tendering process

The public sector procures a vast range of goods, works and services. Public sector bodies such as the NHS, Ministry of defence and local councils source everything from pencils to buildings, and all of this has to be purchased via the public tendering process.

Would you like to learn how your business can enter this market? Find out how the tendering process works below.

 

Finding Contracts

The first step for an organisation seeking to enter the public sector tendering process is finding contracts that are relevant to your business. There are thousands upon thousands of opportunities out there, so how can your business narrow these opportunities down?

Small businesses can pinpoint opportunities by using a tender alerts tool. This type of service will monitor many different sources of contracts. Once your business sets up a profile with tender preferences included, opportunities will be sent to your email.

 

Bidding for Contracts

Tendering for public sector business can help you to win big orders. However, it can be time-consuming, costly and can tie up valuable resources.

It is important that your small business is putting effort into contracts that are realistic in terms of size and scale. If lose a contract, the money and time you have spent on the bid is lost, so you should carefully weigh up whether or not a tender is worth bidding for.

  • Ask yourself the following questions when bidding:
  • Does my business have the skills and experience required for this contract?
  • Can I currently afford to allocate the time and resource that is required to bid?
  • Will this contract help my business to grow?

 

Writing Bids

Once you have found an opportunity that is suitable for your business, it is time to write the bid for the contract. The first step may be to complete a questionnaire, designed to help the buyer shortlist the most suitable companies and invite them to submit a full tender. In other cases, you may go straight to the tender.

Make sure that you allow enough time to collate the necessary information and to write and submit the tender as it may take more time than you think to complete.

A late tender response will be disqualified immediately. Therefore it is important that you have references and all supporting documents in place well in advance, including a covering letter that responds to the bid invitation.

 

After Bidding

OK, so it’s not over just yet. After your bid has been scored and evaluated the buyer may want to examine your bid in greater detail. In some cases, they may want to check if your business can meet their requirements for themselves. They may do this by setting up a site visit, interview or meeting.

In due course, you will hear whether your bid has been successful or not. Even if you do not win the contract, ask for feedback. Every bidder is entitled to feedback from the buyer, and it may help you to succeed another time.

If you do succeed and are awarded the contract, then the work of fulfilling it begins.

 

How can Supply2Gov help you with the tendering process?

Find relevant tenders opportunities using Supply2Gov Tender Alerts tool.

The best thing about our service is that you can try it for free – starting with the local area of your choice…

New users can also access the S2G Tender Ready Toolkit which is full of useful hints and tips.

Get started by joining for free now.

 

 

 

 

Supply2Gov turns 1

Supply2Gov launched a year ago today and what a wonderful year it’s been!

First things first, we would like to thank all our customers who have joined us so far. It has been our pleasure to help you to find public procurement opportunities across the UK and Ireland.

In celebration of our first birthday, we are sharing some of our key highlights from this year.

 

The Tender Ready Toolkit

Last year we launched our “Tender Ready Toolkit” – supporting small businesses across the UK to be properly prepared to bid for public procurement opportunities.

The Tender Ready Toolkit comes with a range of eGuides and checklists designed for Supply2Giv users, so they can get the best out of their tender alerts service as well as developing their tendering strategy.

All new Supply2Gov customers can access this toolkit for free, by registering for a Ready To Take Flight subscription.

 

Supply2Gov at Events

We got to chat with some of our customers face to face and met new clients at procurement events across the country during 2018. Our team attended:

  • P4H Scotland
  • P4H England
  • Procurex Scotland
  • Procurex England
  • Procurex Ireland
  • Procurex Wales
  • UK Infrastructure Show

We presented at a number of these events, gave procurement advice on the stand and even hosted a VR Challenge at Procurex Scotland and Wales with our parent company BiP Solutions.

If you would like to join us at one of this year’s events, visit the BiP Solutions website.

 

Webinars

Our service not only offers tender alerts, but on top of this our users can gain access to expert procurement webinars, hosted by our team and special guests from the industry. Here is a rundown of just some of the events we hosted.

BiP Talks Brexit: Supply2Gov was a part of one of BiP Solutions’ most popular webinars in 2018. The panel considered topics such as contract opportunity advertising requirements and jurisdiction over current public sector contracts post Brexit.

PASS Procurement – Introduction to Public Sector Procurement: Our team was joined by Principal PASS Procurement Consultant Eddie Regan as he gave an overview of what public sector procurement is and entails. Mr Regan also revealed his top tips on how to get procurement ready, so small businesses can gain access to a slice of the the annual £242 billion public procurement pie.

Create a Winning Alert Profile: Supply2Gov’s Senior Marketing Executive, Melissa Russell, hosted the “Create a Winning Alert Profile” webinar regularly last year.

This webinar is particularly useful for small businesses that are new to procurement as viewers learn how to fully optimise their S2G email alert profile and make full use of S2G’s features.

This series of webinars will continue in 2019. If you missed it, sign up for the next event here.

 

Join us in 2019

Not a Supply2Gov customer already? You could be missing out.

See below how many more contract notices and awards we published than our competitors/national government portals in 2018:

  • Ireland (eTenders ROI) 36%
  • Scotland (PCS) 38%
  • Wales (Sell2Wales) 58%
  • UK & ROI (OJEU) 205%
  • Northern Ireland (eTenders NI) 209%
  • England (Contracts Finder) 210%

Source: BiP Solutions – January 2019

Register now and start receiving free tender alerts for the local area of your choice.

Get Started