‘If the price is too good to be true, let the supplier prove otherwise’ is a comment a buyer told me recently. Price is king in the public tendering market at present, so learn to find the correct trade off between price and capability.
There’s no point in having the best methodology and approach and having the best technical solution if your price is too expensive. Learn to meet the specifications with the best price.
To get your accreditation, call Tender Team today on 01 679 7170 or email Caroline Geoghegan at [email protected].
Today, organisations are realising the advantage, if not the necessity of implementing international management standards into their business. By achieving these standards you gain a competitive advantage by enhancing your professional image, improving business processes and ensuring client satisfaction. You will also demonstrate a commitment to health and safety and the environment, which are becoming more important in public sector contracts.
ISO 9001 is an internationally recognised standard for Quality Management. The fundamental principle and ethos of ISO 9001 is how your company understands, meets and delivers customer requirements every time. An effective quality management system underpins a successful company by providing direction in a systematic and transparent manner. It will allow your company to be competitive, efficient and ensure the ability to deliver what your customer requires in the best way possible.
Benefits:
ISO 14001 is an internationally recognised standard for Environmental Management. The purpose of the 14001:2004 Environmental standard is to help companies to protect the environment, to prevent and control pollution and to effectively improve their environmental performance. A well-designed environmental management system provides you with the tools to reduce the business’ carbon footprint and waste a business produces in a cost effective manner. With this certification your company will have a competitive edge – assuring employees, customers, the community and regulatory agencies that your company is an environmentally responsible organisation.
Benefits:
OHSAS 18001 is the internationally recognised standard for occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMS). An OHSMS promotes a safe and healthy working environment by providing a framework that allows an organisation to consistently identify and control its health and safety risks, reduce the potential for accidents, aid legislative compliance and improve overall performance. OHSAS 18001 has been designed to be compatible with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, to help your company meet its health and safety obligations in an efficient manner.
Call Tender Team today on 01 679 7170 or email Caroline Geoghegan at [email protected].
There are two stages to the process:
Our quality assurance team will engage in extensive collaboration with you to implement and integrate the framework and processes seamlessly into the day-to-day work practices of your business.
We have a 100% success rate and we have a passion for our client’s success. The framework used by Tender Team will provide you with a practical system that complies with occupational health and safety legislation, is tailored to your company and is focused on continual improvement.
The National Procurement Service has produced a suite of documents to be used across the Central Government Departments/Civil Service for the procurement of low to medium risk goods and services. They have also issued a contract template for goods and services for buyers and suppliers to enter into after contract award.
At 49 pages long, these template documents can seem daunting at first, but after a number of tenders suppliers should be very familiar with the format. Tender Team will be running a series of workshops and seminars on explaining how these procurement documents work.
We welcome these documents, and hope that contracting authorities begin to standardise their procurement documents over the coming months.
The National Procurement Service (NPS) has put in place in excess of 40 contracts and frameworks with a total value of € 414 million since 2009. The most recent tender the NPS managed was for central purchasing of managed print services for the public sector, worth € 100,000,000. Next on its agenda is the central purchasing of legal services. The objective – to get central framework agreements and contracts that will have scale and value for money for the taxpayer. So by aggregating purchasing on behalf of the public sector, the NPS can run very valuable tender competitions to provide a list of preferred suppliers to state bodies that deliver value for money.
If a buyer does not want to buy from the preferred supplier list, they have to demonstrate that they are getting even better value for money. Minister Brian Hayes, with responsibility for the NPS, is clear that ‘thinking local’ is not something that can continue.
So your strategy as a supplier – be aware of upcoming tender competitions through good account management to position yourself to win these contracts.
The European Union (EU) drive to integrate environmental requirements and considerations into public purchasing contracts, has led to the introduction of Green tenders, an action plan on Green public procurement, into Ireland.
This means that the Irish Government has committed to fostering green purchasing among national and local administrations. Public authorities in Ireland are responsible for over €14 billion euros in expenditure each year and a target of 50% of all tenders to include GPP criteria has been set by the government.
Green Procurement is the buying of products, services and work that has the lowest environmental impact throughout their life cycle when compared to alternative goods, services and works.
