Tender VLE | Video-led Masterclasses in Tendering and Procurement

Tender VLE: Our Virtual Bid Learning Environment

John Hudson — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 13:41:33 +0000

Tender VLE

It’s simple — to win contracts, you must have the necessary skills of a bid writer. Mastering the art of writing tender responses comes from strong written communication skills and experience. At Hudson, our bid writers are professionals and they have built up their skills over time. But if you are a start-up or an SME, you may have never bid before.

This is where Tender VLE comes in!

What is Tender VLE?

Tender VLE is the UK’s first virtual learning environment dedicated to bid writing. With five experience levels to choose from, you can take our free and paid tender courses so you can become an expert!

We will help you grow your tendering knowledge in an easy-to-follow dynamic of videos and worksheets, alongside being supported by our experts.

Good news! Our training is suitable for a variety of learners including businesses, freelancers, and aspiring Bid Writers.

When is Tender VLE live?

Our platform is almost ready to go live. After perfecting our development stages, we are making some final tweaks to our learning environment so it is the best platform for our clients. Please bear with us and keep an eye out for when our site goes live!

What Can I Expect from Tender VLE?

There is something for everyone!

From our free beginners’ courses to our expert courses, we cater to all tendering experience levels. Whether you want to kick-start your career as a bid writer, develop your skills as a freelancer or polish up on some areas missing in your expert bid knowledge, Tender VLE can help.

We will cover everything!

Our experts have been meticulous in their research for what to include on our learning platform. In short, we will cover all stages of the tendering process (PQQs, ITTs etc), break down questions, tender planning, management, writing skills, proofing, and branding your response.

How Can Tender VLE Benefit My Business?

This is the most important question — with Tender VLE you will gain the experience to help you win contracts!

Our remote learning experience is designed to suit your needs, wherever you are. This will be your learning journey, which means that you can also tailor your experience to suit your lifestyle. You won’t need to take the focus off running your business – learn as much as you need!

Why Tender for Work?

Guaranteed pay – the suppliers are guaranteed payment when they win a contract.
Goals to spend with SMEs – The UK government aims to spend £1 in £3 with SMEs.
Gain experience – Securing contracts means you gain experience to use for case studies to help you secure further contracts.
Make contacts – Securing contracts means you can increase your contacts and build relationships. This may lead to further work in the future.
Sustainability – Some contracts last for several years so they are a great way of sustaining your business.

How we can help!

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect bid for your business, send it our way. Our Bid Writers can take care of the whole thing for you they’ll even submit it on your behalf. They’ll let you know what they need from you, providing you with a full Tender Writing breakdown.

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 ensure you have everything in place to tender successfully. Tender Ready offers your business:

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

Tender Improvement

If you’ve been tendering but aren’t seeing success from your current efforts, our Tender Improvement package can help. Our Bid Team will assess your previous responses and tender documents. They will work with you to improve for future submissions. This package includes a 12-month subscription to a Hudson Discover portal and additional tendering development services.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your tender response and need it double-checked for errors, Tender Mentor can help. A Bid Writer will proofread your work for any inconsistencies, grammar, or spelling mistakes. They will also ensure it’s in line with the specification before you submit it. This is a great way of improving your skills and understanding of how to polish your tender.

Contact us:

Additional support:

Do you only require assistance with PQQs or SQs? We can help!

Submit the relevant information regarding the work you need, and we will provide a quote for the work agreed upon.

We provide support at all levels of the bid writing process, so if you simply need it proofread before you submit it, we can also help with that!

Our other divisions:

Vocal

Wanting to impress a buyer? Our creative content agency Vocal is always on hand to help!

Our Vocal team are never afraid to be heard – we’re a loud bunch!

From micro-businesses to large organisations, we provide ways to make your business stand out from the crowd. We can transform your bid into a professionally designed tender document!

Vocal specialises in:

Alpha

Our online virtual learning environment for Education, Enterprise and Home Learners is currently being used to power our platforms – Tender VLE and Procure VLE (Coming soon).

We believe in learning at your own pace, wherever you are!

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

The post Tender VLE: Our Virtual Bid Learning Environment appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to Become a Tender Expert

John Hudson — Wed, 10 May 2023 08:00:46 +0000

How to Become a Tender Expert

Becoming a tender expert is a surefire way to win contracts! However, it takes time and resources to develop this skill. Whether you want to outsource your tender writing needs to our experts or become an expert yourself, we can help you.

In this blog, we will cover what a tender expert is, the skills required, their benefits, how to become one and how to find them.

What is a Tender Expert?

A tender expert is a professional tender writer with vast experience and knowledge in the tendering process. All tender writers will have varying levels of experience; however, the most effective and successful tender writers will have experience spanning many sectors.

Tender Expert Skills

Becoming a tender expert means you must have a particular skill set than just strong written communication skills (though that is important!):

Adaptability: The tendering process is always unpredictable. No tender is the same, meaning the same planning process will not apply, nor will the content of your work. Also, there are bound to be hurdles during the writing process, so being able to adapt to any challenges that may come your way is vital.
Teamwork: Tender responses are rarely written by one writer alone. They are very collaborative, which means that you must be able to provide the best work you can individually, and deliver as a team — providing a seamless, unified response.
Understanding Client Needs: This is the most crucial aspect of the tendering process as without knowing what your client wants from their tender response, you won’t be showing their business in the best possible light. Open communication between the tender expert and the client is vital for keeping up-to-date with client requirements.
Time Management: It goes without saying that you must meet all internal and external deadlines. If you are new to tendering, you may just want to dive right into the tender writing and forget to plan. However, this is a vital part of the process which involves everything from client meetings, research, developing a timeline and planning your responses. Manage your time accordingly so you give yourself ample time to plan!
Compliance: Every tender expert needs a strong understanding of government procurement processes, industry regulations and the ability to meet requirements as stated in the tender specification in order to produce a fully compliant tender. Failure to comply with the specification can get your tender disqualified and failure to comply with laws and regulations can lead to fines and criminal prosecution.

Benefits of Hiring a Tender Expert

Save Time: Hiring a tender expert can save you time and hassle when preparing a tender response. They can take care of all the research and paperwork involved in the process, allowing you to focus on other aspects of your business.
Maximise Your Chances of Winning: A tender expert will have experience and knowledge of what makes a successful tender and how to present your business in the best light. They can also help you to create a winning tender that stands out from the competition.
Improve Your Quality and Professionalism: Tender experts have the skills and knowledge to craft high-quality, professional, and persuasive tender documents. This can help to give you an edge over your competitors and increase your chances of winning the contract.
Provide Insights into Winning Strategies: Tender experts have a wealth of experience in writing and submitting tenders. They can provide you with insights into winning strategies and provide advice on how to improve your chances of success.
Meet Deadlines: Tender experts understand the importance of meeting deadlines. They can help you to stay on track and ensure that your tender is submitted on time and according to the requirements of the tender.

