The Tendering Arena

There are number of different types of tendering, bidding and procurement methods adopted by the government and private sector in the tender arena. You need to understand the procurement method and arena in which you are operating in order to put forward a compelling bid.

The different types of tenders and bids

There are different types of tenders and bids and they generally require different approaches. Understanding the types of tenders and bids is also critical to the bid/no bid decision as it provides you with a greater understanding of the level of competition for certain opportunities.

Open tenders are a common type of tender which are widely used both in government and the private sector. They are often used in order to gather as many bids as possible and they are always highly competitive. They do not restrict any party from bidding – and instead – encourage as many service providers as possible to make a submission. They are generally highly competitive with a lot of competition and strong pricing competition for the services. At Tsaks Consulting, we have helped many of our clients with their first ever government contract through the open tender process. Construction and Medical tenders are often open tenders.

Restricted tenders are slightly different. Where there are high value, specialised and complicated tenders, the procurement teams often undertake a restricted tender process. This is to ensure they only have to review bids from suitable qualified suppliers. They generally conduct an initial pre-qualification – which enables them to filter through and create a small group of potential suppliers who can assist.

There are also other types of tenders including different procurement processes for different stages of the tendering or bidding process.

The difference between Public and Private Sector Tendering

When you are bidding for a public sector bid, it is critical to review the evaluation criteria in detail and make sure you respond and comply with it. Read between the lines to get a gauge of what they are looking for and how to tailor your bid. Complying with the stringent regulations that form part of the process is critical and they are put in place to ensure fairness and transparency for all bidders. Your writing style needs to be concise and to the point – accounting for the fact that public sector procurement teams generally have to read through a large number of tenders in order to mark and complete the procurement process.

The private sector is a bit different. There is generally a fair bit of flexibility in what you can do and graphics are more important. The tenders are highly competitive and the process is often not overly prescriptive. The procurement rules are sometimes less rigid and you have to deliver an innovative service proposal at a competitive price to win.

Writing Frameworks and ITTs

There are also framework agreements and ITTs. Frameworks are long term, multi-year agreements with suppliers that give you the opportunity to quickly bid for a number of smaller opportunities. More information on frameworks is provided here.

ITTs on the other hand, are a request for a specific project. Sometimes, once you are one framework, you then respond to individual ITTs.

In order to increase you chances of winning, when bidding for a framework, you need to read between the lines around what they are looking for more generally. A framework is not a specific opportunity and you need to put forward a bid that details your experience and covers a number of different potential opportunities.

ITTs are a bit different. They generally have specific requirements and you will need to respond to comprehensively in order to win.

Preparing for an upcoming Tender or Bid

Preparation is critical for success in bid and tender writing. In order to write a successful bid, you need to tailor your writing to the opportunity. A good base of knowledge, as well as a well organised document repository is critical for this.

What is even more critical is understanding your client. What are their needs. What will they be looking for and what challenges are they facing. You need to try and understand the reason for them going out to tender in order to put forward an effective bid or proposal. Key steps to help you prepare for a must-win tender or bid include:

Studying the competitive landscape

You should prepare for a tender by studying your competitors. You need to understand the market, the trends, what innovations your competitors are putting forward and if they are demonstrating though leadership. You want to know who your potential competitors are in any upcoming tender and if possible, their pricing position in the market.

Finally, research who their current clients are and what strengths and weaknesses they have. It’s also important to look at their marketing. You can get an idea from your competitors marketing documentation and website what key points of difference they push on.

Reading between the lines of the clients requirements

When you receive the RFP, RFP or tender documents, you need to read through the requirements in detail. You should then ask yourself:

• Why are they asking this question?
• What is the motivation behind this question?
• What type of response are they looking for?
• What challenge is the client facing and how can we help them solve it?

When there are briefing meetings for the tender, it’s a good idea to attend. This is because although they will provide any content and presentation to all parties, they often provide hints and insights into what they are looking for.

