income and expenditure.

Always ask for feedback if unsuccessful

Feedback can be a great tool to help you improve so don’t be disheartened if you didn’t succeed this time. Asking for feedback can help highlight your shortcomings or mistakes that you can learn from and avoid in future. It can help you increase your chances of your funding application being awarded next time around.

When writing your bid for funding, you need to show how you have identified:

The need for your service.
How your solution meets the need.
How you will engage with the intended audience.
The measurable outcomes that you’re aiming to achieve.
The benefits.
How it will have a lasting impact.
The running costs.

You must state how you’re going to achieve these outcomes. If you set measurable outcomes that you can actually achieve, you’ll be more likely to succeed and win funding.

Example layout of a bid for funding

An example of a typical layout for a bid for funding may look like this:

Project summary
Public description
Describe how your project fits the scope

The following are some examples of the type of application questions you may need to answer, depending on your bid.

What is the problem you want to solve?
Who is it a problem for?
What is innovative about the approach or technology?
Who is the project team?
Are you capable to deliver the solution?
Do you need additional support?
What will you do with the funding?
How will you manage the project and risks effectively?
Finances

Need help with writing your bid for funding? We can help.

Our Tender Writing service is for businesses who want to start bidding for funding, but don’t know where to start. Send it over to our Bid Writers and they can do it all for you. They have 50 years of bidding experience and they can even submit it on your behalf.

We offer four bid writing services:

Get in touch today to find out how we can help your business grow!

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post How to Bid for Funding Efficiently appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to Find the Right Healthcare Bid Manager

Millie Newbold — Wed, 10 Feb 2021 07:00:45 +0000

How to find the right healthcare Bid Manager for your business

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 9:56 am

Are you in the healthcare sector and looking for the right healthcare Bid Manager for your business? This blog will explain what you should consider when choosing a healthcare Bid Manager when tendering for contracts.

Why do you need a healthcare Bid Manager?

If you’re new to the tendering process, you might be thinking, “why do I even need a healthcare Bid Manager?”

As you probably know, securing work in the healthcare sector often requires bidding for work. This is because most healthcare work is procured by Local Authorities, Central Government and the NHS.

So, to win work, grow your business and generate a profit, your company will need to bid for tendering opportunities.

Health and social care tenders are on the rise in the UK. This is because services for the elderly and other vulnerable groups are being transferred to private sector companies.

Tendering for work can be a lengthy, time-consuming and demanding process. From actually finding the bid, to answering the buyer’s questions and submitting your responses. It takes a lot of skill and expertise to write persuasive, compelling bids every time.

And we know how challenging running your own business can be. There’s so much else for you to focus on – do you have time to write a winning tender response?

It’s possible to manage your own healthcare bids, but why not let someone else take care of it for you? It might seem like an additional cost that your company doesn’t need, but it’s actually more cost effective. It’s better to outsource the process to a professional service than waste your in-house resources. Especially if you lose bids due to a lack of expertise!

Let’s look at the key skills needed in bid management

Time management

To be successful as a healthcare Bid Manager, your time management skills need to be second to none when bid writing. Meeting deadlines is an essential part of the tendering process. If you miss the tender deadline, buyers will not evaluate your bid. And buyers won’t be impressed if you ask for extra time! It will make them wonder if your company will be able to deliver the contract on time – and within budget.

There’s no doubt about it – running your own business is time-consuming. Do you have the time to oversee the bid management process on top of your other responsibilities? Outsourcing your bid writing needs to a dedicated healthcare Bid Manager will save you time, money and resources.

Writing capabilities

To write a successful bid, you need the ability to write persuasive, compelling tender responses. It’s not just about being a talented writer – although this helps! But it’s more important to write short sentences that easily convey the information to the buyer.

Perfecting this skill takes time – even for talented writers! So why not outsource your bid writing needs to a dedicated healthcare Bid Manager? You can be sure that your tender responses are being taken care of by experts. And you can focus on other aspects of running a business!

Communication skills

A successful healthcare Bid Manager will have excellent communication skills – both written and verbal. You need to communicate with the buyer and show them that you can deliver their contract. This includes your tender responses and any communication you have with clients, suppliers or sometimes buyers in person.

If you run your own company, we’re sure that your communications skills are up to scratch. But even with top-notch communication skills, you’ll still benefit from outsourcing the work to Bid Writing Consultancy. An external Bid Manager will be skilled in communicating with you (the client) and ensure that you are kept up to date throughout the process.

Industry awareness

It goes without saying that you’ll be an expert in your sector. But what about bid writing?

A healthcare Bid Manager might not be an expert in your particular specialism – that’s where you come in. But their industry awareness is invaluable to writing a successful bid response. A successful Bid Writer will be able to read the tender’s specifications and know how to tick all the boxes.

What can a healthcare Bid Manager do for you?

As we’ve already explained, the tendering process can be lengthy, time-consuming and demanding. To write and oversee a successful bid takes a lot of skill and expertise.

If you haven’t got the time, resources or personal skill to write winning bids – then don’t worry. A healthcare Bid Manager can help you with every step of the tendering process.