How to Become a Tender Expert!

Now you know what a tender expert is and the skills you need to become one, let’s take a look at how we can help you become an expert yourself!

Our online virtual learning environment Tender VLE houses our first of many tender training courses. Take our FREE introductory tender course on June 1^st, 2023.

Where to Find Tender Experts!

At Hudson, there is no shortage of tender experts! All of our tender writers are experts and write for a variety of sectors. If you need assistance with your tender, whether it involves writing, reviewing, submission, improvement, or a full end-to-end service, we can help!

Check out our services below!

How we can help!

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

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

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Contact us:

Additional support:

Do you only require assistance with PQQs or SQs? We can help!

Submit the relevant information regarding the work you need, and we will provide a quote for the work agreed upon.

We provide support at all levels of the bid writing process, so if you simply need it proofread before you submit it, we can also help with that!

Discover Elite

Upgrading to Discover Elite can optimise your tendering efforts!

Our two new time-saving tools can improve competitor awareness and success rate when bidding for a contract:

The Ultimate Time Save Package (for those on the go!)

Five tender breakdowns per month.
Annual subscription to two sector-specific portals.
Dedicated account manager.

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package

All of the above.
Seven tender breakdowns per month.
Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager (minimum five years experience). Our Global Bid Director will manage the bid strategy.

Our other divisions:

Vocal

Wanting to impress a buyer? Our creative content agency Vocal is always on hand to help!

Our Vocal team are never afraid to be heard – we’re a loud bunch!

From micro-businesses to large organisations, we provide ways to make your business stand out from the crowd. We can transform your bid into a professionally designed tender document!

Vocal specialises in:

Alpha

Our online virtual learning environment for Education, Enterprise and Home Learners is currently being used to power our platforms – Tender VLE and Procure VLE (Coming soon).

We believe in learning at your own pace, wherever you are!

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

The post How to Become a Tender Expert 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 III: 3 ways to impress a buyer at the invitation to tender stage

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 07:30:29 +0000

Approaching the invitation to tender stage like a professional

[Last modified: July 2021]

An invitation to tender (ITT) is usually released when the buyer has shortlisted a group of appropriate suppliers. This most commonly follows a pre-qualifying exercise such as a PQQ, SQ or PAS91, depending on the industry/services required. Some buyers may publish an invitation to tender immediately, without a shortlisting round. However, during the tendering process for the public sector you should expect to submit a pre-qualifying application before receiving an ITT.

Making it to the invitation to tender stage is certainly cause for a small celebration. The buyer has seen potential in your business, and you have proven your capability (to some extent). They are interested to hear more from your business and now is your chance to impress them.

If you are new to tendering for contracts, don’t give up now! You have made it this far. When you receive the ITT documents, you should be prepared to feel a little overwhelmed. Especially if your business doesn’t have a team dedicated to responding to ITTs. It’s understandable to feel daunted by the work that may be required.

Our team has been bid writing for almost two decades. In that time, we have seen buyers ask for anything from 2,000 words to 50,000+. Not to mention supporting evidence, company policies, procedures, accreditations and CVs.

Don’t panic! Let’s break this down

First, take some time to digest the work involved

Before submitting your pre-qualifying response, you should have fully read and digested the specification. Therefore, you will already be familiar with the requirements of the contract. You may have been able to pre-empt some of the buyer’s requests based on this.

Take your time reading the questions, assess the required supporting evidence and compile a list of work to be completed.

Set internal deadlines

Gathering the evidence and information you need may require liaising with multiple departments, depending on the size of your business. Next to each task to complete, set a deadline for yourself and anyone involved. This will avoid last-minute panicking and rushing to produce documents.

Reach out for support before it’s too late

If you don’t have the in-house resources to produce the work required to a high standard, consider outsourcing – in advance. You may want to try and complete the bid yourself but leave enough time to source help if required.

Don’t wait until two days before the deadline to decide that you need a Bid Writer. This will mean risking submitting a rushed bid, or not submitting anything at all.

Our “How to work more effectively with your Bid Writer” blog will help you with things to consider before outsourcing. This includes timescales, word counts and the evidence you can produce.

With the above in mind, let’s explore our top three tips for impressing buyers at the invitation to tender stage.

Keep asking yourself ‘how’ and ‘why’

When responding to the buyer’s questions, consider;

How does what I’m saying positively impact the buyer?
Why will my responses persuade the buyer to choose my organisation over my competitors?

Remember, you are not the only business bidding for this contract. Even if you know the buyer or have established a previous working relationship, this doesn’t guarantee a win. So often we hear businesses say, ‘we know we’ll win because we know the buyer’. We would strongly advise against relying on this and spend time creating high-quality, detailed responses.

For example, if a buyer requires domiciliary care services, they may ask something along the lines of:

“How will your organisation ensure the safety of the service users throughout the contract?”

Here, it is not enough to simply say that you have experience and will ensure patients are safe. You must demonstrate your competence. Provide a detailed response, outlining your safety policies and make the buyer feel confident in your ability.

Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes

Imagine yourself as the buyer. They are not only evaluating your invitation to tender responses but several others. When bidding for the same contract, the responses will understandably begin to sound very similar. It’s important to provide your information concisely. Provide detailed responses but don’t allow yourself to go off on a tangent about how wonderful your business is.

When writing your concise responses, you should also be aware of your tone. You want to sound assertive and sure of your answers. Stay away from words such as ‘we could’ and ‘we might’ and replace them with ‘we will’ and ‘we are’.

If you were the buyer, you would undoubtedly choose the supplier who fills you with confidence. Don’t leave any room for doubt in your invitation to tender responses.

Evidence, evidence, evidence

If you follow our Insight Series, you will know that we always reference ‘evidence’ in our blogs. That’s because evidencing your capability is crucial. It will mean the difference between a win and an unsuccessful submission.

In public sector tendering, we always advise that buyers often ask to see at least three relevant case studies. If you know you can’t provide three examples of similar work, you should probably reconsider bidding. Our ‘to bid or not to bid’ blog can help you make this decision.

Case studies allow the buyer to assess your company’s competency in context. They can see how your organisation responded to similar scenarios that you could be faced with on this contract. An effective case study will:

Demonstrate that you have experience in delivering similar work;
Detail how you overcame obstacles and responded to challenges;
Provide information about the lessons you learnt whilst delivering the contract, and;
Showcase impressive results.

Should you be tendering for work now?

We know some businesses put tendering on hold in December, until the new year. However, we always advise tendering for contracts, while you are still delivering work. This means that you can build a pipeline and secure income for the future.

