UK Procurement | Tips and Advice | Tender Consultants

How to Secure Government Contracts Without a Huge Bid Team

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 07:00:19 +0000

How to secure government contracts if you don’t have unlimited resources

Wondering how to secure government contracts without the resources of Amazon, Capita or Deloitte? Well, we have good news! You don’t need endless resources to win government contracts. You just need to be:

Smart with your bid or no-bid decisions
Resourceful with your team
Knowledgeable about the tendering process.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at:

How to be smart with your decisions, using a bid or no-bid checklist
What you can do to prepare before you bid for work
How to break down the question
How to get the evaluator on your side with your writing
Where you can find support.

So, let’s get started!

5 boxes to tick for smarter bid decisions

Before bidding for work, you should set out a list of questions to ask yourself before diving in. These questions will form your bid or no-bid questionnaire. They will help you make quick and smart decisions and keep you on the right path.

By making better decisions, you’ll save yourself from wasting resources further down the line. You don’t want to write 10,000 words, then realise you’re not eligible because of an accreditation requirement on page 50.

*Can you tick ‘yes’* to the following?**
Do you turnover more than half the contract’s value?
Is the contract deliverable in your location/can you travel to the location?
Is the contract going to be profitable?
Do you have experience with delivering the services/goods required and can you evidence this?
Can you demonstrate how you will add value to the buyer?

There are plenty of questions to consider but these five are a good starting point.

If you tick ‘no’ to even one of these questions, you need to seriously consider whether you can win. Essentially, we’re saying don’t waste your time and resources on bids you can’t win.

4 things you can prepare before you bid on government contracts

Assign roles in your team

With a smaller team, it’s important that everyone understands the role they play in the wider project. We recommend assigning:

Someone who makes the bid or no-bid decisions
The project manager
Someone who designs the solutions
Someone who will write the bid responses
The person who will compile the pricing document
The person who will sign off the final bid.

Compile your policies and procedures

Even before you start bidding for work, you can pre-empt the policies you are likely to be asked for. For example, in the healthcare industry, it’s sensible to assume you will be asked to provide:

A safeguarding policy
A whistleblowing policy
Your business continuity plans
A risk management policy
And an infection control plan/policy.

You can see here how we have made this assumption based on the industry. You and your team can do the same.

Create consistent, branded company CVs

In the public sector, buyers often ask to see the CVs of the team who will be delivering the contract. We advise spending some time on preparing these CVs and trying to keep the design consistent. It’s easier for buyers to read and digest the information if they’re all formatted the same way. Take this opportunity to shine a spotlight on each member of your team and demonstrate their capabilities.

Create/compile case studies

And more importantly…relevant case studies! When tendering for work in the public sector, you need to evidence your previous experience. This is usually done through providing two or three case studies from the last five years. The projects in the case studies should be similar in size and scope to the tender at hand.

How to break down the question

So, you’ve found a tender, it passes your checklist and you’ve prepared your documents. How do you now breakdown the questions and answer them effectively?

Firstly, don’t just jump straight in and start writing…as tempting as it might be. Sit back and examine the question. Let’s look at an example question:

Please explain your risk management procedures, including what risks you feel are vital to overcome as part of this contract, as well as monitoring and mitigation approaches you would use. Please detail who will manage said risks and provide examples of where you have overcome similar risks.

Does it seem like there’s a lot to answer within this one question? There is! We would tackle it bit by bit, breaking the question down into subheadings, such as:

General risk management procedures – this would include risks, monitoring and mitigation.
Risk lead – risk management experience.

Under each subheading, you can address that section of the question.

How to get the evaluator on your side

When considering how to secure government contracts, it’s not just about what you’re saying, it’s how. Here are our top 5 tips for getting the buyer on your side:

Be definitive. Swap phrases like ‘we aspire to’ with ‘we have’ and ‘we could’ for ‘we will’
Stay positive, focusing on the benefits of your service/solution/goods and the advantages
Back up all your claims with indisputable evidence
Be confident in your writing and write with conviction
Keep your language simple and sentences short. For example, instead of ‘has been proven to be’ use ‘is’.

It might seem like these tips are too simple…what’s the catch? There really isn’t one.

Empathise with the evaluator. You’re reviewing 30 submissions; they all contain very similar information, but they’re written differently. The simple, definitive answers will stand out because they are easy to follow and understand.

Also consider that the evaluator is likely not an expert in your industry or service/goods. Therefore, avoiding the use of too much technical jargon will go a long way. The evaluator needs to understand why they should award you the contract. If they don’t follow your explanations, you’re unlikely to win.

Where can you find government contracts?

Hopefully, you now have a better idea of how to secure government contracts. So where can you find the opportunities in the first place?

There are hundreds of websites across the UK that are updated daily with opportunities. The government has its own tender tracking website called Contracts Finder. The website is free to use but be prepared to spend a long time scrolling through irrelevant tenders.

That’s because the website uses CPV codes to categorise the opportunities which are often incorrectly used.

To speed up the process and make opportunity tracking more efficient, we created our Hudson Discover portals.

Hudson Discover houses our 11 sector-specific tendering portals. As well as being dedicated to one sector each, they’re manually updated by our Opportunity Trackers. They scour over 600 sources to identify new tendering opportunities and tag them with industry-driven keywords.

Visit your industry’s portal to book a free live demo:

In summary…

So, we’re at the end of our blog on how to secure government contracts. Hopefully you’ll take something away with you that you can apply to your next bid. If you need a quick recap, here you go:

We provided a list of five questions to help you form a bid or no-bid questionnaire. This will help you make more informed, smarter decisions and mitigate wasted resources. We understand that smaller businesses need to be smart with their resources. Assessing the bids before diving in will help you do just that.
We provided our top four tips for bid preparation:
1. Assigning roles to your team
2. Pre-empting the policies and procedures you’ll likely be asked to provide
3. Creating company CVs for everyone in your team who will be delivering the contract
4. Compiling three case studies from the last five years that will be relevant to the contracts you bid for.
Together, we looked at a sample question and thought about how we could break it down. We made sure to split the answer into subheadings so that we addressed every part of the question.
We provided five tips to help you get the evaluator on side with your writing:
1. Be definitive with your language
2. Stay positive, focusing on the benefits and advantages
3. Provide evidence to back up your claims
4. Write with confidence and conviction
5. Keep it simple! Short sentences and simple language will go down well with the buyer when they’re reviewing multiple bids at once.
We provided guidance for finding government contracts and recommended our Hudson Discover portals.

Still wondering how to secure government contracts?

Our team of consultants are here to help you. They have a thorough understanding of the tender process and government contracts, knowing exactly how to respond.

By outsourcing to professionals, you can improve your chances of winning contracts.

We have over 60 years of bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. Whether you’re completely new to tendering or aren’t seeing results – we can help. There are four bid writing packages available:

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found a government tender, send it over to us. One of our Bid Writers will write the tender response for you. We’ll provide a full Tender Writing break down and even submit the bid on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

Tender Mentor can give your tender response a once-over before you submit it. Our Bid Writing Team will analyse your response, notifying you of any errors and opportunities for improvements prior to submission.

Tender Ready

During the Tender Ready service, our team will create professional policies, procedures, and case studies in your company branding. If you already have this content, we will review everything carefully to ensure that nothing is missed. Once the programme is complete, you’ll have access to three days’ worth of bid consultancy. This can be used for bid writing, tender reviews, or general advice and guidance.

Tender Improvement

The Tender Improvement package can help those who have tendered before but aren’t seeing results. Our Bid Writers will assess your previous responses and work with you to develop improved content.

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

Need help with searching for government tenders?