Of course, it varies from tender to tender, but you can expect your dedicated Bid Manager to:

Review any documents relating to the tender and understand the scope of the contract.
Plan the bid writing process, including the time it will take to complete.
Match your company with an appropriate Bid Writer or Bid Writers.
Track the Bid Writer’s work and update you on the tender’s progress.
Advise on supporting documents and develop missing literature.
Oversee the review process.
Submit the bid on your behalf.

Think about it. Do you have time to oversee every aspect of the tendering process?

Relying on a bid manager for your tendering needs will allow you to focus on other aspects of your business.

How to find the right healthcare Bid Manager for you

So now you know why you need a healthcare Bid Manager. But how do you find the right one for your business?

When looking for a healthcare Bid Manager, it’s important to find someone that understands your company’s needs and goals. The Bid Manager you choose will be working closely with your company until the tender’s submission date. So, they have to be the right fit for your company.

Looking to apply for healthcare tenders? Here at Hudson Succeed, we can take care of it for you.

If you’re looking for a healthcare Bid Manager to start your tendering journey, our expert Senior Bid Manager can help.

With an 87% success rate and over 60 years of collective experience, we are experts at bid writing. And we’re experienced in healthcare tenders! Our team of Bid Writers have worked with numerous clients across the healthcare sector, including the following services:

Domiciliary Care
Supported Living
Medical Equipment
Social Care
Mental Health.

Visit Healthcare Tenders to save time, money and resources! It’s a time-saving tool used by healthcare professionals. Don’t worry about spending hours searching for new business opportunities – our smart search solution does the work for you!

Upgrade to Discover Elite

Want to optimise your tendering efforts? Then upgrade to Discover Elite.

With Discover Elite, you can find the best tendering opportunities for your business – even when you’re busy!

Choose your Discover Elite package:

The Ultimate Time Saver package

What you’ll get:

A maximum of five tender breakdowns per month.
An annual subscription to two Hudson Discover sector-specific portals. This is a great option for businesses that overlap industries!
Pre-market and aware engagement notices monitored on your behalf.
Weekly phone calls with your dedicated Account Manager to discuss future tendering opportunities.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package

What you’ll get:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
Your own Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with at least 5 years of experience. Your Bid Strategy will also be managed by our Global Bid Director.

Together we can make your business grow. Contact a member of our team to find out more.

Need help with a tender response?

We offer four bid writing support packages to help your company succeed. No matter your experience level – new to tendering or a seasoned expert – Hudson Succeed has something for you.

Choose one of our services:

Tender Ready

If you’re completely new to tendering, why not try our 4-week Tender Ready package? Work closely with one of our expert Bid Writers and your business will be ready to tender for work.

Tender Improvement

Have you tendered before but are yet to see any results from your efforts? Choose our Tender Improvement package. One of our bid writing professionals will evaluate your previous tender responses and help you improve for future submissions.

Tender Mentor

Have you written your tender response but need someone to proofread it before the final submission? Try our Tender Mentor package. We’ll look over your tender responses and check for any inconsistencies or grammar, punctuation and spelling errors. We’ll also check your responses to make sure you meet the buyer’s specifications.

Tender Writing

If you’re new to tendering or don’t have the capabilities to write your own responses, choose our Tender Writing package. One of our bid writing professionals will help you with every step of the bidding process, from writing to submission.

If you’re interested in any of our services or want to learn more, contact a member of our team!

Want to learn more about tendering for work? Visit Tender VLE!

Interested in finding the right healthcare Bid Manager for your company? We want to take it one step further and teach you about the tendering process

Tender VLE – the UK’s first virtual learning environment – hosts a range of free videos all about tendering for work.

Visit Tender VLE to start your tendering journey or get in touch to find out more!

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post How to Find the Right Healthcare Bid Manager appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Bid Writing Support Following the DAPCAS Model

John Hudson — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 07:00:52 +0000

Looking for bid writing support? Follow our tried and tested model

[Last modified: July 2021]

At Hudson Succeed, we pride ourselves on delivering high quality bid writing support. Collectively, we have over 60 years of experience and an 87% success rate. It’s fair to say that we are the best in the business when it comes to bid writing support.

To support our clients, we developed the DAPCAS model.

What is the DAPCAS model?

The DAPCAS model was created in-house by Head of Bid Management, Dan Hall. DAPCAS is an acronym for Decipher, Assess, Plan, Compose, Analyse and Submit. When it comes to tendering for contracts bid writing can be complex which is why we invented this model to condense the process in its simplest form.

Decipher

Our first tip for bid writing support is before you start tendering you must decipher the opportunities. Bidding for any opportunity in the hope that it will be successful is a waste of time and money. Not only that, but it weakens your overall tender approach. Three things to consider in the deciphering process are:

What services do you want to deliver?
What location/s do you want to deliver these services in?
Who is your ideal buyer?

Once you have decided on your opportunity you can sign up to our sector-specific tendering portals. You will receive daily tender opportunities that are specific to your service.

Our Hudson Discover portals are time-saving tools. Each day, our team of opportunity trackers manually search for new tenders and upload them to the relevant portal. This ensures maximum relevancy in your search. Our 11 sector-specific tendering portals include:

Assess

The ultimate question to ask yourself is to bid or not to bid?