In other words it is the purchasing of goods and services are more eco-efficient, less environmentally harmful/polluting and more environmentally friendly: energy efficient, water conserving, recyclable, non – toxic, low carbon emissions and have improved environmental performance/credentials (ISO 14001).
The National action plan adopts the EU indicative political target of 50% of GPP i.e. 50% of public contracts/tenders in Ireland will incorporate green purchasing criteria.
Green Tenders has nominated eight product/service groups as priority groups for GPP. These are:
1. Construction
2. Energy
3. Food and Catering Services
4. Transport
5. Cleaning products and services
6. Paper
7. Uniforms and other textiles
8. ICT
Different types of contracts require their own approach to GPP. Therefore the action plan outlines key elements of GPP implementation for the above eight sectors which public authorities are to consider in the granting of contracts for goods, works and services. For example:
“As part of the selection criteria for food and catering services, contractors should be required to prove their technical and professional capacity to perform the environmental aspect of the contract. An environmental management system e.g. ISO 14001:2004 is deemed proof.
In respect of ICT – all public bodies should procure ICT equipment that meets Energy Star Criteria.
For cleaning products and services “as the department has ISO certification for its headquarters in the Custom House, tenderers were required to set out their proposed measures to ensure compliance with the ISO 14001 standard and with the departments Environmental Policy Statement”.
An Implementation Group, representative of public authorities and relevant stakeholders has been established to oversee and monitor implementation of the Action Plan across the eight areas chosen and to report on progress annually.
Contracting authorities, be it on a national or local level, will also ensure that all officials involved in GPP have a sufficient understanding of all aspects of green public procurement and its relationship to the broader public procurement process.
Looking for more information? Call Caroline Geoghegan, Certification Consultant, Tender Team today on 01 679 7170 or email her [email protected]
Written by Louise Carroll, Bid Coordinator, Tender Team [email protected]
It is the role of the Bid Manager, or Bid Coordinator, to smoothly manage a response to ‘Request for Tenders’ (RFT) or ‘Request for Proposals’ (RFP) issued by purchasing authorities and ensure that the solution proposed is complete and appropriate and results in the best proposal possible. Project Management, in other words.
This is a key role in the whole process as it over-arches all other roles; the Bid Manager must assess what information is required, coordinate the response material from all parties involved (including sub-contractors and joint partners), and ensure that the completed submission puts forward the best possible response in terms of completeness, appropriateness and that it demonstrates the best added value options to the purchaser. The Bid Manager must also make sure that deadlines are met as well as manage graphic design and visual presentation of hard copy and digital versions of the response documents.
Whether or not you have an in-house Bid Manager, the right outsourced tender specialist can manage this whole process from start to finish, from deciding whether or not to submit a tender, to getting feedback to understand what you got wrong (or where you went right) after a decision has been made. This can help immeasurably to improve a supplier’s methods and success rates. A visit with an experienced Tender Team consultant can establish fairly quickly how best a supplier can improve their tendering procedures and success rates, and target particular areas they feel are required:-
If you would like to find out more about our bid management services, please get in touch.
To know your Enemy, you must become your Enemy said Sun Tzu, in the Art of War. Sometimes competing for business can seem like a battle, where the odds are stacked against you and the odds of success are insurmountable.
All is not lost however; Competitive Intelligence (CI) is the key weapon in levelling the battle field and allowing you to compete with the advantage of knowledge on your side.
“Competitive Intelligence is the ethical gathering and analysis of competitor, customer and market information from open sources. This analysis is used by organisations to make better strategic decisions. It is the difference between competing and winning.
Your organisation survival may well depend on the knowledge that you can acquire from and about your prospects and market competitors. Public Sector procurement is becoming increasingly transparent and the victors are those that can demonstrate that they understand their clients’ needs and have positioned themselves favourably in comparison to other suppliers. It is not overstating the case to say that embedding competitive intelligence as a core management process is increasingly essential towards survival and growth in the 21st century.
Make the acquisition and safe-guarding of CI part of your normal business operations. Create profiles of your target customers as well as your main competitors. Collect data from the companies own websites and their published case, aggregate from news and social media websites and flesh out from your real world connections. Finally use your organisations own human intelligence to identify your own strengths where you have competitive advantage and work on your weaknesses to improve your overall ability to compete.