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

Unlimited portal access. You can browse your industry’s portal to your heart’s content. See all the opportunities that are available, intuitively categorised, and easily accessible.
A daily email bulletin. When you sign up to a portal, you’ll receive an email alert when new tenders are uploaded.
A free 20-minute phone consultation with a Bid Writer every month. Our expert Bid Consultants will chat with you about anything tender related.

Upgrade to Discover Elite

If you want to streamline the process even further, you can sign up to Discover Elite via your chosen portal. With this service, a dedicated Account Manager will find live bids on your behalf. They’ll speak with you weekly to discuss opportunities that may interest you. This is especially helpful for those with little time to spare due to busy schedules.

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

The post How to Secure Government Contracts Without a Huge Bid Team appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to Become a Government Supplier in the UK

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 07:00:21 +0000

How to become a government supplier in the UK…if you’re an SME

Many SMEs wonder how to become a government supplier. They recognise the advantages and prospects of listing government bodies as clients and climbing the contract ladder.

It’s true that listing previous contract experience with government clients will help you to secure larger contracts. However, this is a bit of a chicken and egg situation, isn’t it? How can you win a contract in the first place to gain the experience you need? We all remember struggling to land our first job straight out of education, without that all-important experience. Well, this is similar.

In this blog, we’ll explain how to become a government supplier if you’re a small business. We’ll cover:

How to find the opportunities.
How to prepare and ensure you’re tender ready.
3 ways to make sure you meet the brief and have a good chance of winning.
How the government helps small businesses bid for work.
Social value – what is it and how to prepare in advance.
Our top 9 tips for how to become a government supplier.

Firstly, how do you find opportunities in the first place?

We’re not going to get very far without identifying an opportunity, are we! In the UK, there are hundreds of websites that publish new tendering opportunities, including the government’s own website, Contracts Finder. The problem is that these websites are not that easy to navigate and they’re not efficient to use.

Why? The main culprit is CPV codes (common procurement vocabulary). An eight-digit code, used for categorising opportunities into ‘subject matter’…in theory.

CPV codes are often used incorrectly by buyers due to the vast number of codes available. A study by the European Commission sampled 405 contract notices. They found that 23% had the wrong code associated with the scope of work tendered. This results in an inefficient sourcing process for you, the prospective supplier.

That’s why we created our own tendering portals, housed under Hudson Discover. We removed the use of CPV codes or algorithms and replaced them with manual opportunity tracking. Not only that, but the portals are also sector-specific, making them even more tailored to the user. More information about our portals can be found here:

How to make sure you’re tender ready before you begin

If tendering is new to you, becoming tender ready is an important step. In any tender, you will be required to provide certain documents and evidence. The savvier tenderers will spot that the same, or similar, documents are required by each buyer. Therefore, you can get a step ahead by preparing these documents in advance.

From our experience, the most commonly requested documents are:

Company CVs
Case studies – usually three from the last five years
Policies and procedures
Methodologies.

For help with getting tender ready, visit our dedicated Tender Ready service page.

3 ways to make sure you meet the brief

Before you jump into writing your tender responses and working out your pricing, we recommend:

Checking your economic financial standing

As a general rule of thumb, we advise against bidding for contracts with a value greater than half your turnover. This is your economic financial standing. For example, if a contract has a value of £50,000, you should be turning over at least £100,000. This is because you may struggle to prove that your resources meet the requirements. Often, buyers will ask to see your financial accounts during the tendering process.

Making sure you can evidence your experience

As we mentioned above, government buyers will often ask to see three case studies. They should be from contracts you have delivered within the last five years, in a similar field to this scope. If you can get testimonials from your previous clients, this will help to further demonstrate your capabilities.

Thinking about how you can evidence value for money

Government buyers are accountable for their spending. They have to demonstrate how they have delivered the best value for money because they’re spending public purse. This means that to become a government supplier, you need to evidence added value. It’s not just pricing that buyers consider to be good value. It’s a combination of quality and price throughout the life of the contract. So, make sure you highlight how and why your approach is cost-effective and helps the government make savings.

How to become a government supplier if you’re an SME…will the government help?

Becoming a government supplier is beneficial for both you and the government. The UK government is targeted with spending £1 in every £3 with small businesses. So, how are they helping small businesses secure contracts?

Lower value contracts

Since leaving the EU, there is more flexibility for lower value government contracts to be reserved for SME bidders. There is also more flexibility for Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSEs).

Introducing the prompt payment code

The prompt payment code offers suppliers peace of mind. It states that public sector buyers must include 30-day payment terms in their contracts. They also need to ensure that this is passed down the supply chain. If this is not happening, businesses are encouraged to raise this directly with the Public Procurement Review Service.

If this was the case, interest becomes liable as set out in the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. This means that businesses can claim interest on any late invoices.

The Small Business Commissioner

The Small Business Commissioner is a free service that ensures fair payment practices for all small businesses in Britain. The body supports businesses to resolve payment disputes with larger businesses.

Social value – what is it and how can you prepare?

When SMEs research how to become a government supplier, they sometimes overlook social value. The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 became law on 8^th March 2012. It requires public sector organisations to consider the supplier’s potential to deliver services that benefit the local area and people.

In January 2021, new measures came into effect. Any public sector organisation procuring goods/services with a value of over £180,000 is obliged to ask bidders about social value. A 10% weighting has been placed on these questions in tenders and PQQs. Therefore, it’s worth considering how your business aligns with the aims of the social value measures, which are:

Creating new jobs and promoting skills
Encouraging economic growth
Supporting Covid-19 recovery
Tackling climate change
Levelling up the UK.

Our top 9 tips when tendering for work

If you’re wondering how to become a government supplier, read our top 10 tips:

Invest in the sourcing process

Allocate someone in your team to keep on top of new tendering opportunities. If you’re using the government’s website, they should allocate at least 15-30minutes per day to check for new tenders. If you’re using our Hudson Discover tendering portals, they’ll just need to keep an eye on their inbox. Either way, they need to take action immediately when they identify an opportunity. The rest of your team needs plenty of time to read the documents and write the responses.

Don’t rush in, weigh up the opportunity

Check our top three tips above and answer those questions before diving in. You should also assess the competition and how the new business would impact your current workload. Make sure that you have experience, and that the bid is realistic for you to win.

Familiarise yourself with the buyer’s portal

The portal will be used to:

Register your interest and download the tender documents
Ask clarification questions
Submit the final bid.

Make sure you know your way around and don’t leave it until the last minute to submit your bid. If you miss the deadline, the buyer doesn’t have to grant you an extension or even look at your bid. Even if you missed it because of technical difficulties – the buyer doesn’t have to make allowances. Don’t take the risk!

Make a bid plan

Break down the bid requirements and assign people in your team to take charge. This could be collating your policies, answering specific questions, or keeping your time management in line. Give each team member a clear role and deadlines for any input they will have.

Research the buying organisation

To make an impression on the buyer, it’s important that you understand them and their core values. This will help you demonstrate how your values align with theirs in your responses. If there is an incumbent supplier, you can try to find out who they are and how they are performing. Then, structure your responses around what the buyer is looking for.

Always refer back to the question and provide evidence

When you start writing your responses, always refer back to the question and make sure you’ve answered it. Use the buyer’s exact wording from the question to directly address their requirements.

Avoid empty or cliché statements such as ‘our people are at the heart of everything we do’. Fluffy statements like this are fine for marketing, but not bidding! Make sure you have evidence to back up every claim you make and demonstrate added value throughout.

Avoid jargon

The evaluator is most likely not an expert in your field. Using overly complicated jargon will only make your bid difficult to understand, and in turn, to evaluate. Keep the language simple and the sentences short – around 20 words per sentence is enough.

Don’t skip the proofing! Check for grammatical and spelling errors – they raise red flags with buyers for a lack of attention to detail.

