Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
Tips to Write Successful Tenders for Your Business With David Ashton
Show Notes
Background
David Ashton is from Corporate Supremacy. Corporate Supremacy provides advice in tender writing, grant writing, health and safety environment, information security management and a range of business services such as risk management and governance. In essence, all the back-of-house corporate services, that businesses need to be able to function.
What are Tenders?
Tenders are designed by government and private industry to source a market to supply goods and services to government agencies and the like. In Australia, local, state and federal governments have portals that businesses can access, free of charge, to obtain tender information and to submit their bid. Overseas, the procurement process and tendering process is similar. It’s the same principle of going to the relevant government website and typing in tenders or doing a google search on tenders local government or tenders state or federal government.
Who is Eligible for Tenders? Can Any Business Apply?
Every business has an opportunity to submit a tender. Whether you’re successful in putting in a complying tender or a winning tender, will depend on the tender scope, the specification, the pre-qualifications and compliance criteria around that. Not all businesses would be able to comply with certain aspects of tenders and depending on the size and scale of the team and what it’s for, it’s only open to certain businesses that can provide the goods or services. You need to be specific in terms of the types of tenders that you’re accessing. Look at your business model, your business strategy and then target tenders that meet that.
The tender document itself will outline the rules applicable to that tender. It will outline the types of organisations looking to be engaged and that’ll be determined by pre-qualification and the like. For example, if it’s a tender for construction projects, then only construction companies would be able to apply for that bid.
Tips to Make a Tender Successful
Positioning is important, understanding the buyer, the opportunity in the marketplace and where you fit into that. When you download a tender and you read through the documentation, get an understanding of what the buyer is looking to buy. Get an understanding of who the organisation is, what they do, how they do it, the types of procurement that they generally undertake and get an understanding as to what type of organisation they’re looking to engage. Look for what they’re looking to buy and determine whether you’re the type of organisation that they’re likely to engage to do that and the pre-qualification requirements. For example, a tender may require an organisation to have a certain license or permit, if you don’t have that license, then you’re not eligible to apply for that tender.
There’s a compliance assessment in tenders and you must tick certain boxes and questions. The compliance side is meant for the due diligence assessment on your business. A tender may not proceed to the assessment stage if it doesn’t make the pre-qualification requirements.
Persuasion is also needed, providing a compelling story and reason to select you. The tender process itself is a marketing exercise. You’re trying to convince the buyer to give you a contract to supply goods and services, meaning you need to market your business and present a compelling story as to why the selection panel should select you.
Meeting the Requirements of a Tender
Generally, if you’re successful in winning a tender and you enter a contract, that will outline the key performance indicators, the reporting requirements, the service delivery requirements, or project delivery requirements. At each stage of your contract, when you reach certain milestones, you’re assessed on your capacity to deliver. There is a focus on contract management to ensure that the contract is delivered in accordance with the tender requirements.