Once you’ve deciphered what you’re tendering for, and you’ve found an opportunity you need to decide whether to bid. The contract title doesn’t tell you everything so it’s important you know exactly what you’re tendering for. A few things to think about when assessing whether to bid or not are:

Have you delivered contracts similar to this before?
What is your Unique Selling Point (USP)?
Can you afford it?
Does the opportunity align with your company’s long-term strategy?

Plan

Another important bid writing support tip is to plan. Your bid will only be as successful as the planning put into it. Each tender is different, and the planning involved in it must match the specification. You should set out a list of what needs to be completed and the timeframe to complete it by. An effective plan will lead to an effective bid.

The length of an Invitation to Tender (ITT) can vary from 10 pages to 50 or more. Each contains information that is crucial to consider. Therefore, you must develop a concise plan to correspond with the tender. We advise reading each document one by one with the following in mind:

Read the instructions – allow plenty of time as the instructions will contain all the important information you need to know.
Submission deadline – the deadline date is important, if you submit your bid just one minute late you can be disqualified.
Clarification details – if there are some aspects of the document that don’t make sense, remember to ask questions.

Compose

Just like the tendering process the bid writing process can be a long and complex process. Many people don’t have the time or knowledge to write detailed bids in-house. Writing isn’t for everyone, especially when you’re busy running a business. This is why we offer our bid writing support.

If you do wish to write the bid yourself, a structure to follow to write a successful bid is:

Point

You should state what you are going to do. The buyer wants to know what you can do, not what you will try to do. Your point should be clear and concise so the buyer understands exactly what you can deliver.

Evidence

It’s no good talking about what you can do if you can’t back up what you’re saying. Demonstrate why you should win the bid by providing evidence such as case studies and statistics.

Explain

Explain how you will deliver the desired outcome.

Structure

One of how our top bid writing support tips is how to structure your answer. Some points to consider include:

Format – Use subheadings and bullet points to clearly format your response. You can break down the question to use these for subheadings. Bullet points can keep your response in order. The evaluator wants to read a response that is clearly laid out. If they have to read your response more than once it isn’t clear enough.
Simple language – You should clearly explain everything and avoid using complicated jargon. You shouldn’t assume the buyer knows what you mean.
Word count – You should aim for your response to be as close to the word or page counts as possible. The word/page count is there for a reason. If the buyer asks for a 1,000 word answer, they expect a clear and detailed response. Writing one paragraph won’t suffice. Although it’s important to reach the word count, don’t waffle just to add extra words. Your answer should be relevant to the question.

Analyse

Analysing your work regularly throughout the writing process is something we strongly recommend as part of our bid writing support. We suggest you create several drafts and have them reviewed by a few colleagues. You could even ask a new colleague to overlook the work. This ensures the inner workings of your company can be understood by someone with little knowledge on the company. You should never assume that the buyer is already familiar with your organisation.

Submit

The final process of the DAPCAS model is to submit the bid. Although this may seem like a simple step, it is actually quite daunting to a newcomer. Always ensure you allow plenty of time to submit your bid ahead of the deadline. If the bid is due at 12pm and you submit it at 12.01pm your bid will not be accepted. Once you have submitted your bid, you should receive some acknowledgement that your bid has been received. This is usually done via an email or online portal.

Aside from the DAPCAS model, our final tip to bid writing support is the importance of doing your research. When bidding for a contract always make sure that you meet the eligibility criteria. You don’t want to waste time preparing for a bid to realise you don’t meet the criteria. For example, check that your business:

Meets the economic and financial standing – your annual turnover, financial ratio and your insurance
Has enough experience
Meets the minimum turnover threshold
Has the resources to carry out the contract.

Need bid writing support for an immanent tender?

Our sister company, Hudson Succeed are here to help you with writing bids. Our team of professionals have over 60 years of experience and they write to win.

They offer four services:

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect contract for your business, why not send it our way?

Once you decide to ahead with a bid, you will be assigned to one of our Bid Writers. The process doesn’t require you to have any formal meetings with your Bid Writer. Communication can be made via phone, email or Zoom.

Our Bid Writers can take care of it all for you. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown. They’ll even submit it on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

A 12-month subscription to one Hudson Discover portal.
Access to Global Bid Directors and Senior Bidding Professionals.
An Organisation-wide Bid library, including 3 case studies, 5 CVs and 8 policies.
Additional flexible benefit options.

Tender Improvement

Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can help optimise your tendering efforts – even when you’re busy. Our two new time-saving tools can improve your competitor awareness and success rate when tendering.

Bid writing training

Tender VLE houses free and upgraded bid writing masterclasses.

Join the UK’s first ever virtual learning environment for a whole range of

free tender-related videos. Whether you have years of tendering

experience or are starting out from scratch, Tender VLE will have

something for you.

See something you like? Contact our team for a quick chat and start your Tender VLE journey today.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post Bid Writing Support Following the DAPCAS Model appeared first on Tender Consultants.

The 7 Types of Tendering Procedures

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 07:00:25 +0000

How many types of tendering procedures can there be?