After the challenges most businesses have faced in 2020, we are advising our clients to schedule their bid work early. They can then get a head start on the new year and make up for lost time.

Do you need support with an ITT?

We know that most businesses don’t have endless resources to dedicate to tendering. In order to be successful, you will need skilled writers with experience of how to win a tender.

If you need extra support, our team are here to help. At Hudson Succeed, we have been helping businesses to grow for almost two decades. Our team of multi-disciplinary Bid Writers have helped organisations in a variety of industries to see success. Their experience includes;

Our Bid Writers proudly hold an 87% success rate and they are trusted by over 700 businesses globally. Get in touch for a free consultation.

Don’t just take our word for it, see what our clients have to say

Could not recommend higher”

– Nick Steiert, Managing Director at Invasion Ltd.

We are thrilled to have been successful for all 3 pieces of work.”

– Matthew Meanie, Managing Director at MJ Support Staffing.

It was a pleasure to work with Hudson and we look forward to collaborating in the future.”

– Dave King, Director at Imagine You Can.

With such a tight deadline, we could not have done this without Hudson.”

– Fred Kivumbi, Managing Director at Care Solutions Recruitment Agency.

We would highly recommend Hudson and look forward to future endeavours together.”

– Nick Sheehan, Sales Director at iLine Technologies.

We would highly recommend Hudson to any company who require bid support of any kind!”

– Samantha Reid, Director at APM Cleaning Ltd.

Find more client testimonials.

Stay tuned for the final part of our Getting Ready Series. Our next blog will explore the role of a critical friend and how this can help your business.

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

The post The Getting Ready Series Part III: 3 ways to impress a buyer at the invitation to tender stage appeared first on Tender Consultants.

The Getting Ready Series part II: The best way of writing tenders and proposals

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 07:00:23 +0000

Writing tenders and proposals that actually win contracts

[Last modified: July 2021]

Writing tenders and proposals is a skill that comes naturally to some but not to others. If you’re trying to educate yourself around the best way to see success, you’ll notice an abundance of theories. For those of you who are new to writing bids and proposals for your business, it can seem very daunting. It’s important not to be discouraged and give up before you’ve really begun.

If you’re struggling to make sense of the best way to approach tender writing, you’re in the right place! In this blog, we will provide tips and advice for successfully securing work when tendering for contracts.

Why listen to our advice?

Allow us to introduce ourselves.

We are Hudson Succeed, the bid writing division of our overarching Hudson Group.

Our team have almost two decades of experience helping to grow businesses around the world. In fact, the team are trusted by over 700 businesses internationally.

Not only do we have extensive experience in numerous industries and sectors, but we also hold an 87% success rate.

So, now that we have been properly introduced, let’s get to the real reason you’re here – how to win.

The public sector

Tendering is most commonly a method of securing public sector contracts. When writing tenders and bid proposals, it’s likely that the buyer will be based in the public sphere.

Public sector buyers must put contracts out to tender if they meet or exceed the current OJEU thresholds.

At the time of this blog (December 2020), the current thresholds are;

Supplies & Services (except subsidised services contracts)

Schedule 1 bodies £122,976

Others £189,330

Subsidised services contracts

All bodies £189,330

Works (including subsidised works contracts)

All bodies £4,733,252

Light Touch Regime for Services

All bodies £663,540

Small lots

Supplies and services £70,778

Works £884,720

These thresholds are in place to ensure that public money is spent wisely with a fair process in place.

Types of public sector tenders

When writing tenders and proposals in the public sector, it’s important to understand the various procedures. These tendering processes include;

Open procedure

This is the most commonly used process. Within an open procedure, anyone can submit a full tender.

Restricted procedure

This type of procedure requires a pre-selection phase. Anyone may participate and apply to tender, however, only selected tenders may submit the final bid.

Competitive negotiate procedure

Similar to a restricted procedure, any supplier may ask to participate. However, only selected suppliers may submit tenders and negotiate. This procedure can be used as standard practice for defence & security, water, energy, transport and postal industries. Other entities can only use this procedure when the purchase is specific or complicated and negotiation is necessary.

Competitive dialogue

This method would be used when a contracting authority seeks to establish a method of addressing their needs.

Innovation partnership

When the authority requires goods/services that are not yet available on the market, they may use an innovation partnership. Multiple companies can participate throughout this procedure.

Design contest

As the name suggests, this procedure is used when the authority needs to obtain design-based ideas.

Top tip:

Writing tenders and proposals in the public sector can require jumping through a few hoops. However, in our experience, it can be a very lucrative way of growing your business and securing regular income. Consider the following before you begin;

Do you have the experience required by the buyer and can you demonstrate this?
Is there a minimum turnover threshold that you have to meet?
If successful, do you have the resources required to deliver the contract? For example, does the specification require you to work in different regions?
Can you price your services competitively? After all, public sector buyers will be most likely to award the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT).
How can you demonstrate your social value? As of January 2021, the UK government will introduce a 10% weighting on social value when tendering. You must be able to demonstrate how your organisation goes above and beyond to positively impact society.

Our To Bid or Not to Bid blog can help you decide if a tender is right for your business.

The private sector

Buyers in the private sector are not bound by as many regulations. They don’t have to tender for work. When they do, it’s more likely to be a quotation-based exercise.

It can be more difficult to source private sector opportunities. Sometimes, it’s more about who you know. In our experience, we have found that successful private sector tendering can be heavily influenced by your relationship with the buyer.

With this in mind, we wouldn’t recommend relying on your relationship building skills alone. Accreditations and qualifications are just as important to demonstrate your capabilities.

Top tip:

If you’re focussing on the private sector, relationship building should form a large part of your business development strategy.

Flying through the pre-qualification stage

As mentioned above, public sector tendering may require a pre-qualification stage. Successful suppliers will then be invited to submit the full tender response.

The format for the pre-qualification stage will largely be determined by the industry you work in. For example, in the construction industry, this procedure usually takes the form of a PAS91. Other buyers may use a Selection Questionnaire or a PQQ.

In order to successfully pass this stage, you must be able to demonstrate that you comply with the requirements. Some buyers may require a specific turnover. If this is the case, we would recommend checking that the contract value does not exceed 50% of your turnover. This is a general rule of thumb in public sector procurement. It will often mean that you’re not eligible to bid.

Top tip:

Read the full specification. If you are confident that you meet the criteria, the PQQ stage shouldn’t be a problem.

Managing the workload and saving time in the future

Writing tenders and proposals can be time-consuming, especially if you don’t have a dedicated team working on this. However, there are ways of saving yourself time for future bids. Put smart methods in place now to help yourself later down the line.