Create a bid library or knowledge base to bid quicker and write tenders more efficiently

After completing numerous tenders and bids, you will notice that more often than not, sometimes the same questions are asked repeatedly (often in a slightly different manner). For this reason, it’s a good idea to create a bid library or knowledge base as part of your tender preparation process. This generally involves:

• Short and long form case studies of your successful projects
• Testimonials and references from previous clients and other stakeholders such as suppliers.
• Evidence of insurances, certifications and qualifications
• CVs for your key personnel

When there are changes, new testimonials come in, or you complete another project, we recommend you update your bid library or knowledge base in order to ensure you are well prepared for your next bid or tender.

It’s also important that your team members understand what they need to do throughout the tender process.

The Bid Management Process

In order to successfully bid for private and public sector contracts, you need to be strategic with your key messaging, concise and simple in your writing, and persuasive in getting your points across. These are all required to ensure you put forward a compelling tender response that complies with the requirements and addresses the real needs of the client.

A methodology for bid preparation

You need to take a logical and methodical approach to any tender in order to ensure you give yourself the time and opportunity to write a winning proposal. A general methodology includes:

• Review the tender requirements.
• Put together an initial team who will be involved in the bid response.
• Conduct a bid/no bid process to ensure the contract is worth bidding for.
• Set out clear internal objectives and timelines.
• Delegate responses to different team members as required and set clear expectations.
• Have regular check-in meetings and ensure you double check your template responses prior to writing your response.
• Use a central document (our writers at Tsaks Consulting will share a central document with you) to ensure you maintain version control.

Bid writing techniques you should adopt to win

It’s important to integrate best-practice bid writing techniques into your bids and tenders. Some common techniques and writing strategies we employ here at Tsaks Consulting when writing tenders for you and/or other clients include:

• Write in a clear, concise and responsive manner
• Use sub-headings and bullet points to put forward a structured response that is clear and easy to read.
• Include evidence throughout your bid.
• Ensure there are no spelling or grammar errors in your bid.
• Write in a personalised and positive tone.

Storyboarding in tenders and how it helps you win more bids

Storyboarding the qualitative questions in a tender submission is a beneficial part of the bid management process. It will help you integrate your win themes throughout your bid and ensure that you consistently deliver a compelling response.

As part of the process, you need to:

• Develop your key win themes
• Ensure these win themes are in a logical order.
• Integrate these win-themes into each response.
• Build on each section to ensure that each responses strengthens based on the previous.
• Introduce graphics and evidence where possible and ensure you use client-consistent language.
• Interweave the key messages throughout the response.

Sometimes when you have storyboarded your response, your response or tender can sound a little repetitive. You can minimise this to some extent in your final edit.

Writing and submitting a strong, compelling tender submission

You need to demonstrate in your bid that you understand the clients needs and motivations and are able to deliver on the project or service you are bidding for. Writing a strong, compelling and winning tender submission supported by evidence, facts and figures is critical to doing this. The first step, is writing a persuasive executive summary.

Writing a winning executive summary

We have helped many businesses and other organisations across the UK from London to Birmingham and beyond write winning executive summaries. You need to deliver a knock-out punch to the evaluators and put forward a concise and punchy document that shows your strengths and expertise and illustrates your solution. You need to show:

• That you understand their needs and what they are looking for.
• That you will deliver real benefits
• That you are a safe pair of hands with the right experience
• That you will have the A-team to deliver the job.

Remember, facts, figures and evidence is critical to putting forward a credible bid.

Evidence and case studies in bids and tenders in the UK

When you write a case study, you need to do more than simply write a description of the services you provided. You need to demonstrate how your experience aligns with the project or services you are bidding to provide and the needs of the client. When we write case studies for clients we generally cover:

• A brief description of the project.
• Key personnel who worked on the project and their roles.
• Any challenges that arose and how you overcame them.
• The nature of the project and the client needs.
• What you delivered and what outcomes were achieved (across all aspects such as service, safety etc)
• Ant client testimonials.
• A relevant image or some kind of infographic.