[Last modified: July 2021]

Realistically, how many different types of tendering procedures can there be? Well, there are actually a number of methods that buyers can use to procure services. It might seem unnecessary to overly complicate the tendering process. However, with so many different types of contracts available, one size can’t fit all.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by potentially encountering so many different procedures, fear not! In this blog, we will guide you through the various types of tendering that you will most likely come across.

Public sector tenders

The majority of tendering opportunities are published by public sector departments. This makes sense because publicly funded bodies must spend their money fairly and wisely. These organisations must create a fair and level playing field for potential suppliers to compete.

Examples of public sector tenders include:

Contract: Implementation of a Community Engagement website – Hart District Council

Buyer: Hart District Council

Value: £20,000

Contract: User Experience and Design Capability

Buyer: NHS Test and Trace

Value: £1,100,000

Contract: Commercial Agreement for the Provision of Employment and Health Related Services (CAEHRS)

Buyer: Department for Work and Pensions

Value: £7,5000,000,000

Contract: Enfield Cluster Cleaning

Buyer: George Spicer Primary School

Value: £850,000

Contract: AOC Major Refurbishment Works at Hellesdon

Buyer: East of England Ambulance Service

Value: £175,000

Tendering for public sector contracts can be a prosperous avenue for generating income for many businesses.

The advantages of public sector tendering include:

Increased chances of finding a suitable tender due to the sheer volume of opportunities that are published.
Guaranteed pay due to the regulations that public sector organisations are bound by, such as the Prompt Payment Code.
An efficient way to build your portfolio and experience as you work your way up to delivering larger contracts.
Access to buyers that you may not ordinarily get to work with.
When social distancing is necessary, tendering is a way of generating new business without the need for face-to-face meetings.

Open tendering procedure

Within the public sector, there are many types of tendering procedures, one of which is open tendering. This process is commonly used when procuring goods or services that are considered to be “straightforward”. When a buyer creates an open tendering procedure, they are allowing any business to bid for their contract. The process would look something like this:

Step 1: An ITT is released

When their buyer releases their invitation to tender (ITT), any prospective supplier can respond. The ITT will be published in the public domain and interested parties can respond to the specification. Each supplier will be submitting tender responses that they believe sell their business.

Step 2: The contract is awarded

After evaluating the bidder’s responses, the buyer will award the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT). The buyer will have placed an evaluation weighting on the prices quoted vs the quality of the written responses.

Of course, the buyer may choose to include steps such as site visits or requiring a presentation from potential suppliers. However, overall, the open tendering procedure allows any business to bid for the opportunity to deliver the contract.

Restricted procedure

In contrast, a restricted procedure may be used if the buyer is procuring more complex goods/services. They will want to shortlist the bidders to ensure that all the finalists can deliver the contract. The bidder’s capabilities will firstly be assessed before inviting final bids. This type of tendering process could look like this:

Step 1: The buyer releases a PQQ

A pre-qualification questionnaire (PQQ) would be released for interested businesses to complete. At this stage, anyone can fill out the questionnaire. It’s important to note that this stage could have a variety of names such as an SQ or PAS91. The PAS91 is the construction industry’s version of a PQQ but essentially, they all deliver the same result. The pre-qualifying questionnaire is designed to shortlist eligible suppliers. Here, you can expect to be asked for details of your:

Company’s turnover
Insurance
Non-collusion
Qualifications or required accreditations

Step 2: The ITT is issued to eligible businesses

Once the buyer has assessed the questionnaire responses, they will be able to shortlist eligible businesses for the tender contract. These companies would then receive their ITT documents.

Step 3: The contract is awarded

After evaluating the ITT responses, the contract would be awarded to the most economically advantageous tender.

Competitive dialogue

A competitive dialogue is a type of tendering process that is used if buyers need more information about their solution. Sometimes, buyers will have identified a need for goods/services but they’re not sure of ins and outs. This process would look like this:

Step 1: A PQQ is published

Buyers will ask interested suppliers to answer a pre-qualifying questionnaire in order to shortlist the eligible businesses. This is similar to the restricted procedure at this stage in the process.

Step 2: An invitation to participate in the dialogue

Once the buyer has shortlisted the eligible organisations, they will invite them to a competitive dialogue process. During this time, prospective suppliers can discuss aspects of the project and discuss solutions. The buyer can allow the dialogue to continue until solutions have been identified that meet their requirements. Essentially, this is an opportunity for the suppliers to influence the solutions being procured.

Step 3: Closing the dialogue and inviting tenders

When the buyer is satisfied with the proposed solutions, they will close the dialogue. Once closed, only limited further clarifications are permitted. The buyer will then issue the invitations to tender.

Step 4: Awarding the contract

In the same way as the above procedures, the buyer will evaluate the final tenders and award a supplier.

Negotiated tendering procedure

A negotiated tendering process does what it says on the tin. The process will follow these steps:

Step 1: A pre-qualifying process

In this type of tendering procedure, buyers will ask for a PQQ to be completed before the second stage.

Stage 2: Negotiation

After the suitable suppliers have been shortlisted, they receive an invitation to negotiate. Unlike the above procedures, there are no clear rules as to how long the negotiations should take place. There is no formal end to the process before the contract is awarded. Sometimes, negotiations can continue after the preferred supplier is appointed.