Use clear formatting and design (where appropriate)

Some bids will follow a more rigid approach. The buyer will stipulate the font and point size for your responses and/or provide boxes for you to fill in. Others will follow a free-flowing proposal layout where you are given creative freedom to present the information. If this is the case, we always recommend having your bid professionally designed. It’s a great way to stand out amongst your competitors and make your bid easy to follow.

For help with Bid Design, see our sister company, Vocal.

Get feedback and carry on!

Unfortunately, you won’t always be successful in every tender. It’s important to not be too disheartened and use this as a learning opportunity. Ask the buyer for feedback if it hasn’t been provided and review it with your team.

If you’re losing multiple bids, it might be time to bring in a professional to assess how you could improve. See our Tender Improvement service for more information.

Summary

We’ve reached the end of our blog on how to become a government supplier. We hope our information was helpful. If you need a quick recap, here you go:

Choose an easy-to-use platform to help you identify opportunities quickly and make sure you never miss out.
Spend some time getting ready to tender for work before you dive straight in. Get your company CVs, case studies and policies in order and file them away so they’re ready to go.
Make sure you meet the brief. Check your economic financial standing, ensure you have evidence and that you can offer value for money.
The government needs to work with smaller businesses to meet their targets. They offer support through:

The prompt payment code
Making interest liable if the terms aren’t met
Offering free support through The Small Business Commissioner.

Do your social value research and make sure you can provide examples of how you meet the aims.
Review our top 9 tips for how to become a government supplier:

Invest in the sourcing process
Don’t rush in
Familiarise yourself with the buyer’s portal
Make a bid plan
Research the buying organisation
Refer back to the question and provide evidence to back up your claims
Avoid jargon
Make your bid easy to read through formatting and design
Get feedback and carry on!

Need help with becoming a government supplier?

Our team of consultants are here to help you.

They have a thorough understanding of the tender process and government contracts, knowing exactly how to respond.

By outsourcing to professionals, you could improve your chances of winning contracts.

Tender Writing

Once you’ve found a government tender you’d like to go for, send it over to us. One of our Bid Writers will write the tender response for you. We’ll provide a full Tender Writing breakdown and even submit the bid on your behalf.

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

The Tender Improvement package can help those who have tendered before but aren’t seeing results. Our Bid Writers will assess your previous responses and work with you to develop improved content.

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

Need help with searching for tenders?

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

Unlimited portal access. You can browse your industry’s portal to your heart’s content. See all the opportunities that are available, intuitively categorised, and easily accessible.
A daily email bulletin. When you sign up to a portal, you’ll receive an email alert when new tenders are uploaded.
A free 20-minute phone consultation with a Bid Writer every month. Our expert Bid Consultants will chat with you about anything tender related.

Discover Elite

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

The post How to Become a Government Supplier in the UK appeared first on Tender Consultants.

City of London Bids and Tenders: Everything You Need to Know

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 07:00:03 +0000

City of London bids and tenders explained

Applying for City of London bids and tenders is a great way to grow your business. Local London authorities spend approximately £9billion annually on a wide variety of goods and services.

As an SME, you shouldn’t be missing out on City of London bids and tenders. If you’re thinking that these contracts are only awarded to big companies, you’d be mistaken. As a matter of fact, 23% of government contracts up for bid are awarded to SMEs. This gives you a good chance of competing if you’re a smaller business.

The City of London bids and tenders target outcomes are:

Sustainable cost assurance guaranteed for the future
Key people across the organisation being upskilled in commercialism, contract management and procurement
Their services provide what’s needed and are easy to use
Opportunities to leverage responsible outcomes are maximised

There can be many advantages when applying for City of London bids and tenders. Below are just three ways tendering for contracts can benefit your business:

Prompt Payment

If you become a supplier to the City of London, you will have guaranteed and prompt payment. This is because The City of London takes part in the Chartered Institute of Credit Management’s (CIMC) Prompt Payment Code. That means they pledge to:

Pay suppliers on time

The City Corporation aims to pay undisputed invoices that quote a purchase number within 10 days of invoicing. This applies to the invoice arriving anywhere in the City Corporation for SMEs.

Give clear guidance to suppliers

All invoices should be attached when contacting the Accounts Payable team and include the following information:

An identifying number
The supplier’s name, address, VAT number
Time of supply
Date of issue
Type of supply (E.g. sale, hire, loan, etc.)
Description of the goods or services supplied
Customer’s name (or trading name) and address

The City of London prefers to pay their suppliers via BACS. It’s encouraged that as a supplier, you include your bank details and valid email address on all invoices for remittance.

Secure a pipeline of work

Bidding for City of London bids and tenders can help you secure a pipeline of work for your business. Particularly if you secure a place on a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) or framework agreement. These tendering processes are often used within an array of sectors including construction and healthcare. The benefit of these is that they can run for years at a time. Some even have the possibility of an extension.

Build experience

City of London bids and tenders are a great way to gain experience as a business. Buyers will require 2 – 3 case studies of past contracts you have delivered. They need to be within the last 3 – 5 years. They should be similar in scope and style to the one you’re applying for. Securing smaller contracts can help you build up that experience. The more experience you have, the bigger the contracts you can go for. The bigger bids you can go for, the bigger your business can grow. Securing a place on a DPS or framework is a great place to start.

Where can I find City of London bids and tenders?

So, you now know some of the advantages of City of London bids and tenders. Next, you may be wondering where to find them. As they’re offered for pretty much every sector it can be hard finding the right one for your business. This is where a sector-specific portal could help optimise your search.

Simply relying on CPV codes could result in you missing out on up to a third of relevant opportunities. This is because we researched that up to a third of them are mislabelled.

Our sister company, Hudson Discover, hosts 11 sector-specific tendering portals. You are able to filter the results and search by keyword, budget, location and more. This streamlines the process, making it easier to find government contracts.

These sectors consist of;

Before you apply to any tender, you should ask if your business:

Is able to deliver the work
Meets the economic and financial standing
Have the resources and time to fulfil the contract
Has the necessary experience
Is able to write a winning response before the submission deadline

Remember to be the MEAT

Like all government contracts, the contract will be awarded to the most economically advantageous tender (MEAT). The buyer will be looking for bids that provide the most value for money while delivering the contract. The MEAT means that the buyer is looking at more than just the price. The cheapest bid does not win here. You should consider a range of factors including, but not limited to:

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

Each buyer will be wanting something different depending on their needs. This will be outlined in the specification. You should demonstrate added value in your response. This is because government authorities want to be assured that they are getting the most for taxpayer’s money.

Don’t skimp on social value

There is now a minimum mandatory weighting of 10% on social value for public sector contracts. In some cases, it can be as much as 30%. This means it is not something you should consider as an afterthought.

The promises you make in City of London bids and tenders are contractually binding. Therefore, you should be making promises you can keep. Social value is the social, economic and environmental aspects that you’ll consider while fulfilling the contract. It was launched with five key themes in mind that should be addressed where possible. These are:

Supporting COVID-19 recovery
Tackling economic inequality
Fighting climate change
Improving equal opportunities
Showing commitment to health and wellbeing.

Social value is an opportunity for SMEs to differentiate themselves from their competitors, adding commercial value to their bids.

So now, you should be more aware of what’s expected from City of London bids and tenders. Following this advice should help you get on the path to success and winning your next tender.

Need assistance when writing your next City of London bids and tenders?

Now you’re a bit more familiar with what’s required, you may be looking for some writing support. Writing isn’t everyone’s strong suit and that’s ok. Outsourcing a bid you’ve found to bid writing specialists can help you secure that next contract.

Here at Hudson Succeed, we pride ourselves on being bid writing experts. We hold an 87% success rate and have over 60 years of collective bid writing experience. We offer four levels of bid writing support to suit every business need. You may not need the whole bid written for you; you may simply need it proofread before you submit. We can help with that. Our services include:

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 own 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.