It’s important to talk about the project and the similarities it has with the contract you are bidding for.

Our team of bid and tender writers here at Tsaks Consulting specialises in helping clients prepare for tenders and write compelling tenders and bids to the public and private sector.

Writing a winning bid

Our bid writing service is designed to help you write a winning bid and secure revenue for your business through government and private sector contracts. Some the strategies we use to help you write a winning bid include:

Adhering to the evaluation criteria

Bids and tenders are market against an evaluation criteria. It’s a good idea to keep it simple and align your proposal to those criteria. This stops you going off track and submitting non-relevant information. You need to address each criteria and provide evidence that you have the experience, expertise, systems and processes to deliver against those criteria.

To win public sector and also private sector bids, you need to score well in all areas. Tenders are highly competitive, as are frameworks, and you need to respond to and score well against all the evaluation criteria and all responses – so you don’t lose any unnecessary marks.

Price to win and profit

Here at Tsaks Consulting, we are often engaged by our clients to assist us with pricing their response. Firstly, you need to demonstrate your financial stability when bidding for a contract. This proves that you will be a reliable and trustworthy supplier. Secondly, you will need to put forward pricing that is competitive.

Letters from accountants, audited accounts and credit ratings all help demonstrate financial stability. In addition, letters from suppliers and clients can also assist. When putting together your pricing strategy, you need to balance winning the tender and actually making a profit. There is no point in winning a whole lot of contracts if they are not profitable.

Some of the pricing strategies we explore here at Tsaks Consulting when assisting our clients with pricing include:

• Cost-plus. This is a simple approach where you assess your fixed and variable costs and then add a mark-up in order to come up with your price.
• Value-based pricing. This is where you develop a price based on the value you propose to deliver to the client.
• Market-based pricing. This is where you look at what the market is charging, and generally position yourself in the middle of the market.

The key point is not to under-price and under-deliver.

Social value and a real value proposition helps you win tenders and bids

You need to develop a value proposition as part of your bid. This is essentially how you your proposal delivers value and illustrates the value that you will provide (quantifying it is also helpful if possible). Anything innovative or exceptional needs to be detailed in order to stand out from the crowd and deliver real value.

Another key aspects to winning is writing a quality response to social value. Our bid writers are highly experienced in writing social value responses and will cover off key points such as employment and training as well as community engagement. More information on our Social Value writing capability is available here.

Health and Safety Standards – A key to compliance and winning!

Health and Safety is critical in all contracts. In some industries and bids, such as construction and community services, it is also a dealbreaker in terms of winning or losing a contract. In order to write a winning bid, you need to firstly comply with the required documentation, demonstrate that you have a good health and safety record, and finally, show that you have thought through the contract requirements from a Work Health and Safety perspective.

You need to show that you have integrated potential issues that may arise from a safety perspective into your safety documentation, and not just simply based your bid on safety templates.

Ensuring you deliver a quality tender proposal

You need to ensure your bid management process is filled with quality assurance processes to ensure you submit a successful bid. You should maintain quality by:

• Ensuring your information is accurate and evidence-based
• There is consistent messaging throughout your bid
• You use the same formatting, font and other presentation techniques throughout your document
• You don’t exceed word limits and comply with the requirements
• All of your content has the same, consistent tone.

Have you been shortlisted? Make sure you present well!

Our team of writers have helped many clients create compelling presentations and coached key personnel to deliver quality presentations. It’s often a strategic process. You need to create and deliver a presentation that builds on your bid and proposal and ensures the procurement team like you and understand your value proposition.

Persuasive presentations that help you win

It is also critical that you put forward a presentation that is persuasive. There is only a limited time in presentations and a lot of material to cover. You can generally rely on the fact that the procurement team will have read your tender. Present in a clear and concise manner. Make it engaging and don’t read a whole lot of text.