Innovation partnership

This type of tendering procedure was introduced in 2015. It’s used when the buyer has a need for a solution that isn’t currently available on the market. In this case, the buyer would need to work collaboratively with suppliers to develop the product or service. Then, they can procure the resulting supplies or works. In practice, this process usually works in the following way:

Step 1: Call for competition

Using the innovation partnership procedure, any business may submit a request to participate in response to the call for competition. In order to help suppliers decide whether or not they can provide a solution, the buyer must:

Identify their need for the goods/services that cannot be procured from the market currently.
Indicate the minimum requirements that must be met by all bidders.

Step 2: Shortlisting

Once the buyer receives the requests to participate from the interested parties, they can shortlist the bidders. The buyer must choose at least three suppliers to make the next phase a genuine competition.

Step 3: Developing the solution

The buyer will then enter into the development phase with the chosen bidders. The successive phases are typically well structured and after each phase the buyer may decide to either:

Terminate the innovation partnership, or
Reduce the number of chosen partners.

Step 4: Awarding

Tenders must be awarded on the basis of the best price to quality ratio.

Private sector tenders

Privately owned organisations can also choose a type of tendering exercise to outsource goods/services. However, they are not bound by the same regulations as the public sector. There isn’t anything stopping private sector businesses from choosing a supplier just because they know them or they’re the cheapest.

They’re also not bound by as many rules regarding payment and these types of opportunities can be difficult to find. Private organisations don’t have to publish their tendering opportunities. They can simply send them to the businesses they want a proposal from.

Finding different types of tendering opportunities

Keeping track of all these different types of tendering opportunities can be a full-time job. That’s if you’re not using an efficient tracking process.

There are many tender tracking systems on the market to help you find tendering opportunities. But there is a fatal flaw in them. They rely on the accuracy of common procurement vocabulary (CPV) codes.

In theory, every buyer should categorise their tender with the correct CPV code. However, with so many codes floating around, it’s too easy for them to be inaccurately used.

What does this mean in practice?

For example, a construction company could sign up and pay a tracking system to send them construction tender notifications. Instead, they could receive obscure notifications for the supply of baked beans or irrelevant tenders for website design.

Enter…Hudson Discover

After conducting research into the use of CPV codes, we found that a third of tenders are incorrectly categorised. To combat this, we made our own tender tracking portals.

Hudson Discover houses our 11, sector-specific tendering portals. Instead of relying on CPV codes, we use manual tracking. Our team of Opportunity Trackers sift through thousands of sources every day so that you don’t have to.

To learn more about how our portals can save you time, book a free live demo.

Choose the portal that is best for your business then schedule a demo for a suitable time and day.

How to secure the contract

Hopefully, this blog has cleared a few things up about writing bids. However, we understand that tendering for work can be a time-consuming process. Should you need any support, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Our team here at Hudson Succeed have over 40-years’ experience in bidding for work. Our Bid Writers proudly hold an 87% success rate. They are also multi-disciplinary Bid Writers. Their experience spans across various types of tendering procedures and numerous industries, including:

Healthcare
Construction
Technology
Recruitment
Facilities Management
Creative
And Education to name a few.

Get in touch for a free consultation.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post The 7 Types of Tendering Procedures appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Is your bid management process up to scratch?

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 06 Jan 2021 07:30:18 +0000

Improving your bid management process

[Last modified: July 2021]

Your bid management process and approach are crucial to achieving writing bids When entering into the tendering process, you should first consider how you will manage the work. For many industries, it isn’t simply a case of providing a quick quote and moving on. In the majority of cases, buyers will require:

High-quality written responses.
Case studies.
Evidence of accreditations and/or qualifications.
Company CVs.
Accounts.
Pricing documents.

You must craft, collate and submit the requirements to the highest possible standard. In order to do this, you need an airtight bid management process.

The 6-stage process

1. Sourcing the right opportunities for your business

Finding opportunities can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of websites that publish tendering opportunities across the UK. In order to efficiently source the right tender for your business, you must analyse your goals and eligibility. For example, ask yourself the following:

Which types of contracts do I want to deliver?
What are my service delivery capabilities? This could be geographical. How far can you travel and still make a profit?
Do I have at least three previous contract examples that demonstrate my ability to deliver similar work?
What is my economic and financial standing? Or, in other words, what threshold am I working within?

Answering these questions will help you and your team to efficiently make your bid or no-bid decision.

2. Breaking down the specification

So, you’ve found a tender that you would like to bid for. What comes next in the bid management process?

At this stage, it’s likely that you have scanned the requirements and briefly read the specification. Now, it’s time to take a much more in-depth look at the details. You need to be sure that you are eligible and that you possess the required evidence/information. On page 54 of the specification, there could be a requirement that you cannot meet, such as turnover. Failing to fully read and digest the requirements could result in wasting time in the long run.

Breaking down the specification will also allow you to establish timescales. The word count for the required responses will help you estimate how much time needs to be assigned to each question. A good benchmark would be that the average bid writer can produce around 2,000 words per day.