Discover Elite

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

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

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

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

All of the above.
Up to seven tender breakdowns per month.
A Bid Strategy delivered by a Senior Bid Manager with a minimum of 5 years of experience. Our Global Bid Director will manage the bid strategy.

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

The post City of London Bids and Tenders: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to Respond to Government Contracts for Bid

Georgie Morgan — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 07:00:18 +0000

Where to find government contracts up for bid

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 9:44 am

You may be wondering how to respond to government contracts for bid, and you wouldn’t be the only one. The public sector spends roughly £290 billion annually through public procurement. From schools to hospitals, and from universities to the police force there are plenty of opportunities to tender. It’s not surprising that as an SME you’re wanting to get in on the action.

However, if you’re new to the game, government contracts up for bid can be a confusing field to navigate. Luckily for you, we’ve contained some helpful tips on how to succeed. We’ll also detail where you can find government contracts for bid.

Advantages of tendering for government contracts

There are many advantages when responding to government contracts for bid. If you’re unsure about whether it’s worth investing the time and effort, here are some points to consider:

Guaranteed pay

One of the most significant advantages of securing a government contract for bid is you are guaranteed payment. This is because the public sector is bound by rules and regulations to ensure a fair and transparent procurement process.

Upon winning a contract, you are guaranteed payment within 60 days of invoicing. This is because the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has to comply with the Prompt Payment Code. This can give suppliers piece of mind when tendering for work in the public sector. The same can’t be said for tendering for the private sector. This is because they aren’t bound by the same rule and regulations.

Secure a pipeline of work for your business

Responding to government contracts for bid can help you secure a pipeline of work for your business. Particularly if you secure a place on a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) or framework agreement. A benefit of this is that they can run for years at a time with the possibility of extensions. It’s not unheard of some DPS’ running for 10+ years. These are two types of tender processes that are frequently used by public sector organisation. They are especially used within construction and healthcare.

Gain experience

Having a bank of experience is essential in order to secure government contracts for bid. This is because the buyer will usually ask you to prove 2 – 3 case studies of previous contracts you’ve fulfilled. They should be similar in scope and complexity to the contract you’re going for. The more case studies and experience you have, the bigger contracts you can go for. The bigger contracts you can go for, the more your business will grow. Securing a place on a DPS or framework for a government contract is a great place to start.

A third of all contracts must be awarded to SMEs

The government has a target to spend £1 in £3 with smaller businesses. This means they’re actively looking to award 23% of all government contracts for bid with SMEs. You may have thought that only bigger businesses could secure government contracts, but you’d be wrong. The government wants to invest in SMEs and secure a more local supply chain that can be relied upon.

Where to find government contracts up for bid

So, now you know some of the advantages of tendering for contracts. You now may be wondering where you can find them. There’s no shortage of websites offering multi-sector opportunities and lead. Ideally, you should be searching for a sector-specific portal.

If you’re just relying on CPV codes, you could be missing out on up to the third of relevant opportunities. This is because CPV codes are often mislabelled. Our sister company, Hudson Discover, hosts 11 sector-specific tendering portals. You are able to filter the search results by keyword, budget, location and more. This streamlines the process, making it easier to find government contracts for bid.

These sectors consist of;

3 Tips for winning government contracts for bid

So, now you know where to find government contracts for bid and the advantages of securing one. Now, you might be wondering how to win a tender:

Make it easy to read

Put yourself in the buyer shoes, if you have 50 tender responses to read through which would you favour: the one that’s clearly laid out and broken into subheadings with bullet points? Or a 30-page document of block text?

I think we can agree that you’d pick the nicely formatted, clearly laid out response. When writing bids clearly formatting your response will earn you bonus points with the reviewer. Break the question down into subheadings. This can allow you to ensure that you’ve answered every aspect of the question. Including bullet points can allow you to include more points without going over the word count.

An example question may state: “Please provide your strategy for sourcing and recruiting subcontractors and for ensuring that you can effectively monitor, measure, and exercise executive control.”

For this, you would break the question down and respond by providing your strategy for:

Sourcing subcontractors
Recruiting subcontractors
Ensuring effective monitoring
Ensuring effective measuring
Exercising executive control

Stick to the word count

Word, page, or character counts are there for a reason. It levels out the playing field to all competitors. It also demonstrates the level of detail the buyer wants you to go into. If they are expecting a 1,000-word response, simply putting a couple of bullet points won’t suffice. They are there for a reason and it’s best to try and get as close to them as possible. Going over will not reflect well on you as you will be ignoring instructions.

Avoid rambling and overly technical jargon

A strong response to government contracts for bid will avoid rambling and overly technical jargon. You shouldn’t assume that the buyer knows anything. Leaving room for assumptions and lead to the wrong assumptions being made. This could jeopardise your response as a buyer may not understand what you’re talking about leading to a misunderstanding. However, you should be persuasive in your bid response, demonstrating your business’ capabilities.

Need assistance with writing your next government contract bid response?

It can be daunting applying for government contracts; however, we can help. We understand that writing isn’t everyone’s strong suit. But this doesn’t mean you should miss out on work because of it.

Here at Hudson Succeed, we pride ourselves on being bid writing experts. We have over 60 years of bid writing experience and proudly hold an 87% success rate for our clients. We have four bid writing support packages to suit your needs. Whether you’re completely new to tendering, or simply need a response proofread – we can help. Our services include:

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

Discover Elite

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

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

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

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

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

The post How to Respond to Government Contracts for Bid appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Why the National Procurement Policy Statement is Good News for SMEs

Charlotte Jarvis — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 07:00:16 +0000

The National Procurement Policy Statement in a nutshell

Last updated: Dec 17, 2021 @ 9:46 am

The National Procurement Policy Statement was recently released to the public, following the Queen’s Speech in May 2021. The policies require contracting authorities to follow processes in accordance with the priorities of public procurement.

Why should suppliers care about the new changes?

It might not be the most thrilling read, but the National Procurement Policy Statement is crucial for suppliers. At first glance, you might think the information is only aimed at contracting authorities. You would be partially correct. However, suppliers need to also understand the procedures that buyers must adhere to. Understanding how buyers operate and what they want to see will help suppliers formulate winning tender responses.

Any business that is already tendering or looking to grow through tendering should read and understand the policy.

Tendering prior to the National Procurement Policy Statement

In the past, many businesses didn’t embark on the tendering process. They believed that they wouldn’t stand a chance against the larger businesses competing. This is a fair assumption and there are many myths surrounding tendering. But this has caused many organisations to miss out on growth opportunities.

While many tenders require a minimum financial threshold, there are also ways for SMEs to get in on the action. For example, framework agreements, DPS opportunities or even seeking smaller contracts are all methods to beginning your tender journey.

Additionally, the UK Government has a target to spend £1 in every £3 with SMEs. This means they are actively seeking to award contracts to smaller businesses. This is just one of the main advantages of tendering. There are many other reasons why organisations implement tendering in their new business strategy.

Even before the new National Procurement Policy Statement was released, buyers were encouraged to award contracts to the MEAT. The MEAT stands for the Most Economically Advantageous Tender. To decipher which supplier offered the MEAT, buyers would evaluate more than just their quote alone.

Social value and tendering

In recent years, we have seen social value become more prevalent in tendering. In 2020, the pandemic sparked new evaluation criteria which placed a 10% (or higher) weighting on social value responses.

Simply stating that your organisation complies with mandatory environmental and employment policies would no longer be sufficient. Now, public sector buyers need to look for suppliers who go above and beyond. This ensures the maximum value for money for the taxpayer.

An overview of the National Procurement Policy Statement

Who does it apply to?