Here are our top 4 tips to help you manage the workload;

Start with a bid plan

The first step when writing tenders and bid proposals should be a bid plan. This is especially useful if the specification requires a large amount of work. The bid plan will help you and your team work collaboratively and ensure that you meet the deadline. This plan can include;

Timescales;
Assigned roles to show who is responsible for each section, and;
The documentation you may need from other departments.

Create supporting documents in advance

It is likely that you will need to attach supporting documents and appendices when writing bids. You can often pre-empt which documents you are likely to need when writing tenders and proposals. For example, healthcare businesses can assume that they will be asked to provide a health and safety policy. In the public sector, it’s safe to assume that you will be asked for at least three relevant contract examples. Think about the contracts you want to win and develop three case studies in preparation.

Creating a library for the future

Once you have created the documents, we would recommend filing them in a “bid library”. This will make reactive tendering a smoother process in the future. However, it’s important to thoroughly proof the documents before attaching them to each bid. You don’t want to accidentally leave in another buyer’s name or contract title for example.

Taking accountability for bid quality

Additionally to the above point, it’s vital that you have a thorough proofreading process in place. In your bid plan, you should assign accountability for this. When planning your process, you should consider who will be responsible and how many people will check the work. In our experience, we have seen businesses rush this process, only to be unsuccessful. Spelling, grammatical and consistency errors suggest a lack of attention to detail to the buyer. This is not a quality they are looking for.

Are you adding value?

When talking about your own business, it’s easy to go off on tangents about how amazing your organisation is. However, when writing tenders and proposals, it’s important to always keep added value in mind. When creating your tender responses, continuously ask yourself how you are going to add value to the buyer. It’s not enough to just state how you meet the requirements. You must demonstrate how your services/goods will benefit the buyer.

What about social value?

As we mentioned earlier, from January 2021, public sector organisations will place a 10% weighting on social value responses. Previously, we have seen some businesses simply state that they do, essentially, the bare minimum. In other words, they only go as far as what is required by law. From next year this won’t be enough. Buyers want to see how your organisation goes above and beyond to positively impact society.

This is good news for SMEs!

The new requirements will mean that large organisations and SMEs are evaluated by the same standards. The new system will apply tests that all bidders are capable of meeting, regardless of their size. This will help to level the playing field for small businesses.

Further support

Do you need help with writing bids or the tendering process? We understand that spending days writing tenders and proposals just isn’t feasible for some businesses. But that shouldn’t mean that you have to miss out on all the fantastic opportunities.

We provide four levels of bid writing support to ensure that we can help businesses of any size.

Tender Writing

Our ad-hoc bid writing service allows you to reactively respond to tenders. Our team will write your tender responses, ask clarification questions and submit the final bid on your behalf.

The Tender Ready programme

Designed for businesses who are new to tendering, the programme ensures that you have everything in place to tender successfully.

Tender Mentor

If you don’t have time to conduct a thorough proofreading process, Tender Mentor can help. Our Bid Writers will assess your work, in-line with the specification. They will check for any spelling mistakes, grammar errors or inconsistencies and ensure that you have answered the specification.

The Tender Improvement programme

If you’re already tendering for work but not seeing success, Tender Improvement was designed for you. During the programme, we will assess your previous submissions and supporting documents. We will then make any amendments that will increase your chances of winning.

Both our Tender Ready and Improvement packages also include a 12-month subscription to one of our tendering portals.

Our Hudson Discover division houses 11 sector-specific tendering portals. The subscription ensures that you never miss an opportunity and increases the efficiency of your tender tracking process.

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

The post The Getting Ready Series part II: The best way of writing tenders and proposals appeared first on Tender Consultants.

The Getting Ready Series part I: 5 things to know about the submission of bids

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 07:00:34 +0000

The submission of bids – prepare to succeed

[Last modified: July 2021]

The submission of bids is, arguably, one of the most daunting elements of tendering for contracts. You have spent so much time and likely used many resources to get this far. Due to the digital world we live in, most submissions take place online. Buyers will often refer you to a portal where you can download information and upload your response.

This blog is the first in our Getting Ready Series, which will run throughout December. The series will focus on preparing yourself for the tendering process and submitting a bid. Whether you are a seasoned professional or new to tendering, prepare to pick up some top tips and expert insight.

Tendering for work in December

Firstly, we need to dispel the myth that you should wait until January to bid for contracts. We don’t know where this ideology came from, but we need to throw it out.

Our experts at Hudson Succeed always recommend tendering for contracts whilst you’re delivering current work. This is the case at any time of year. It means that once your current contract comes to an end, you have a ready-made pipeline to move onto.

We see so many businesses making the mistake of letting their development take a break in December. Your development strategies shouldn’t get annual leave! They should be a continuous process throughout the year.

December is the time to start building your pipeline. Secure your income for next year and get ahead of your competition.

Are you really ready to submit your bid?

When it comes to submitting your bids, we always advise completing a thorough proofing process beforehand. Ask yourself: am I 100% happy and confident in this tender response?

When working so closely with a project, it’s easy to miss mistakes. Even proofreading your own work isn’t thorough enough! You’ll likely read it as you think you’ve written it and gloss over any mistakes. An impartial pair of eyes is always the best way of ensuring error-free work.

We’re not only referring to spelling and grammatical errors. When asking someone to proofread your work, they should do so in line with the specification. They should analyse your work as if they were the buyer. This is the best way to guarantee that you are directly addressing the specification and answering questions.

Don’t get us wrong, it’s great to talk about how amazing your organisation is. With the passion you have for your business, it’s tempting to fill the tender response with accolades of your organisation. However, this isn’t the best way to win a tender. Buyers want to see in-depth responses that answer the question. Ensure you’re doing this by breaking down the questions before putting pen to paper (or fingers on keys).

When your impartial proofreader analyses your work, they should be ruthless. Ask them to not hold back and highlight any areas that could be removed. However, when removing content, it’s important to replace it with key information. Don’t submit 100 words if the question asks for 800, for example. Keep your bid writing concise and the information rich.

Different types of submission

If you have tendered for work before, you’ll know that each bid is slightly different. When reading through the tender documents to make your bid or no-bid decision, the submission section is equally as important. Make sure that you understand how the buyer has requested the final submission to be made. And of course, check and double check the deadline!

Submitting bids electronically

When the submission of bids takes place electronically, there are a few things to consider.

Firstly, consider the portal. Just because you submitted bids in the past doesn’t mean that you will immediately be able to navigate any portal. A new buyer might use a different system. This means that you have to be prepared. Even if you consider yourself to be “tech-savvy”, it’s vital that you familiarise yourself with the system in advance. Don’t leave it until the day of the submission to start looking at how to actually upload and send your responses.
Secondly, you should check how to attach your documents and the editing functions. See if you can edit the documents once they have been uploaded. Some portals will allow you to upload your responses, then go back in before the deadline and make changes. This is helpful if your team is working remotely on different sections. However, not all portals will allow this, so it’s best to get to grips with the system in advance.