3. Collating information in advance

If the responses require evidence of financial accounts or case studies, you may need to liaise with other departments. If this is the case, make sure you leave plenty of time to collate the required documents. You don’t want to be rushing at the last minute because you didn’t give Fred from accounts enough time. Always set a slightly earlier deadline for yourself and others to ensure you are ready in time for the submission of bids.

4. Finalising and proofreading

Once your written responses, supporting evidence and pricing are complete, it’s time to proofread. It could be tempting to just submit the work you have done and move onto the next bid. However, you may end up submitting a tender full of errors and ultimately fail. You will then have wasted all the time spent crafting the responses for the sake of a few extra hours.

Check, check and check again. Ask someone unattached to the project to review your work. It’s likely that they will find errors you have missed.

5. Submission

Now, it’s finally time to submit your hard work. This shouldn’t be the first time you have accessed the buyer’s portal. It is good practice to make yourself familiar with the system ahead of the submission. This will eliminate last minute panics when you can’t log in or find the area for the submission.

6. The results

It’s important that your bid management process doesn’t just end with the submission. Learning from the results is crucial to continuously improve your bid writing and overall approach.

Unfortunately, you won’t win every tender that you bid for. But it doesn’t have to be a negative experience. If the buyer doesn’t provide feedback, you can ask for it. We would always recommend asking the buyer to show you where you lost marks. It could be that you won on the quality side but lost out on price. This means that you should provide a more competitive quote next time.

Top tip: In the public sector, buyers will publish details of who won each tender. It is worth reading the award notice because the winning price is normally published also. This will help you to see how much the winner charged so that you can be more competitive in your next bid.

Does your team have the right skills?

To make your bid management process more effective, you can also look at the skills on your team. In order to see successful results, you need access to certain strengths such as:

Time management

In bid management, meeting deadlines is an integral part of the role. If the deadline is missed, buyers do not have to evaluate your bid. Additionally, asking for extra time without a valid reason never looks good. This makes the buyer nervous about your time-keeping skills which will undoubtedly be a key factor on the contract.

In order to effectively manage your time, we recommend developing a bid plan. The plan needs to be standardised but also adaptable to accommodate work that requires a short turnaround.

Of course, you can develop a bid library of documents and responses that are often applicable to most tenders. This will save you time on some questions. However, copy and pasting won’t always work and unforeseen questions will require bespoke responses.

Technical and concise writing capabilities

You don’t need to be a bestselling author to write bids, but you do need a flair for technical, factual writing. The writers on your team must be able to produce short, sharp sentences that concisely convey the important information. It’s great to demonstrate your writing talents but evaluators are reading multiple submissions, don’t make them hunt for the information. They want to see the facts and the direct answers to their questions. If the response requires 500 words, don’t wait to start answering the question in the last 100.

Strategising and planning your moves

When tendering for work in the public sector, you need to think differently than in the private sphere. The best bid managers are able to plan their next move in advance and lay the groundwork. You want to ensure that you are attending site visits and responding to market engagements. This allows you to build a relationship with the buyer and gain further insight. The more information you have about planned procurements, the more room you have for time management.

Working smarter with these tools

Hudson Discover

Hudson Discover houses 11 sector-specific tendering portals, designed to speed up the opportunity tracking process. To effectively track hundreds if not thousands of sites, you would need a full-time employee assigned solely to this task.

As the portals are dedicated to specific industries, this helps to eliminate irrelevant tenders when tendering for contracts. However, the portals can be further tailored to only display tenders of interest to you. For example, you can filter by keywords (the services you offer), region, budget and sector.

Furthermore, each client is assigned an Account Manager to assist you. They will send an email alert when new tenders are uploaded so you don’t have to log in every day.

Visit Hudson Discover.

Bid library

We touched on bid libraries earlier, but let’s take a closer look at maximising this strategy.

Essentially, a bid library is a digital place in which you store everything you might need to bid for work. This could include your:

Policies and procedures.
Accreditations and certificates.
Company CVs.
Case studies that you anticipate will have relevance to the tenders you choose to bid for.
Responses that you frequently use in your previous tenders.

If you don’t have the above documentation, our Tender Ready service can help. Tender Ready is a four-week programme designed to help you prepare to bid for work. Our bid writers will create the documents you will need and professionally brand them. Additionally, you will also receive three days of bid writing consultancy to help you respond to a relevant tender.

The Tender Ready programme.

Tender VLE

It is important to keep learning and expanding your knowledge. Whether you are new to tendering or well-versed, increasing your understanding will only strengthen your capability.

Tender VLE is the UK’s first free, online learning platform for all things tendering related. The masterclasses are led by bid writing and bid design experts. Topics include:

Visit Tender VLE.

5 tips for improving your success rate

1. Hold regular meetings

Holding regular meetings is always a good way to ensure that your team is on track and problems are solved. However, it is especially important currently as most businesses are working remotely. There are many software platforms which host team meetings that we’re sure you’re all familiar with by now.

Many concerns would normally be expressed in general office conversation without realising the importance of the interaction. When working remotely, we have to make a more conscious effort to highlight problems and solve them.

2. Set earlier deadlines

An efficient bid management process will include setting internal deadlines. Try to plan internal deadlines before the final submission date. This will reduce stress and rushed work as the deadline approaches and ensures a smoother submission.