Ensure you personalise your presentation and introduce your team and the roles they will be playing on the contract if successful. Make sure you stick with your win themes and point out the key points that really set your bid apart. It’s also important to demonstrate to the client that you understand their needs and will deliver a solution that meets their needs.

Body-language is also important particularly when you are asked the hard questions. Answer them with confidence and don’t be afraid to refer to your previous experience.

The tender or bid negotiation process – how our team can help

Negotiating a tender or bid is always hard. You will be excited at the chance to win the contract, and know that you are close. On the other hand, it’s sometimes a possibility for the client to make requests that are costly and often unrealistic. It’s important to be firm, confident and fair.

Put a framework in place for communication with the client and take a flexible approach to the services you will provide. In general, you should focus on a win-win where possible and be prepared to add additional services if they require.

Through the negotiation process, the client will be gaining and understanding of how easy it is to work with you and your conduct can affect their decision in this regard. In addition, you don’t want to agree to anything that is a dealbreaker for you delivering the contract. So when you disagree, explain to the client why you disagree and try to come up with an alternative solution.

Feedback and tender debriefs – helping you understand your clients and win more bids

Whether you are successful or unsuccessful with a bid, you should always ask for a debrief or feedback. This is critical in helping you understand the clients needs, their challenges, and what you can do to improve future bids.

When you get positive feedback, ensure you take note and ‘keep up the good work’ in future tenders. Negative feedback is equally important. One key point, is when you are meeting evaluators sometimes they do not want to provide detailed feedback. They may just refer to ‘price’ being a factor. Take the time to ask probing questions of the evaluators in order to gain an understanding of where you can improve your bids.

We also take the time to document and gather the feedback our clients receive into a central repository. This is then cross-checked against future tenders to ensure all feedback is and has been acted on and your tender processes are constantly improving.

The Tsaks Consulting bid review and mentor service

We have a bid review and mentor service which we provide to clients who are looking to get expert input on their bids whilst still writing their bids themselves.

Our team will work with you to review your bid at draft stage and provide you constructive feedback on how to improve your bid. We will review your bid and identify:

• If you have strong win themes
• If you have enough evidence through your bid
• If your bid is personalised
• What other win themes you can introduce to strengthen your bid
• Where you should introduce graphics and infographics
• The question and response structures and if they are comprehensive enough

Frequently Asked Questions about writing a tender that addresses your clients real needs

How do I understand what my clients are really looking for when I’m preparing a tender?

You should read each question, and think to yourself, why are the asking that question. Sometimes, it is because they have had an issue with their previous supplier and want to make sure they don’t have the same issue. You should also apply your knowledge of the market and the context to your analysis of the question to understand what is keeping the client awake at night.

Please outline the normal tendering procedure in the UK. What is the typical procedure?

Generally speaking there is a publication of a contract notice. You need to submit an expression of interest or a pre-qualification questionnaire. Once this is completed, and if you are shortlisted you will generally receive an ITT.

The ITT (except for framework applications) will list all of the criteria and requirements for the bid. You will need to complete this ITT and submit your bid in order to be awarded a tender. There is often a presentation process where a number of shortlisted businesses were provided.

There are different procedures for frameworks as well as open and closed tenders. Either way, the key point is that you need to clearly communicate your value proposition and what makes your business different.

How can a company increase their chances of tender success? What do we need to do to write a successful tender in the UK to the NHS or another government department?

To improve your chances of success you should:

• Put together a good quality bid team of subject matter expertise.
• Make sure you have a dedicated bid manager.
• Proofread your submission and ensure there are no grammatical errors.
• Ensure you align with the tender requirements.
• Align your expertise and experience with the opportunity.

Do you help clients write bids across the UK?

Yes – our bid writing service extends to all industries from construction, health, community services to maintenance and defence. Here at Tsaks Consulting, we help clients across the UK write compelling bids and tenders. From London, to Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and across to Scotland and Wales. Contact our team today to talk about how we can assist with your next bid or tender response and help you write a winning submission.