All contracting authorities as defined in section 39(3) and (4) of the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. This includes:

Central government departments
Executive agencies
Non-departmental public bodies
Local authorities
NHS bodies and the wider public sector.

What will public sector bodies need to consider?

In their procurement activities, public sector contracting authorities will need to consider the following:

Creating new businesses, jobs and skills
Tackling climate change and reducing waste
Improving supplier diversity, innovation and resilience.

This is again another step to ensure that public sector buyers consider more than just pricing in their evaluation process. This helps to level the playing field between large, more established organisations and SMEs competing for contracts.

Has Brexit impacted procurement?

Public sector procurement after Brexit was a point of discussion long before the UK left the EU. After the transition period, the UK now has the opportunity to overhaul how public money is spent. To do this, the previous public procurement regulations have been revisited to create a simpler process.

Lord Agnew, Cabinet Officer Minister, said:

The public sector across the UK, from hospitals and schools to central government, police force and universities spends about £290 billion a year through public procurement.

The huge power of that expenditure must support us in tackling some of the most important issues we face today, from generating economic growth and helping out communities recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, to support the transition to net zero.

With the new statement published today, procurement teams will have to consider those issues as well as making sure they deliver top-quality services that are good value for the taxpayer.”

Need help with responding to a public sector tender?

Whether you’re brand new to tendering or a seasoned expert, we all need additional support now and then. With new regulations and considerations to make, outsourcing your bids to experts can increase your chances of winning.

How can we help?

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready programme is perfect for businesses that have never tendered for contracts before. The package includes:

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

Tender Improvement

If you 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 Writing

Once you’ve found the perfect public sector contract 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.

Tender Mentor

If you’ve written your own tender response and need it double-checking 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.

Discover Elite

Discover Elite will ensure you never miss a tendering opportunity, even when you’re busy. There are two packages to choose from.

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

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

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

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

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

The post Why the National Procurement Policy Statement is Good News for SMEs appeared first on Tender Consultants.

A Guide to Crown Commercial Service Frameworks

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

Crown Commercial Service Framework FAQs

[Last modified: July 2021]

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

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

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

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

What is purchased via Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

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

Buildings

Construction
Energy
Workplace

Corporate Solutions

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

People

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

Technology

Digital Future
Network Services
Software & Cyber
Technology Products & Services

How to respond to Crown Commercial Service frameworks

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

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

What are Crown Commercial Service frameworks?

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

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

Further competitions

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

3 key things to note

Here are some things to consider when writing bids:

Timing

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

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

Sub-contracting

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

The Government eMarketplace

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

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

Where can I find Crown Commercial Service Frameworks?

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

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

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

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

Enter…Hudson Discover!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tender Writing

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

Tender Mentor

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

Tender Ready

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

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

Tender Improvement

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

Discover Elite

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

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

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

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

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

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

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

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.

Bid Writing Services with an 87% Success Rate

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 07:30:16 +0000

Bid writing services designed to help your business grow

[Last modified: October 2021]

Our bid writing services at Hudson Succeed are designed to help your business grow and keep achieving your goals.

How do we do this?

When we created our services, we wanted to ensure that we could support all businesses when tendering for contracts. No matter your size, industry or tendering experience, we wanted to be able to help you through the tendering process. As part of the Hudson Group, our goal is to make the procurement process a fairer and more level playing field. To do this, we believe that it starts with supporting all businesses equally.

Our bid writing services aren’t just designed to help you now, but in the future, as you continue to grow. What’s the point in securing one contract only to be back to square one when it ends?

Need help with an imminent tender?

If you need support with a live tender, it couldn’t be easier to get started. Simply upload the tender documents and receive a quote in just four working hours.

Due to current workloads, we will be unable to accept work with a deadline in less than seven working days.

Our bid writing services

In order to achieve our goal, we created four levels of bid writing services.

Tender Writing

Tender Writing is your classic bid writing service. The service includes a breakdown of the tender requirements. This is then followed by the creation of your tender responses, a full review, and the submission of your bid.

We created this service to support those who need to respond to a bid reactively but lack internal resources. In order to write a winning bid, you will need:

Exceptional writing skills
A keen eye for detail
Time to read potentially a 5,000+ word specification
Time to write potentially 10,000 words (we’ve seen bids require even more).

Obviously, not every business will have the above in abundance. This is why our Tender Writing service is so popular with businesses both in the UK and overseas.

Tender Ready

Our Tender Ready package is a unique bid writing service. The four-week programme was designed to help businesses who are new to tendering. Not only does the programme consist of three-day bid writing consultancy support, it also helps you prepare for the future.

Whilst helping you to identify tendering opportunities, the package also includes:

The creation of all the corporate literature you will need to tender for work today and in the future
The design of these documents via our in-house Design Team
12-months access to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice. This will allow you to access all the UK tenders in your field. You will also receive a daily email alert when relevant tenders are published and support from an Account Manager.

Once the programme is complete, your business will be equipped with the knowledge and resources to tender for work effectively.

Tender Improvement

This bid writing service really does what it says on the tin. We understand how frustrating it can be to spend time and (let’s be honest) money submitting bids and losing.

We have been supporting businesses with their tendering efforts for almost two decades. In our experience, there is often a simple explanation for disappointing results. You just need someone external to take a look.

The Tender Improvement programme consists of:

A full analysis of your previous tender responses
Identifying areas of improvement
An analysis of your supporting company literature and, if necessary, the redevelopment of this content
Help to identify the right tenders for your business
12-months access to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice.

If this wasn’t enough, the support doesn’t end there. Once the programme is complete, you will have the choice between:

A full bid writing service for your next tender. This includes the creation of your bid responses to the submission of the bid.

Guided support through your next two tenders. Our team will support you as you write your responses in-house. They will then assess your responses and provide advice to increase your chances of success.

Tender Mentor

Finally, our Tender Mentor service is there to act as a second pair of eyes. When supporting businesses through Tender Improvement, we noticed that many failed results were due to simple, overlooked errors.

Tender Mentor consists of a full proofreading service. Our Bid Writers will then leave comments for ways to improve your tender responses. They will also assess your work against the buyer’s specification. This will ensure that your tender addresses the requirements and impresses the buyer.

Why outsource bid writing services?

So, if tendering is such a crucial element of business development, why would you outsource it?

In the end, it comes down to these all-too-familiar barriers that most businesses face daily – time and money.

Do you have time to:

Learn how to win a tender?
Read and digest seemingly endless specifications?
Write sometimes mammoth tender responses in detail or train a member of staff to do this to an exceptional standard?
Create and professionally brand all your corporate literature including policies, procedures, case studies, company CVs, and more?
Navigate often tricky procurement portals and ensure that the bid is submitted on time?

If the answer is no, you’re not alone. In fact, it is very common for a business to outsource its bid writing. Whilst you might be an expert in your field, that won’t necessarily help you to secure the contract. Especially in the public sector where there can be many hoops to jump through.

We are not experts in an industry. We are experts in bid writing. This means that we can support clients in any industry. From Construction to Healthcare to Technology, we have worked with a vast range of clients.

The tendering process is our speciality and we’re proud of our accomplishments in the field.

These are our 11 sector-specific portals to help you find opportunities:

Hospitality

Find opportunities for catering, events, conference management and more, all under one roof.

Healthcare

From domiciliary care to medical supplies, nursing recruitment and more, our Healthcare portal has it all.

Facilities

Dedicated to the facilities management industry, we search over 1,000 sources to find the right opportunity for you.

Technology

Takes the headache out of sourcing opportunities within the technology sector.

Construction

Committed to saving you time when searching for new construction contracts.

Consultancy

Dedicated to helping your business grow in the competitive world of professional services.

Creative

Committed to bringing you a multitude of opportunities within the creative sector.