Postal submissions

Believe it or not, some buyers will still request a postal submission. Sometimes, the buyer will even ask for both an online and a postal submission.

When submitting your bids through the post, consider the following;

Check with your local post office to ensure you leave enough time for your submission to arrive, in advance of the deadline. There’s nothing more stressful when submitting a bid than knowing that your tender will arrive within a hairsbreadth of the deadline time.
We recommend bringing all your internal timescales forward when working towards a postal submission. Disregard the final deadline and set a much earlier deadline for yourself and your team. This will help to alleviate any stress further down the line.
Take printing into account when planning your bid. Do you need to attach appendices or other documentation? Make sure you factor this into your bid plan before commencing the work.

Submissions over email

Some buyers might request that the submission of your bid takes place over email. Here you should consider;

The size of your files. You may need to compress your files or send the work in multiple emails. If this is the case, you should check with the buyer via a clarification question first.
The reliability of emails. Even though email is a seemingly reliable source of communication, don’t be too assuming. How often have you heard “I haven’t received it” or “Is it in your junk?” around the office? Sometimes even emails can let us down. For this reason, it’s important to pre-empt any potential technical problems and send your work in advance.
Remaining professional. This might sound simple, but you’d be amazed by how colloquial some people are over email. Remember, you’re still trying to sell your services/goods to the buyer. You still want them to pick you. Remain professional, you’re still representing your business.

How to prepare for a submission

Congratulations! You’ve finished your bid writing. But unfortunately, you’re not quite done yet.

Here is a quick checklist to complete before the submission of your bids.

Have you completed all the elements that the buyer asked for in the specification? This can be a simply ticking exercise. Go through the specification and tick everything you have created to ensure it is ready to go.
Have you thoroughly proofread your written responses? Are you sure there aren’t any spelling or grammatical errors?
Have you directly answered all the buyer’s questions, addressing the specification in detail?
Have you easily labelled and attached all appendices and supporting documents?

Depending on the individual tender, there may be more to assess before you submit. Luckily, there is support available to you.

Need a second pair of eyes before the submission of your bid?

The submission of your bids should bring about a sigh of relief. The bid has gone, and the outcome is now out of your control. However, if you need some support, look no further than Tender Mentor.

We designed our Tender Mentor service to act as a second pair of eyes before pressing the submit button. Re-reading and assessing is a time-consuming process, and you have already spent enough time creating the bid.

Simply upload your work and the accompanying tender documents. Our team of expert Bid Writers will assess your responses in line with the specification. They will check for any spelling or grammatical errors as well as ensuring your answers meet the buyer’s requirements. Once they are satisfied that the bid will impress the buyer, you can press submit with confidence.

Why trust our Bid Writers?

Our team at Hudson Succeed have been helping businesses to grow through tendering for almost two decades. They proudly hold an 87% bid success rate and work across a multitude of industries. From Construction, to care, to website development, our Bid Writers are experts in winning. They know what makes a compelling, successful bid, and they are trusted by over 700 businesses, globally.

Further support

Need help writing a bid, support to increase your success rate or with the submission of bids? Get in touch for a free consultation. Our experts will assess the needs of your business and help you prepare to win more work, ready to reach your goals in the new year.

There’s no time like the present. Don’t be the person who says, “I’ll start in January”. Your competitors are starting now.

Stay tuned for the next blog in our Getting Ready Series, focussing on writing tenders and proposals, destined for success.

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

The post The Getting Ready Series part I: 5 things to know about the submission of bids appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Writing a Bid in 2020/21 – We take a look into the future

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 30 Sep 2020 07:30:52 +0000

Writing a bid could look a bit different in the future

[Last modified: July 2021]

Bid writing in January 2020 could look very different by the end of 2021 and beyond. It goes without saying that most industries, around the world, have undergone a tremendous period of adaption this year. Whether the obstacle was remote working, adapting processes or changing your service altogether, 2020 has certainly challenged us.

“The procurement industry hasn’t come to a standstill” – Daniel Hall, Head of Bid Management – Hudson Succeed.

During the initial UK-wide lockdown, we noticed that some businesses assumed that tendering contracts had ceased to be published. This led them to be concerned about tendering for work in the current climate. However, this was not the case. Local authorities still called for suppliers to deliver services, albeit in a slightly different manner.

Our Hudson Discover division has reported record numbers of tendering opportunities in the last few weeks. This includes contracts for industries such as;

As we look towards the future of tendering, some of the requirements and tendering processes could look very different. We expect some of these changes to stay in place for the foreseeable future. Adapting your strategy now could save you precious time in the long-run and help you to be more reactive.

Ever-increasing emphasis on social value

If you follow our Hudson Insight Series, you will have noticed more and more emphasis on social value.

Social value has always been prevalent in the tendering process. However, writing a bid in the future could require more detail about your adherence to supporting your employees and local community.

We predict that more buyers will ask for demonstrable examples of how your business has a positive impact.

When offering examples, it will be important to emphasise that your actions are purposeful and autonomous. Simply demonstrating that your organisation complies with environmental or social legislation will not be sufficient.

You can demonstrate social value in the form of;

Policies and procedures
Spending
Training
Volunteering
Mentoring
Community engagement
Sustainability approaches

Even in the private sector…

Usually, public sector tenders will require details of social value, while private sector organisations may be more cost-driven.

However, we are now seeing a shift in private sector businesses asking for this information in their bidding process.

For example, Vodafone recently announced that it was committed to evolving their bid selection process. The company pledged to place greater emphasis on diversity and sustainability.

From October 2020, the supplier’s ‘purpose’ will account for 20% of the RFQ evaluation.

Vodafone’s Group CFO, Margherita Della Valle said: “We want Vodafone’s supply chain partners to be aligned with and support our desire to build a resilient, sustainable and inclusive digital society.”

The company also announced support for SME suppliers. They will introduce positive scoring if those suppliers commit to introducing policies that align with Vodafone’s purpose.

“We will be providing practical support for our smaller suppliers, providing help and tools to ensure that vendors of all sizes have the opportunity to align with our purpose when we consider them for contracts” – Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone’s Group CFO

Calls for changes to single-stage tendering

In some industries, there have been calls to abolish single-stage tendering when the contract value exceeds £10million. This would be replaced with a two-stage tendering process.

The recent Fine Margins report by The Confederation of British Industry, recommended this for the construction sector.

The rationale is that a longer process would allow more time for design and pricing certainty. This would in theory lead to increased productivity, once the contract commences.