Tendering is expensive; compete only where it makes good sense; Learn as much from losing as from winning
Know your customer, your competitor, your partner…and yourself
Identify Buying Habits, Incumbent Suppliers, Decision Makers, Previous Purchases, Evaluation Criteria
Protect your corporate knowledge and facilitate fact-based decision
Remember that CI is more concerned with understanding the big picture and having the right perception of the marketplace that trying to precisely quantify or qualify competitive threats and business opportunities. Each time you participate in the tendering process, you learn a little more about what it takes to win. As Sun Tzu noted: Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
Most of us learned the rules of good communications when we were barely able to walk. We learned how to tailor our messages to our different audiences (one grown-up versus another); we learned how to ask for what we wanted; and we learned what how to trade what we had (affection or good behaviour) for what we wanted.
The rules governing good business communications aren’t very much different. We just have to be a tad more sophisticated in our approach.
A good pitch starts with understanding the client’s needs. There’s no point in trying to sell a car to a client if they really want a motorbike. And if we haven’t done out homework to find out exactly what they want, and why they want it, then we don’t deserve their business.
So ask questions, and then ask more. Ideally, speak with the client before the tender process starts. Government agencies in particular are very restricted in what they can tell you once the RFT has been published.
In your questions, find out not just what they are looking for, but why. Is their motivation financial, operational or political? Who is the key person behind the decision to go to tender, and what do they really want?
It is surprising how many tender submissions are for what the seller wants to provide, rather than what the buyer wants. Even when armed with good intelligence about their clients’ needs, many companies veer back to what they are comfortable in providing. They ignore the clear instructions in the RFT. Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure to constantly ask yourself: “Is this what the client wants?”
To make this easier, take a blank piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. In the left hand column, make a list of the four or five points that you want the tenderer to remember. This might include: “Our company has best after-sales service”, or “we have the most technically-advanced solution”.
On the right side column, write in examples and factoids that will help the audience remember those key points. Examples: “We have a service team in every county”, or “we have access to our parent company’s engineering know-how”. Whatever you write, remember that audiences love examples. Don’t just present them with facts; give them anecdotes to help them remember what you are saying.
When writing and presenting, use the language that your prospective client uses. Try to avoid what passes as business-speak, and the hyperbole and American sports-laden clichés that seem to litter many tender documents and business presentations.
Many business people are perfectly good communicators when huddled over a cup of coffee with a colleague, or at a regular meeting during a not-so-busy morning. But put them in front of a potential client with a big contract at stake and they become a gibbering mass of cliché and jargon.
Not everything that is done differently is a paradigm shift. Not every process can be called a solution. There is no need to describe all your activity as ‘results-driven’; what other motivation might you have?
Don’t be afraid of blank space. If they offer you a page to describe your services, it’s ok to only fill half the page. They might appreciate you being brief and saving them time.
Focus on informing your audience rather than impressing them. They will be impressed, if you give them the information they require, clearly and concisely.
Ah, PowerPoint, the fickle friend of business communication; so easy to get right, so easy to get wrong.
The golden rule of PowerPoint is that it is great for pictures and lousy for words. If your slides comprise diagrams, tables and photographs that you couldn’t describe with words, that’s a good sign.
If your slides contain only words, then ask yourself, what’s on the slides that you can’t convey verbally? If the slides are only repeating what you are saying, then what’s the point? Turn off the projector and talk. It’s less confusing for the audience. And if you are using more than 25 words on a slide – reconsider, and perhaps rewrite.
When submitting a tender document, the same rules will apply. Use photos and diagrams if they will tell your story better than words. Be brief. Be kind to your audience.
For tender presentation training and other communication skills contact Gerry at [email protected]
www.etenders.gov.ie was set up by the Irish Government to facilitate best practice in procurement for public bodies, agencies and authorities when advertising for potential suppliers for the huge range of goods, services and products they require on a daily basis.
The National Public Procurement Policy Unit (NPPPU) has overall responsibility for public procurement, policy making and the implementation of EU Rules and Regulations in Ireland.
To get the most out of etenders it is first important to understand what types of notice are posted on the website, they are:
Contact Tender Team with any questions.
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