Finance

From accountancy to payroll, our Finance portal is dedicated to helping you connect with new buyers.

Research

From market research to academic, our Research portal sources the opportunities you need to grow.

Logistics

Our Logistics portal sources transport sector opportunities on a daily basis from thousands of buyers.

For businesses in the HR and recruitment industry who want to find new contracts.

What skills do Bid Writers have?

You may be wondering why hiring Bid Writers is often the best option if you want to see success. The answer is quite simple. Bid Writers have a lot more experience with tendering than most company owners. They know the ins and outs of the industry and what is expected of them to win a bid. Here are 4 skills all Bid Writers need:

Excellent writing skills

As you can imagine, a Bid Writer needs to have excellent writing skills. To ensure success, Bid Writers must deliver high-quality proposals. They need to use their skills to efficiently describe different aspects about their client’s company. As well as how they are the best fit to deliver the contract.

Great Bid Writers know exactly how to narrow down their writing, so it is clear and concise, without irrelevant information. Bid Writers also know not to use industry jargon, as they don’t want to confuse the reader.

Another point is that some bids can be gargantuan in size. If you aren’t available and prepared to dedicate this time to writing, it’s unlikely you’ll succeed. Bid Writers have done this plenty of times, so they know how to breakdown their workload.

Communication skills

Perhaps the most important skill a Bid Writer must possess is good communication abilities. The purpose of proposals is to communicate to the buyer why the supplier should be awarded the contract. So, Bid Writers must ensure they clearly answer questions and address the points they need to make.

Many people attempting to write a bid proposal won’t have the experience to know how to do this. That is why using bid writing services can be such a benefit.

Produce error-free proposals

Along with writing skills, the best Bid Writers should also have great editing and proofreading skills. Their writing may be good, but if there are even minor errors, they risk losing all chances of success. In other words, they need to have a keen eye for detail.

So, it is essential for Bid Writers to reread their work multiple times. It can be helpful to have a device read the work aloud to you, making it easier to spot mistakes. This is a technique many Bid Writers use. Bid Writers often proofread each other’s work too. This is another great way of locating anything that doesn’t sound quite right.

This extensive process is essential in making sure a bid is of the highest possible standard. The reader will mark you down if they find grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, or punctuation in the wrong place. They want to be sure that you are thorough in your work. If you can’t perfect your bid, why should they expect you to perfect the work you hope to deliver? The last thing you want is to give the impression you are unprofessional or even lazy. Since Bid Writers are so thorough with their editing, it is unlikely any mistakes will slip by unnoticed.

Highly organised

Organisation skills are essential for the Bid Writers. A lot of the time, bid applications will be extensive and require a lot of work. So, Bid Writers must be able to keep documents organised. They must be excellent at time management to ensure all work is done before deadlines.

Rushing at the last minute is almost certainly going to result in multiple mistakes and you don’t want that!

Bid Writers know exactly how to breakdown their workload and organise when to do each section.

Who else have we helped?

Speaking of accomplishments, let’s take a quick look at just a few of the businesses that we have helped.

Invasion Ltd

Our successful tender secured the next five-years income by winning a £200million contract.
The Succeed Team completed the 21,500-word bid in just 48 hours and submitted the tender during a bank holiday.

MJ Support Staffing

We built an excellent relationship with the client, maintaining a 100% success rate over three bid submissions.
The successful tender increased their annual turnover by 20%.

Oakleigh School

The team’s submission resulted in £350,000 in direct contract wins on three large supplier frameworks.

Imagine You Can

Our Bid Writers completed the 5,000-word submission in just 24 hours. To put this into perspective, normally, our individual Bid Writers aim to produce 2,000-words per day.
The result secured four-years of sustainable income for Imagine You Can.

Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale

Our team worked with the client to help them overcome language barriers in their tender response. This was their first contract in the UK market.
Our Bid Writers achieved a 97% quality score.
£350,000 was secured on their first UK contract.

Why do our clients continue to use our bid writing services?

Our ability to deliver results

Fundamentally, a bid writing consultancy is judged on their ability to secure contracts for their clients. Businesses will ultimately choose a provider who they believe to be capable and trustworthy.

Our clients can rest assured that their bid is in safe hands. We reassure them with our 87% bid success rate and the trust we have earned from over 700 businesses globally.

Multi-disciplinary capabilities

At Hudson Succeed, we are not limited to one particular industry. Our Bid Writers have multi-disciplinary experience across a range of sectors. Over the past two decades, our team have supported clients across industries including:

Healthcare
Construction
Education
Marketing
Technology
Facilities Management
Security
Logistics
Recruitment
Consultancy
PPE
Finance.

Our ability to support so many industries means that we can help more businesses to reach their goals.

No commission or hidden fees

Unlike some other bid writing consultancies, we don’t take a commission for our work. When you win, we see that as a win for us as well, we don’t need an extra monetary reward. It’s no good reaching an 87% success rate if we don’t work to maintain and increase it. Simply, when you win, we win.

Our charges are quoted on a bid-by-bid basis. Every tender is different. Some tenders only require a few thousand words while others require complex, lengthy responses. Once we have assessed the work involved, we will then provide an accurate quote. It is our policy that this payment is then made before the work begins. That’s it – just one fee, no hidden charges.

Integrating within your team, not working against them – and all whilst working remotely

We’re here to support your existing team, not undermine them. Our job is to make sure that your tender is successful in this submission and in the future.

Of course, if you don’t have an in-house team who will be taking over, we can integrate ourselves. We work with clients on an ad-hoc basis. They simply come to us whenever they find a bid, we then offer a quote and complete the work. They deliver the contract and come back to us for the next tender and so it continues. We love to be part of your business development process and watch your organisation flourish.

In the “new normal” of remote working, our clients are maximising the advantages of a remote consultant. It might not be feasible to employ someone internally on a full-time basis. Instead, our clients will outsource our support as and when necessary.

Our promise to you

As part of the Hudson Group, we maintain clear values that we promise to deliver: transparency, innovation and quality.

Transparency

We believe in maintaining an honest approach with our clients. We won’t simply write a bid because you pay us to. If we don’t think the tender is right for your business, we’ll let you know. In some cases, you might be lacking an accreditation or case study that will result in a failed submission. We will always let you know if this is the case and offer our expert advice.

Innovation

At Hudson, we always aim to be as innovative as possible. When presented with a problem, we use our Hudson Labs

to look for a solution. We promise to apply the same innovative approach to all our bid writing services.

Quality

As Bid Writers, we’re always striving for the highest quality possible. We don’t get involved with the pricing aspect of your tender response. We believe that you are the experts in your service. This means that we never stop aiming for that perfect quality score. It is, after all, how we achieve our winning results.

Interested in our bid writing services?

For more information about any of our bid writing services, please get in touch. If you’re not sure which service will be best for your business, we offer a free consultation. Simply call or email us to arrange a call-back time to suit you.

Discover Elite

The Ultimate Time Saver package offers your business:

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

The Become a Pre-Bid Master package also includes:

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

Looking for further writing services?

Grant Writing

Our Grant Writing Service is for businesses who want to start applying for grants, but don’t know where to begin. They can also help businesses who have been applying for grants but aren’t seeing success.

Our Grant Writing Consultants have over 60 years of experience in bidding for funding and grants. From start-up business grants to self-employed business grants. They can take care of the whole thing for you – they’ll even submit it on your behalf.

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

Grant Tracker

You can find this grant and others like it on our Business Grant Tracker. Currently, we have over 1,700 live business grant and funding opportunities. Our team have manually tracked 1,500+ data streams searching for business grant opportunities. Each one is then uploaded to one central system, streamlining the process.

All you need to do to gain access is sign up for free.

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

The post Bid Writing Services with an 87% Success Rate appeared first on Tender Consultants.