According to PBC Today, every £1 spent on construction in the UK creates £2.92 of value to the UK economy. Additionally, the UK construction industry contributes to 6% of the countries GDP. Therefore, an increase in productivity in this sector could have extensive implications for the UK economy.

Whilst writing a bid in the construction sector could require jumping through more hoops, the long-term benefits could be exponential.

How to win new contracts

With these predictions in mind, it’s time to start winning some work.

You should be able to submit a compelling bid if you have in-house resources such as;

Exceptional writing skills;
Vast experience of procurement processes; and,
Knowledge of procurement terminology.

We have many materials to support you and your team, including our blogs, bid resources and Tender VLE.

However, writing a bid can be a time-consuming process. We understand that not every business has these resources in-house. That’s why we developed our suite of bid writing services.

At Hudson Succeed we have been supporting businesses with their tendering efforts for almost two decades. Based on our experiences, we developed the following four services.

Tender Writing

This is our ad-hoc bid writing service. Tender Writing was designed to support businesses who need to reactively bid for work but don’t have the resources in-house. This service consists of;

The full development of written responses;
Clarification question management, and;
The final submission of the bid on your behalf.

Our team are trusted by over 700 businesses globally and they proudly hold an 87% bid success rate.

Do you currently require support with writing a bid? Send the tender documents and get a free quote in four working hours.

Tender Ready

This is one of our most popular services. The Tender Ready programme was designed to support our initiative to make tendering a fairer and more transparent playing field. This service supports businesses who are new to tendering. The package includes;

The creation and design of the policies and procedures you will need to submit when tendering for work;
A 12-month subscription to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice;
Support to identify the contracts that you should be bidding for, and;
The choice between a full bid writing service for your first tender, or guided support for two bids.

For more information about the Tender Ready programme, please call or email the team.

Tender Improvement

Are you already tendering for work but not seeing success? We often hear clients say they have spent countless hours writing and preparing bids, only to receive an unsuccessful result. There is often an easy solution for this. That’s why we developed our Tender Improvement package. This service includes;

A thorough analysis of your previous tender responses and suggestions for areas of improvement;
The re-development of any corporate literature that could be used more effectively;
A 12-month subscription to the Hudson Discover portal of your choice to help you find new opportunities, and;
The choice between guided support for your next two bids or a full bid writing service for one tender.

Get in touch with our team to enquire about our Tender Improvement package.

Tender Mentor

Are you ready to submit a bid? Has it been thoroughly proofread?

Failure to proofread a bid before submitting it is one of the most common mistakes that suppliers make.

Our Tender Mentor service ensures that you submit an error-free bid. Our bid writing experts will;

Thoroughly proofread your bid, checking for any spelling or grammatical errors;
Assess your responses against the specification to ensure that your content directly answers the requirements and impresses the buyer, and;
Make recommendations to help you increase your chances of success.

Simply send your tender responses and the specification and receive a free quote in four working hours.

Where to find new tendering opportunities

Finding new tendering opportunities requires both time and monetary resources.

Before the Hudson Discover portals launched, your business development team would need to either;

Since launching our Hudson Discover division, we have managed to eliminate these inefficiencies for numerous businesses, globally.

Hudson Discover houses our 11 sector-specific tendering portals. These portals were designed as time-saving tools to help you find new business opportunities.

The portals consist of the following;

What makes these portals different to other tracking systems?

Manual opportunity tracking

Instead of relying on CPV codes and algorithms to do our sourcing, we have a dedicated team of opportunity trackers. On a daily basis, the team searches thousands of sources to find newly published tenders. They then upload their findings to the relevant portals, categorising them with industry-led keywords.

What does this mean for you?

In a nutshell, it means that you can simply log into your portal, enter the keywords you want to see and immediately find opportunities. Not only that, but the portal allows you to be even more granular. You can also filter by location, budget and the buyer’s sector. But don’t worry! You won’t need to perform this search every time. Our clients build a profile page when they first sign up. By entering this information, you can tell the system what to look out for. Then, each time you log in, you will only see relevant tenders on your dashboard.

Don’t have time to log in every day? Don’t worry, we know that you’re busy! That’s why we send our clients an email alert when relevant opportunities are uploaded.

Account managers

Upon joining the portal, you will be assigned an account manager. Your account manager will be on-hand throughout your subscription. They can support you with;

General tendering-related queries;
Maximising your portal account;
Finding the best opportunities for your business;
Connecting you with a bid writer who can help you win the contracts you find on the portal, and;
Help you find suppliers if you need support with a project.

Free advice from our Hudson Succeed consultants

As well as support from your account manager, you will also be entitled to 20-minutes of free consultancy each month.

Our Hudson Helpline is available to our Discover clients to support them with more technical queries. If you require this type of support, your account manager will schedule a call for you.

But don’t just take our word for it, see for yourself. We encourage you to test the portal via a free live demo. The demo allows you to access the live portal of your choice. Here, you can take a tour of the features, ask our account manager any questions and see the live opportunities. This will help you to understand exactly how the system will help your business grow.

Schedule a free live demo of your preferred portal.

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

The post Writing a Bid in 2020/21 – We take a look into the future appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How To: Work More Effectively With Your Bid Writer

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 07:00:50 +0000

Winning bids with expert support

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 12:25 pm

Winning bids can be a complex undertaking, especially if you are new to the tendering process. Enlisting the help of a bid writer is an effective way of saving time and submitting a professional tender response. If you are looking to outsource a bid writer for the first time, there a few things you should consider.

We have been writing bids for almost two decades. During this time, we have supported hundreds of businesses in numerous industries. When working with clients who have never outsourced bid writing previously, we have noticed some common misconceptions. In this blog, we will address these reoccurring confusions.

Implementing these considerations can save copious amounts of time. Before you even begin to look for a bid writing service, make sure you consider the following five points.

1. Consider word counts and time scales before outsourcing

Before approaching a bid writing organisation, there a few boxes that you should check internally. This will save you from extortionate quotes and potentially paying for poor-quality, rushed work.

Once you have found a tender, it’s important to perform a quick analysis of the work involved. The tender specification will detail the work involved, including word counts and the documents you must provide. Using this information, you can determine the timescales that a bid writer would need in order to complete the work.

Consider that the average bid writer produces 1,500 – 2,000 words per day. With this in mind, compare the overall wordcount to the tender deadline. Once you have a rough idea of the timescales, you can approach bid writing companies with a more informed perspective. This will help you to detect unreasonable quotes.

If the deadline is in two days and requires 10,000 words, it’s unlikely that a bid writing company will agree to the work. If they do, it’s important to consider the quality of the submission. You could end up paying an obscene fee, only to lose the bid due to poor quality responses.

