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.