How to keep your business moving during the next lockdown

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 07:30:24 +0000

Implement a tender procedure

[Last modified: July 2021]

“A robust tender procedure can not only help your business win contracts now but also secure work for the future. The best strategies include activities that can be executed come rain or shine. This should include thorough tender tracking, an efficient bid or no-bid decision-making process and a bid management action plan.” – Daniel Hall Head of Bid Management at Hudson Succeed.

The announcement of a second national lockdown comes as solemn news to all businesses in the UK. However, we don’t believe in simply throwing your business development plans out of the window or postponing them until 2021. If we look at what happened during the last lockdown, we can see that procurement didn’t stop. Local authorities and central government bodies still published tenders to procure services throughout the uncertain period.

Looking at the current situation, our Hudson Discover division continues to report that the number of tenders published isn’t dropping – it’s rising. With this in mind, we strongly advise implementing a robust tender procedure to help you through this time.

If you have never tendered for work before, we know that the procedure can seem like a minefield. But don’t worry! We will continue to produce helpful resources through our Hudson Insight Series. Our Hudson Helpline will also remain open and available for answering quick questions about the tendering process.

How can tendering help your business?

In the UK, hundreds of tendering contracts are published every day. These are new business opportunities just waiting to be won by you, the supplier. Tendering is very much an outbound form of business development. You have to be proactive, go out and find the opportunities. But they are there.

At Hudson Succeed, our bid writers have been helping clients with writing bids for almost two decades. We support over 700 businesses in countries across the globe. During this time, we have seen clients achieve success such as:

Winning a £200 million contract from just one tender, securing the next 5-years of income for the client;
An annual turnover increase of 20% from winning three tenders;
A successful entry into the UK market by securing a £350,000 contract.

Find more success stories and testimonials.

When tendering for work in the public sector, buyers have to be fair. The contracts are funded by public money. This means that there is a more level playing field between larger businesses and SMEs. In turn, this allows smaller, newer businesses to gain experience, deliver work in a variety of sectors and ultimately – grow.

Futureproofing your tender procedure

Once you have decided to explore the tendering route, it’s time to implement a futureproofed tender procedure. This will ensure that your process can be maintained regardless of internal staffing or external, societal changes.

In our experience, we recommend taking the following measures to ensure your tender procedure is robust.

Create an operational process

This should be an easy-to-follow guide, outlining your tendering process. This will allow other teams to support the system should you require extra resources. The guide doesn’t have to be a technical ‘how to be a bid writer’ manual. However, a member of another team should be able to read the process, understand where the support is required and how to provide it.

Internal training

Should you wish to keep the tendering process in-house, we advise training more than one member of your team. In business, we know that circumstances can change rapidly and reactively trying to train someone new could hinder your chances of success in the future. However, it is important to remember that bid writing does require a certain set of skills. If you don’t have exceptional written communication skills in-house, it makes sense to outsource the work.

Allocating budget/resources

This will depend on the decision you make after reviewing the above point. If you decide to outsource your bid writing services, it’s important to allocate a specific budget to these projects. Unless pre-informed by the buyer, it’s impossible to know when relevant tenders will be published. However, a monthly pre-allocated spend towards bid writing will help you to budget for other business development strategies.

If you can keep the tender procedure in-house, we would advise allocating time and resources for reactive work.

Which tenders should you be bidding for?

If you have read our other Insight blogs, we often talk about performing a company analysis before bidding. This will allow you to quickly assess tendering opportunities and make efficient bid or no-bid decisions.

In your company analysis, it is beneficial to assess the following;

Your goals – which buyers do you ideally want to work with, and which contracts do you want to deliver?
Your turnover – you need to have a clear understanding of your economic and financial standing before jumping into bidding.
The company’s experience – you need to consider the experience you already have under your belt. Which contracts can you easily demonstrate, and will they strengthen your bid response?
Your capabilities – be realistic and know what you can and can’t deliver. Think about regional constraints, staffing and logistical capabilities.

Once you have assessed the above, you can begin to make better decisions that won’t cost you unnecessary time and money.

In this checklist, points two and three are particularly important. Your turnover and experience will determine the type of tender you are eligible to bid for. We have provided a quick breakdown of some of the contract types you will come across and who should bid for them.

Frameworks

A framework agreement usually asks for multiple suppliers to deliver goods/services under one contract. You can think of it as a way for buyers to house large projects under one roof. Typically, a framework will be divided into multiple lots, for example:

Lot 1: Architecture
Lot 2: Joinery
Lot 3: Landscaping
Lot 4: Electrical services

For smaller businesses, bidding for work on framework agreements can be a great first step in tendering for work. Often, buyers don’t require as much experience or turnover from suppliers as they would on a single-provider contract.

DPS

DPS stands for Dynamic Purchasing System. This might sound complicated, but it simply refers to a supply chain list where tenders are published to members. In order to tender for the works, you first have to secure a place on the DPS. Buyers will either open their DPS application process every so often or leave the application open for a number of years.

Similarly to framework agreements, DPS’ offer smaller businesses the chance to start their tendering journey. Suppliers can bid for smaller contracts that arise on the DPS without as many turnover or experience constraints. For this reason, SMEs may want to consider adding dynamic purchasing systems to the tender procedure plan.

Single-provider contracts

When you have built your experience and grown your business to the next level, you can consider single-provider contracts. As a general rule of thumb, we usually advise clients to only bid for contracts worth half their turnover. For example, if a contract has a value of £500,000, you should be turning over at least £250,000.

It all starts with the right opportunity

The tender procedure begins when you identify the right opportunity for your business. But with so many portals to keep up to date with, this can seem like an impossible task. There are tendering portals that amalgamate opportunities from different systems for you. However, in our experience, these portals require a good understanding of CPV codes. Not only that, but their reliance on CPV codes means that you might still have to sift through irrelevant opportunities. When conducting research, we found that a third of tenders were incorrectly tagged.

With this in mind, we created our Hudson Discover division. Like Hudson Succeed, the aim of the division is to help your business grow by tendering for work. The difference is that the Discover Team focus on finding the right opportunities for your business. To do this, they search thousands of sources from across the UK. When new tenders are published, they upload them to our sector-specific tendering portals. The opportunities are then tagged with industry-driven keywords to make searching the portals even easier.

Our Hudson Discover portals consist of:

Need help getting started or increasing your win rate?

Do you need help with implementing your tender procedure? Are you already tendering for work but not seeing success? To help you combat these hurdles, we created our tender support packages.

Tender Ready

The Tender Ready programme has supported numerous businesses in varying industries. The programme was designed for businesses who are new to tendering and looking to take the first step. Included in the package is:

The creation and branding of the corporate literature you will need to tender for work, e.g. case studies and company CVs;
Help to identify the tenders that your business should be bidding for;
12-months access to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice;
Three days of bid writing consultancy to either write your first tender or guide you through two.

Learn more about Tender Ready.

Tender Improvement

This package was designed to help you improve your bid success rate. If you are already tendering for work but not winning, we understand that this is frustrating. You are using valuable time and resources to write and submit your bids, therefore losing continuously can be infuriating. There is often a simple explanation as to why you are not seeing success. During this service, our team will:

Assess your previous tender responses and your corporate literature, providing tips for improvement;
Re-develop, where necessary, any literature that could be improved;
Grant 12-months access to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice;
Provide three days of bid writing consultancy to help you successfully respond to the next tender you choose to bid for.

Learn more about Tender Improvement.

For support with a one-off tender or more information about any of our services, please get in touch. Our team of experts proudly holds an 87% bid success rate so you can be sure that your bid is in safe hands.

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

The post How to keep your business moving during the next lockdown appeared first on Tender Consultants.