2. Most bid writers will assume that you’re eligible to bid

It’s not enough to make your bid/no-bid decision simply based off the title or by skimming the specification. When you approach a bid writer, they will expect you to know that you are eligible to deliver the contract.

Their role is to write winning bids. In order to do this effectively, they need the maximum amount of time to craft responses that will impress buyers.

To help your bid writer, you should fully read and digest the tender specification, ensuring that you comply with the criteria. If this is not possible (specifications can be anywhere from 30 pages to 100+) you should inform your bid writer.

In the specification, you will find details of criteria such as;

Turnover requirements;
Necessary accreditations;
Case studies and;
Trading length.

If you don’t comply and still wish to bid for the tender, you should make your bid writer aware. An experienced bid writer will be able to advise you on the likely outcome, helping you make your bid/no-bid decision.

3. Expect to divulge company information…in detail

Once your project is agreed, your bid writer will commence the work. We can’t speak for all consultancies, but we have a robust way of managing our tender submissions.

When producing winning bids, we believe that the proof is in the planning! That’s why we begin every tendering process with a bid plan. The plan consists of timescales for both us and the client. This ensures that both parties know what is required and we can set expectations from the outset.

If we have never worked with the client before, we will need to gather information from the business. This information will allow us to write accurate bids that showcase your organisation in the best light.

Usually, we will require the following information;

Examples of similar contracts that your business has delivered;
Relevant company policies and procedures;
Depending on the tender, company CVs could be required;
An organogram and;
Design elements such as company logos and fonts.

When the service commences, please be prepared to offer as much information as possible. If you don’t have these documents, our bid designers can create them for you.

4. Likewise, expect to provide technical information

When it comes to your services, you are the expert. Your bid writer will most likely require some technical input from your organisation to accurately answer questions about specific methodologies.

For example, a tender for architecture services will require technical content about the intricacies of structural work. Your bid writer is unlikely to have the answers. In order to provide specialist information, they will need to gather information from you.

Of course, it is helpful and more efficient if your business has already created methodology statements. If this is not possible, in most cases, your bid writer will be able to gather information over the phone. Once they have this technical input from you, they can begin to create impressive responses.

At Hudson Succeed, we know that winning bids requires technical and accurate details. As multi-disciplinary bid writers, we have acquired some specialist knowledge over the years. However, if the buyer requires technical information, we will always consult with you first. This ensures that your responses reflect the extensive experience and knowledge of your organisation.

5. You are the expert in your field – we are experts in bid writing

As bid writers, the only aspect of your submission that we never involve ourselves in is the pricing element. The reason for this is simply because you are the experts in your business. We trust that you know how much to quote in order to profit from the contract, should you be successful.

Whilst we have experience in a range of industries, we never claim to experts in one particular field. We are experts in bid writing. We know how to craft winning bids that can help your organisation grow.

Bid writing services

At Hudson Succeed, we offer a suite of services to ensure that we can help businesses of all sizes. We know the tendering process and tendering for contracts can be difficult o get tour had around. This is why we are here.

Tender Writing

In order to produce winning bids, you will need one key resource – time.

We understand that it isn’t always possible to reactively respond to tenders as they are released. If you need to tender for work, but don’t have the time or writing resources in house, Tender Writing is for you.

Our ad-hoc bid writing service allows you to outsource your tender responses to our experienced team of professionals. As part of the service, we will write, manage and submit the bid on your behalf.

Our team of bid writers proudly hold an 87% success rate. They are also trusted by over 700 businesses, globally.

Contact the team by phone or email for a free quote.

Tender Ready

Tender Ready is our bespoke programme, designed specifically for businesses that are new to tendering.

Our team will work with your organisation to create all the corporate literature you will need to bid for contracts. The programme also allows you 12-months access to the tendering portal of your choice.

As well as this, our Bid Designers will help you stand out by professionally branding your content.

Once the programme is complete, we will help you find the right tender for you. Our bid writers can then either write your first bid on your behalf or guide you through two.

Learn more about the Tender Ready programme.

Tender Improvement

The Tender Improvement package is the perfect solution for businesses who are bidding for work but not seeing success.

Included in this package is;

A full assessment of your previous tendering responses;
An analysis of areas that require improvement;
The enhancement/creation of corporate literature;
Support to identify the right tendering opportunities for your business and;
Either a full bid writing service to help you win your next bid or a guide and review service to support you through your next two submissions.

Find more information about our Tender Improvement package.

Tender Mentor

Have you already written your tender responses? We would always advise asking someone impartial to review your work before submitting. Grammatical mistakes or inconsistencies in content can be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful submission.

Our Tender Mentor service will act as your second pair of eyes. Our bid writers will assess your responses against the specification. They will also check for any spelling or grammatical issues. This will ensure that your tender has the best chance of being the winning bid.

Get a free quote for your tender review.

Tender VLE

Tender VLE is the UK’s first, free, online learning platform for all things tendering and procurement-related. The site consists of video-led masterclasses, hosted by our bid writing experts. Each video offers tips and advice surrounding a variety of topics, such as;

Further support

For more information about winning bids, please feel free to get in touch. We offer a free initial consultation to help you choose the best service for your business.

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

The post How To: Work More Effectively With Your Bid Writer appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to be a Successful Public Sector Bid Manager

Charlotte Jarvis — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 08:00:18 +0000

Are you a public sector Bid Manager?

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 10:37 am

Even if you’re not a public sector Bid Manager, or a procurement professional of any kind, if your business tenders for contracts, you need to be aware of these tips for success.

At Hudson Succeed, our Bid Consultants have almost two decades of experience. They have supported clients in both the public and private sector. Collectively, they hold an 87% bid success rate and they are trusted by over 700 businesses globally when it comes to writing bids.

This level of experience has helped them to navigate the different expectations and tendering processes associated with public sector tendering.

Successful public sector bid management requires you to be commercially aware. You should also practice the following skills and incorporate these recommendations into your current processes.

Time management

If you follow our Insight series, you will already be aware that time management is key to any successful bid management strategy.

While it might sound obvious to say “be organised or risk failing” you would be surprised at how many stories we have heard about failed submissions due to poor time management.

The first thing that any public sector bid manager should do is familiarise themselves with their deadlines. Whenever a new bid project is agreed, the very first step should be to plan workloads around deadlines.

When we say deadlines, we aren’t simply referring to the final bid submission. There are multiple deadlines to be aware of along the way. This will typically include:

Site visits;
Clarification deadlines;
Submissions;
Presentation dates.

At Hudson Succeed, we are avid fans of Gantt charts. This approach allows you to break down each stage of the bid management process and visualise the time scales.

Watch our virtual masterclass to learn more about time management.

Get to know the portal

Once you have your timeline, you should turn your attention to the place where the submission will occur. In the public sector, submissions are often done via an online portal.