3. Record progress

A simple bid management progress chart will be effective to visually record timescales. Each member of your team should have access to the tracker so that they can see the work coming together. It will also help the bid manager to provide extra support to those who are not meeting the planned schedule.

4. Establish roles and responsibilities

If there are multiple team members working on a bid, it’s important to establish responsibilities from the outset. This means that each person has their assigned role to focus on. Again, this is especially important when working remotely.

5. Ensure contingency by proofreading

When a bid has been written by multiple people, it’s important to ensure contingency. When proofreading, you should already be checking for:

Spelling errors.
Grammatical errors.
Whether or not the response answers the question.
Correctly labelled supporting documents.

However, you should also assess the flow of the bid. Are the facts and statistics the same? Is the font consistent?

Further support

For more information about how Hudson Succeed can help you improve your success rate, please get in touch. We offer four services to ensure that we can support businesses of all sizes with varying levels of tendering experience. Call or email us to arrange a free consultation.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post Is your bid management process up to scratch? appeared first on Tender Consultants.

The Getting Ready Series Part IV: Considering a Critical Friend

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 23 Dec 2020 07:00:52 +0000

Have you considered enlisting a critical friend?

[Last modified: July 2021]

A critical friend is typically an external person who will challenge you by asking provocative questions and introducing ideas. Sometimes when you work closely on a project, you can lose sight of the original aims. An external critical friend can take a step back and see the project from a fresh perspective. As they are not an internal employee, they are more able to offer frank and honest feedback.

Sometimes, being a business owner is a lonely occupation. All your employees have a vested interest in the outcome of your decisions. This can make it difficult to ask questions and get impartial answers.

In our world, the world of tendering and procurement, a critical friend can be paramount to submitting winning bids.

How do you know if you need a critical friend?

If you are producing tender responses in-house, it can be difficult to take a step back and evaluate your process. If you are submitting bids but not seeing success, it’s likely that there is room for improvement in your procedure.

Alternatively, if you are new to the tendering process, submitting your first bid can be daunting. You have likely spent hours and hours formulating your responses. It’s easy to doubt yourself when faced with the imposing ‘submit’ button.

By enlisting the help of a critical friend, you will spend less time guessing and more time proactively bidding.

Common mistakes when you don’t ask for help

It is unreasonable to assume that your methods are always perfect without any room for improvement. We are all human and it’s likely that a second pair of eyes would identify issues that you have missed.

In our experience, we have seen the following mistakes in tenders that didn’t undergo a second review;

Inconsistencies

This is especially the case with large bids. If the tender requires a 10,000+ word response, it’s highly likely that you won’t finish the work in one day. Typically, as Bid Writers, we aim to write 2,000 words per day. This means that even for experienced writers, a bid this size will probably take around 5 days to complete. Therefore, some inconsistencies are predictable. Without putting the work through a second proofing stage, these inconsistencies will remain for the buyer to see.

A lack of attention to detail raises red flags with buyers and you will risk losing the bid.

Spelling and grammatical errors

This type of error signals that your bid was probably rushed. Spelling and grammatical errors tell the buyer that your organisation isn’t focussed on producing high-quality work. Regardless of the compelling experience you demonstrate, these errors will raise concerns for the buyer.

500 words of waffle

If a question asks for a 500-word response, it’s normally for a reason. The buyer wants you to go into detail. Therefore, we always advise filling the space with the word count required. However, this doesn’t mean providing one highly detailed sentence and then waffle irrelevantly, never reaching a conclusion. It means crafting 500 words of rich, thorough content that answers the question. Without a second pair of eyes, you risk ‘bid blindness’. In other words, your desire to win the contract blurs your focus on what the buyer is actually asking. A critical friend will be able to identify this and highlight inconsequential sentences.

How can a critical friend help you win bids?

We have briefed over the reasons for working with a critical friend. Now, let’s dive into the benefits in terms of tendering for contracts.

If you are familiar with the tendering process, you will know that it can be challenging. Even the most experienced organisations will come across tenders that they need extra support with. Whether it’s advice or help to assess how they have interpreted the question, a critical friend can provide this support.

Acting as the buyer

A critical friend can act as a practice buyer. You can submit your tender responses and the specification for a practice evaluation. The critical friend will take on the role of the buyer. They will fully digest the specification to understand what the buyer is looking for. With this information, they can then evaluate your responses from the buyers perspective. They will consider;

If you have answered the questions, providing the most detailed responses you possibly can.
Whether you wasted word counts on waffle that could be replaced with high-quality content that scores top marks.
Your sentence and response structure. Does it make sense, or could your points be made clearer?
If you have skimmed over any particularly impressive experience that could be expanded on.
Inconsistencies, spelling or grammatical errors.
If you have misunderstood the buyer’s question.
Whether your bid will stand out, impress the buyer and persuade them to award the contract to you.
If you have properly labelled appendices and supporting documents throughout so that they are easy to refer to.

