Utilities Tenders

A guide on how to win from our professional bid writers

Tsaks Consulting’s bid writing team in the UK consists of highly experienced and successful tender and bid writers. We have won utility tenders across the UK in major cities, and councils across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Tsaks Consulting’s utilities bid writers in the UK can help you achieve your goals, whether it is for reactive works, decommissioning works, or maintenance. Tsaks Consulting has the expertise and experience to deliver your winning utilities bid submission in the UK. We work with utilities businesses across the UK to help them increase their prospects of success and secure government and private sector contracts.

Our founder, Jason Cooney, as well as one of our senior writers, are both experienced in utilities bid management and have a comprehensive understanding of the sector. We understand the private and public sector process for utilities bidding, and have helped businesses secure both private and government contracts. Our team of affordable bid writers is ready to help your business develop a best-practice bid to achieve success.

Our experience extends across all sub-sectors of the utilities sector, including assisting with power generation bid writing, water tenders and bids and energy tenders in the UK.

Tips and strategies to help you win Utilities contracts and frameworks

1. Understand the context of the bid or framework. You need to research and understand the reason the framework or RFT has been released. What is driving the requirements and the questions in the tender. Is it a new major project that needs to be delivered, or a requirement to meet a sustainability goal. Either way, understanding the context and why the bid has been released is critical to developing a compelling win strategy and bid.
2. Comply with the mandatory criteria. Although not a strategy, this is a fundamental requirement for any bid or framework. A key point is when it comes to large utilities tenders. You need to read through all the requirements in full at the start. If not, there may be a small licencing or other requirement that you only find out about half-way through the bid preparation process. If this results in a no bid decision it will have meant you have wasted significant time.
3. Focus on the real value you will deliver. It’s important to not rely on price to win a utilities sector bid. This is for a number of reasons. First of all, if you need to win on price it will generally result in a less profitable project or service. Secondly, the client may not actually care about price – but rather achieving other sustainability goals or even just simply engaging with a reliable supplier for an important project. Focus on your expertise, methodology and other strengths in order to write a winning tender response.
4. Write a compelling and comprehensive social value response with innovative and measurable ideas. In social value, you need to demonstrate your commitment to the environment, social cohesion and social and economic well-being and show that your initiatives will result in downstream benefits to the local community. Social value is often a dealbreaker in winning public and private sector water, energy and other utility tenders.

Utilities sector opportunities in the UK

Over the past five years, the utilities sector in the UK is in the process of going through drastic changes, brought about by regulatory environment changes and higher expectations by the public service. New regulations allow utility companies to supply the full range of utility services for a project — water, electricity, gas, phone, and television.

This gives a distinct advantage to utility companies with a customer-centric approach to their business, providing future customers with the ability to have all of their utility bills, call centre, and correspondence in one place. This extends to adopting a client (government) centric approach when writing bids and tenders for large scale utility projects.

There is also significant potential for small and medium businesses across the UK such as in London, Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds or regional areas, to secure contract in the utility sector. The UK government is a major provider of revenue for small to medium enterprises wanting to win utility tenders in the UK. The government has made a commitment to spend 33% of its procurement budget on SMEs, giving smaller businesses a great advantage at winning big government tenders.

Examples of current utility frameworks in the UK

Our team of bid and tender writers provide professional (and affordable) bid management, writing and review services. We have an in depth understanding of utility frameworks in the UK, giving you a greater chance of success by tailoring your utilities tender to servicing each induvial requirement by the government.

National Fuels Framework
The National Fuel Framework is for the provision of coal, wood, fuel, and other liquid and solid fuels.
Also coming under the framework are services and products related to using fuels, including maintenance on fuel storage facilities.

Supply of Electricity and Ancillary Services
The Supply of Electricity and Ancillary Services framework is for electricity and its associated services. Including services to lower electrical consumption, automated meter reading, and energy generated from renewable sources such as solar panels.

Heat Networks and Electricity Generation Assets
Also known as DPS, this framework offers a variety of services for energy generation services, and energy demand management. Customers can search for, and find, appropriate suppliers through a dynamic purchasing system which filters suppliers. This framework is open to all suppliers to join if the agreement is still valid.

Utilities Supplies & Services Framework (CPC – Crescent Purchasing Consortium)

This is a framework that is mainly geared towards consultants in the energy and utilities sector such as gas, electricity and water as well as sustainability.

Supply of Electricity and Ancillary Services Framework

This framework is used by public sector entities to procure electricity and associated services. It also includes energy consumption reduction and renewable energy generation.

Most of these frameworks will require you to go through the full pre-qualification and RFT and framework application process. There are specific requirements that need to be adhered to and the frameworks are used by a broad range of public sector bodies to procure goods and services related to the utility industry. Our team has experience helping business become awarded for most of the above frameworks and other frameworks from the utilities sector.

The types of Utility tenders in the UK that our professional bid writers can assist with

Our team is able to assist businesses across the UK from London to Manchester and Glasgow, in all different types of Utility tenders including:

Energy Tenders and Bids

• Electricity supply and procurement
• Gas supply and procurement
• Renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.)
• Energy efficiency services
• Heat networks
• Fuel supply (coal, oil, etc.)

Water Tenders and Bids:

• Water supply and treatment
• Wastewater management
• Drainage and sewerage services
• Water infrastructure maintenance
• Water meter services

Other multi-utility tenders and bids.

Utilities Tender process in the UK

Utilities tenders in the UK are highly complex and require experienced tender writing professionals to handle the multi-faceted nature of such submissions. The profitability of government utility contracts in the UK attracts many competitors. Ensuring your company is up to date with the latest industry standards and complies with all government regulations is vital to your successful utilities tender in the UK.

Winning utilities tenders in the UK

Tsaks Consulting’s experienced expert bid writers in the UK have assisted SMEs and large businesses across the UK in winning utilities tenders. If you are planning on winning a bid in the utilities sector in the UK, then Tsaks Consulting is here to help you write your winning utilities tender. Our team of experienced bid writers helps businesses across the UK including in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool, Sheffield, Edinburgh, Bristol, Cardiff, Leicester, Nottingham, Belfast, Brighton and Hove and Plymouth.

Contact our team today to arrange a fee proposal for us to assist with your next bid or tender. We also provide a bid review service for clients who are looking to have an external consultant review their bids and ensure they align with best practice.