While the idea of submitting your bid online might sound straightforward enough, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. We have personally experienced technical difficulties in the past when submitting bids. This is why we recommend getting to know the system in advance.

We would also advise aiming to submit your bid no later than 24 hours before the final deadline. This will make the submission process less stressful if you do run into any technical problems.

Changing priorities

No matter what your role is in your business, most of us battle with changes in priorities daily. The ability to prioritise workloads is crucial to almost any job. Bid management is certainly no exception.

Depending on the size of your organisation, it is likely that you will be managing multiple bids at a time. They will have different deadlines, workloads and require different levels of content production.

What do we mean by “content production” in this context?

Each tender will have different requirements. The buyer will detail them in the specification document(s). Depending on the contract you are bidding for, a typical public sector tender might ask for:

Company CVs;
Your organisation’s policies and procedures, in relation to the services you would provide as the contract winner;
At least three relevant case studies;
Financial accounts to provide evidence of turnover.

If you read this list and nodded at each point, this is a good sign. If you already have these documents created and branded, you can save a large amount of time when compiling these for the submission.

However, if this is your first time tendering for work, you might not have these documents in a ready-to-go format. Don’t worry if this is the case: there are many support options available to you.

For example, as part of our Tender Ready package, our team will create these documents on your behalf. We will also brand them and ensure they represent your company in the best light. Call or email us to discuss how our Tender Ready service can help you.

When new bid projects come in, you will have to prioritise. Assessing the workloads of the new bids against the requirements of the existing work is an effective way of quickly prioritising and managing the new time scales.

Organising and creating a “bid bank”

Every tender is different, and each bid will require individual attention to ensure that you’re responding to the specification.

That being said, there will be some crossover between questions, responses and the documentation required (as mentioned above). Think about working more efficiently.

In our experience, an effective way of boosting efficiency in your team is to create a “bid bank”. This can be in the form of digital folders, containing the most commonly requested corporate literature.

Expert tip: When reusing content, the key is to check, check and double-check before pressing ‘submit’. You don’t want to risk submitting a bid that refers to a different buyer or a different contract. Although you will save time by reusing previous content, as a public sector Bid Manager, it is worth investing time in a thorough quality checking process.

Keeping up with clarifications

If you have any experience with public sector tendering, you will be familiar with clarification questions.

In a nutshell, clarification questions offer potential suppliers the chance to ask questions to a buyer about the specification. You should read and digest the full specification before asking a clarification question. The answer you are looking for could very well be on page 127, for example.

Ideally, there won’t be many clarification questions asked by potential suppliers. If the specification is clear and easy to follow, there shouldn’t be too much confusion.

However, there have been occasions where we have seen 100+ clarification questions. In this case, it is vital for public sector Bid Managers to read all the questions and digest all the answers. Some of them might be repetitive or seem obvious but missing answers could result in mistakes and lost marks.

Watch our virtual masterclass to learn more about clarification questions.

Tracking opportunities effectively

When sourcing new business opportunities, there are thousands of sites to track. Regular tracking allows you to find new opportunities as soon as they are released. However, with so many sources and buyers to track, it can be difficult to maintain a consistent process.

You can increase both the efficiency and the quality of your tracking by creating a simple checklist, for example:

What type of contract do you want to deliver?
How much demonstratable experience do you have in delivering these services?
Which budgets can you work within?
What is your realistic location radius for contract delivery?
Who is your ideal buyer?

Once you have answered these questions, you can begin to track for opportunities, using these criteria.

To help you wade through numerous contract opportunities, we developed our Hudson Discover portals. Our 11 sector-specific tendering portals were designed to help you efficiently find the contracts you want to deliver.

The portals can easily be filtered by service, location, budget and sector to help you find the opportunities that tick your checklist. We also send our clients an email alert when relevant tenders are uploaded. This means you don’t have to check thousands of sites daily; you can simply find all the information in one email.

Book a free live demo of the portal that is best for your business. The demo will allow you to access the system, see the live opportunities and understand how the portal can help your business.

Trust in your team

Lastly, a frequently overlooked point is to trust in your team (if you have one). Your team were hired for a reason, so let them support you. As a Bid Manager, it can be easy to fall into “do it yourself” mentality. If you find yourself thinking that the bid will be better if you’re responsible for all the elements, this is probably the time to re-evaluate your team and your processes.

During the time management stage, it is crucial to delegate and split the work between your colleagues. This is especially the case when working on larger projects.

Working as a team will not only alleviate the pressure from yourself as a Bid Manager, but also increase efficiency. When you increase efficiency, you can invest more time in proofreading and quality checking. This will ensure that you submit the best bid possible.

Further support

For more information about managing your bids effectively, please get in touch with our bid writers. Call or email us for a free consultation to discuss how we can support your bid management strategy.

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

The post How to be a Successful Public Sector Bid Manager appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Tender VLE | Video-led Masterclasses in Tendering and Procurement

Tender VLE: Our Virtual Bid Learning Environment

Tender VLE

What is Tender VLE?

When is Tender VLE live?

What Can I Expect from Tender VLE?

How Can Tender VLE Benefit My Business?

Why Tender for Work?

How we can help!

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Contact us:

Additional support:

Our other divisions:

Vocal

Alpha

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

How to Become a Tender Expert

How to Become a Tender Expert

What is a Tender Expert?

Tender Expert Skills

Benefits of Hiring a Tender Expert

How to Become a Tender Expert!

Where to Find Tender Experts!

How we can help!

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Contact us:

Additional support:

Discover Elite

The Ultimate Time Save Package (for those on the go!)

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package

Our other divisions:

Vocal

Alpha

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

The 7 Types of Tendering Procedures

How many types of tendering procedures can there be?

Public sector tenders

The advantages of public sector tendering include:

Open tendering procedure

Restricted procedure

Competitive dialogue

Negotiated tendering procedure

Innovation partnership

Private sector tenders

Finding different types of tendering opportunities

Enter…Hudson Discover

How to secure the contract

Is your bid management process up to scratch?

Improving your bid management process

The 6-stage process

1. Sourcing the right opportunities for your business

2. Breaking down the specification

3. Collating information in advance

4. Finalising and proofreading

5. Submission

6. The results

Does your team have the right skills?

Time management

Technical and concise writing capabilities

Strategising and planning your moves

Working smarter with these tools

Hudson Discover

Bid library

Tender VLE

5 tips for improving your success rate

1. Hold regular meetings

2. Set earlier deadlines

3. Record progress

4. Establish roles and responsibilities

5. Ensure contingency by proofreading

Further support

The Getting Ready Series Part III: 3 ways to impress a buyer at the invitation to tender stage

Approaching the invitation to tender stage like a professional

Don’t panic! Let’s break this down