Advising if this is the right bid for you

Sometimes, businesses simply need a second pair of eyes to help make their bid or no-bid decision. A contract might sound perfect at the surface, but on closer inspection, it could be unsuitable for your business. There are many factors that can determine the viability of winning and delivering a contract. Here are just a few things to consider;

Your eligibility

You won’t always be eligible to bid for every contract you find. In the public sector, the buyer could require a minimum turnover threshold. If this is the case, be sure to assess your suitability before proceeding further with the process. If the threshold isn’t specified but the buyer has provided a budget, you can use this as an eligibility guideline. As a general rule, we only advise tendering for contracts with a budget of half your annual turnover – maximum. This is usually a good indicator of whether you will be able to deliver the contract to the standard required.

In the newly published green paper for reforming the procurement procedure in the UK, one proposal revolves around exclusion. It suggests that government organisations will be able to exclude businesses from bidding if they have underperformed previously. You don’t want to risk future exclusions by bidding too big and underachieving.

Demonstrable experience

When tendering for work in the public sector, buyers will often ask for three relevant case studies. Here, they want to see your previous experience, challenges you have faced and how you overcame them. This will help the buyer to determine your capability. If you don’t have the required experience, we wouldn’t recommend pursuing your bid. It’s likely that you will waste time and resources for an unsuccessful outcome.

Top tip: If you have never tendered for work before, we would recommend developing your case studies in advance. Focus on the services you want to provide and create case studies that demonstrate your competency.

If you need support with creating compelling case studies, we offer support as part of our Tender Ready package.

Your capabilities

Reading the full specification will help you to determine your capability to deliver the contract, should you be successful. For example:

Contract title: Home care support packages

Budget: £500,000

Description: Local authority seeking to establish a contract with a provider of home care services across London, Birmingham and Yorkshire.

Deadline: 01-02-2021

Initial considerations you should make:

Do you turnover at least £250,000?
Do you have at least three case studies to demonstrate your capabilities of delivering home care services?
Can you meet the location requirements? Do you have the infrastructure to deliver services across a range of locations?
Can you compile a compelling, high-quality tender response in this time frame?

Ultimately, the aim is to use your time wisely. Don’t waste time and resources bidding on projects you can’t win or can’t deliver.

Tender Mentor

Our Tender Mentor service is your critical friend. This is our guide and review service, ensuring that you submit an effective, error-free bid.

At Hudson Succeed, our team have sat on both sides of the procurement table. They know what it takes to submit a compelling bid and they are on-hand to help you do just that.

Upload your written responses and the tender specification for a full review.

More bid writing support

If tendering for work is part of your 2021 strategy, we would strongly recommend enlisting a critical friend. However, there are also other avenues of support available to you. Our services are comprised of;

An ad-hoc Tender Writing service, from asking clarification questions, to crafting responses and submission;
Support to become Tender Ready including the creation of important corporate literature and access to tender tracking software;
Our Tender Improvement package to help you increase your bid success rate.

For more information about how we can help your business grow this year, please get in touch.

Thank you for following our Getting Ready Series! We hope you were able to pick up some helpful tips about bid writing to kickstart your tendering strategy next year.

We’ll be back in the new year with more weekly tips and advice.

Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including:

The post The Getting Ready Series Part IV: Considering a Critical Friend appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Hudson Archives - Tender Consultants

The 5 Steps of Bidding for a Contract

Bidding for a contract: How to succeed in 5 steps

Step 1: Find the right bid for your business

Step 2: Planning and research

Step 3: Price your services right

Step 4: Write a high-quality bid response

Format

Assumptions

Word count

Sector-specific contract bidding tips

Contract bidding in the creative sector

Contract bidding in the facilities management industry

Contract bidding in the construction sector

PAS91

Contract bidding in the healthcare industry

Experience

Qualifications

3 trends within procurement

Innovation

Sustainability and environmental considerations

Local supply chains

Need help bidding for a contract?

Tender Writing

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Step 5: Submit your bid

Discover Elite

We Open Our US Head Office

Expanding into the US

Bid writing in Boston – We visit our US office space

A growing team

Bid writing internationally

Our Group CEO says…

Continually growing into 2020

Our international reach

Our Managing Director, Jill Hudson, said…

Welcoming our Global Bid Director

Beverley said…

The next phase

Our Group CEO, John Hudson, says…

Access bid support

A Guide to Crown Commercial Service Frameworks

Crown Commercial Service Framework FAQs

What is purchased via Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

Buildings

Corporate Solutions

People

Technology

How to respond to Crown Commercial Service frameworks

What are Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

Further competitions

3 key things to note

Timing

Sub-contracting

The Government eMarketplace

Where can I find Crown Commercial Service Frameworks?

A subscription to one of our industry-specific portals will include:

Need assistance securing a place on a Crown Commercial Service framework?

Tender Writing

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Discover Elite

How to be a Successful Bid Manager for Rail Tenders

How to be a successful bid manager in the rail industry

What does it take to be a successful bid manager for rail contracts?

Time management

Keep your finger on the pulse of the rail industry

A bank of evidence

Detailed and technical writing abilities

How to make your internal processes more efficient

Block out distractions

Create a writing plan or style guide

Holding regular meetings

Back up your claims

Set early internal deadlines

Record progress

Establish roles and responsibilities early on