Hudson helps Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale with their bid proposal

Charlotte Jarvis — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 07:30:25 +0000

Bid proposal support from Hudson

[Last modified: July 2021]

At Hudson Succeed, bid proposal support comes in the form of our most popular service, Tender Writing.

The Italian-based organisation, Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale, approached the team at Hudson Succeed to support them with expanding their services internationally. Formed in 2007, the company has strengthened its role as a multi-service cooperative. They provide services such as town cleaning, environmental hygiene and cemetery management. Their main goal is to provide employment opportunities in the facilities sector to vulnerable and disadvantaged people.

“The collaboration with Hudson has been interestingly fruitful for Barbara B as we were entering a new market and we needed more insight and somebody who would be able to help us in letting our long experience in the Italian market emerge in the UK tendering process. In Hudson we found very responsive and professional support, in particular given the difficulties of transferring/translating the value of our Italian social cooperative work into the bid writing process: language sometimes can a be a limit, but Hudson’s flexibility and creativity helped support our business.” – Filippo Enseki, Operations Manager at Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale.

Tasks and challenges

Research into the UK market

To assist Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale with their expansion goals, we provided them with both our Succeed and Procure services. In addition to supporting them with their bid writing, our team also carried out research via our Hudson Procure division. This involved undergoing a thorough investigation by liaising with UK councils. Our findings were compiled into a detailed report, within the necessary timescales.

The bid proposal

As well as this insight, Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale also required support with their bid proposal. Their tender of choice was for grounds maintenance services, to be delivered across the UK.

When tackling the bid proposal, the team had to overcome translation issues. As with all clients, the first step for our bid writers is to extract information. This information then builds the foundations upon which the tender responses are crafted. Therefore, it is vital that these details are accurate.

Opportunity tracking

In order to help Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale futureproof their UK market strategy, we also assisted with opportunity tracking. Utilising our research findings, we were able to help the organisation identify the right opportunities for their business. This means that the company was able to prepare for future tender proposals, eliminating the risk of unexpected, reactive work.

Activities

Our bid writers begin every Tender Writing project by creating a bid plan when tendering for contracts. The plan clearly outlines what they will need from the client and what the client can expect from them. This helps us to set expectations from the outset. It means that both parties have a clear understanding of the project timeline and how we will deliver the work required. In this case, the bid plan was particularly important. Extra time had to be factored in for translating any documents required from Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale.

The Succeed team underwent detailed, industry-specific research throughout the project. This ensured that their tender responses were developed to the highest possible quality. Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale is an experienced provider of grounds maintenance services. It was crucial when writing bids that responses accurately represented the client’s capabilities.

With the bid plan in progress, the team were able to effectively communicate with the organisation throughout the project. This led to the timely submission of the grounds maintenance bid proposal.

As for the procurement research, the team developed and designed a detailed and intuitive report. As the client was new to tendering for work in the UK, the report outlined the best strategy for them.

Results

Due to the success of the first submission, where a 97% quality score was achieved, we continued to work with Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale. We have since helped the organisation to streamline their understanding of and approach towards procurement in the UK.

Our second tender submission was also a success, securing a four-year contract, totalling a value of c.£350,000.

Find more information about our work with Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale.

How we work

We maintain a client-first approach in everything we do. Communication and transparency are vital to our service delivery.

Clients utilise our services for many different reasons, such as:

Support with an ad-hoc bid proposal;
Help to get started with their first tender;
Help to improve their internal bid success rate;
Simply because they need a second pair of eyes before they submit a bid.

No matter the reason, their goal remains the same – to grow their business. That’s why we developed our four service offerings; to ensure that we can support businesses of all sizes.

Tender Writing

Our most popular service, Tender Writing, is an ad-hoc bid proposal solution if you need to submit a reactive bid. Our team of bid writers is trusted by over 700 businesses globally and proudly holds an 87% success rate.

Through this service, we support businesses who:

Don’t have the time to tender;
Are struggling with resources due to sickness or maternity leave;
Don’t have the in-house skills required to submit a winning bid.

Sound familiar? Upload the tender specification and receive a no-obligation quote in 48 working hours or less.

Tender Ready

Since launching the Tender Ready programme, we have helped numerous clients to take the first step on their tendering journey. We know that the tendering process can seem daunting. The programme was designed to help businesses who are exploring this avenue for the first time.

The package includes:

The creation of the corporate literature you will need to tender for work;
Three days of bid writing consultancy to develop your first bid proposal response;
12-months access to the Hudson Discover tendering portal of your choice so that you can continue to identify opportunities after the programme.

Call or email us to book a free consultation.

Tender Improvement

This package was created to help businesses who are already tendering for work but not seeing success.

In order to help you increase your win rate, the package includes:

A full analysis of your previous tender responses and the identification of areas for improvement;
The creation/redevelopment of your corporate literature to help you impress buyers;
Three days of bid consultancy to either write your next tender response or guide you through the process yourself;
A 12-month subscription to the Hudson Discover portal of your choice.

Simply call or email the team for more information.

Tender Mentor

Our guide and review service has led to many successful submissions. This is the perfect final step if you have already written your bid proposal internally.

Our team will:

Proofread your work, checking for any spelling or grammatical errors;
Assess your responses against the specification to ensure that you are answering the questions effectively.

Once the content has been through our thorough proofing process, you can press the submit button with confidence.

Upload your work for a free quote.

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

The post Hudson helps Barbara B Cooperativa Sociale with their bid proposal appeared first on Tender Consultants.

UK Procurement | Tips and Advice | Tender Consultants

How to Secure Government Contracts Without a Huge Bid Team

How to secure government contracts if you don’t have unlimited resources

5 boxes to tick for smarter bid decisions

4 things you can prepare before you bid on government contracts

Assign roles in your team

Compile your policies and procedures

Create consistent, branded company CVs

Create/compile case studies

How to break down the question

How to get the evaluator on your side

Where can you find government contracts?

In summary…

Still wondering how to secure government contracts?

Tender Writing

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Need help with searching for government tenders?

Upgrade to Discover Elite

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

How to Become a Government Supplier in the UK

How to become a government supplier in the UK…if you’re an SME

Firstly, how do you find opportunities in the first place?

How to make sure you’re tender ready before you begin

3 ways to make sure you meet the brief

Checking your economic financial standing

Making sure you can evidence your experience

Thinking about how you can evidence value for money

How to become a government supplier if you’re an SME…will the government help?

Lower value contracts

Introducing the prompt payment code

The Small Business Commissioner

Social value – what is it and how can you prepare?

Our top 9 tips when tendering for work

Invest in the sourcing process

Don’t rush in, weigh up the opportunity

Familiarise yourself with the buyer’s portal

Make a bid plan

Research the buying organisation

Always refer back to the question and provide evidence

Avoid jargon

Use clear formatting and design (where appropriate)

Get feedback and carry on!

Summary

Need help with becoming a government supplier?

Tender Writing

Tender Mentor

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Need help with searching for tenders?

Discover Elite

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

City of London Bids and Tenders: Everything You Need to Know

City of London bids and tenders explained

Prompt Payment

Secure a pipeline of work

Build experience

Where can I find City of London bids and tenders?

Remember to be the MEAT

Don’t skimp on social value

Need assistance when writing your next City of London bids and tenders?

Tender Writing

Tender Ready

Tender Improvement

Tender Mentor

Discover Elite

How to Respond to Government Contracts for Bid

Where to find government contracts up for bid

Advantages of tendering for government contracts

Guaranteed pay

Secure a pipeline of work for your business

Gain experience

A third of all contracts must be awarded to SMEs

Where to find government contracts up for bid

3 Tips for winning government contracts for bid

Make it easy to read

Stick to the word count

Avoid rambling and overly technical jargon

Need assistance with writing your next government contract bid response?