Tender Consulting FAQs: Answered
As any procurement worker can tell you, there is a lot to know about tendering. Tendering (also commonly referred to as bidding and procurement) is a relatively dense topic. Terminology that can be unfamiliar to the uninitiated and many different elements to learn about, all of which are vitally important!
Because of the seeming complexity of tendering, many companies wishing to tender employ tender consulting services.
At Hudson we provide expert bid writing services and many more come to us for guidance and information.
In light of this, both our free online learning resource, Tender VLE and our Bid Surgeries with our MD, Jill Hudson, have become increasingly popular.
Tendering can seem impenetrable, but it doesn’t have to be! If you take the time to learn about the process and requirements, then it soon starts to make sense.
Lots of businesses must have received that memo because we’ve been receiving plenty of questions, ranging from ‘What is tender consulting?” to “What is the difference between an SQ and a PQQ?”.
So, this got us thinking. Instead of restricting ourselves to responding only to those who contact us on an individual basis, we could pull together the 5 most frequently asked questions and put our answers in this blog for access by any budding tenderer to use.
FAQs
#1 – What is tendering?
I haven’t put this FAQ at number 1 for no reason, this is one of the questions we get asked the most. In essence, tendering (or procurement) is the way Buyers ensure that they are choosing the contractor who can offer the best value for money for a contract. Multiple suppliers will submit a bid, as part of the tender process, in line with the instructions from the Buyer, who will then score each tender in accordance with the evaluation criteria and the highest scoring Supplier will be offered the contract.
This process is meant to ensure a non-discriminatory approach to engaging supplier services through an open and fair procurement process. This prevents collusion and ensures a level playing field for all participants.
For more information about this topic, check out what our tender consulting guru, Daniel Hall, has to say about this in the Tender VLE video ‘What is Tendering?’.
#2 – What is a typical tender process like?
As any tender consultant should honestly tell you, there is no ‘one size fits all’ response to this question. Tenders can take several different forms which, depending on whether they fall above or below the EU threshold, may be one stage, or two-stage, processes. In public procurement, you will most likely encounter the Selection Questionnaire/Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (SQs and PQQs) and Invitation to Tender (ITT) processes the most often. For these types of tendering, you will most likely follow this process:
- A Buyer will put out a Contract Notice explaining:
- What the contract is for;
- What the delivery length and contract value is;
- Any qualifying criteria that potential Suppliers must meet;
- The Evaluation criteria;
- Timeline for the tender (submission deadline, contract award date etc);
- The tendering process/particulars.
- Each supplier will complete and submit a bid that is usually a combination of a written quality response and a commercial/pricing response. Both elements will be scored according to the evaluation criteria.
- Once all of the tenders have been evaluated, the Buyer will either award the contract to the highest scoring supplier, or they will shortlist the highest-scoring tenders to a secondary stage. The process will continue until the Buyer is satisfied that they are able to award the contract to the most suitable supplier.
Although this covers the most basic process, you should expect some variance from tender to tender. This is influenced by such factors as the size of the contract, the time between the contract notice being realised and the required award and commencement of the contract.
For more information on what you can expect from a typical PQQ/SQ and ITT, check out our instructional videos on those subjects here and here.
#3 – What is tender consulting?
This is another question that we get asked a lot! Put simply, if businesses don’t have a person (or persons!) internally who can produce tenders, then they will seek the services of a tender consulting business to help them produce tenders on a fee basis. This, at Hudson Succeed, is what we do. We work with clients across multiple sectors – from Construction to Creative and Technology, to Facilities and Logistics to name just a few – to help them produce top-quality, winning tenders. For a better understanding of the types of services you can expect from tender consulting, check out our Services page.
#4 – Can SMEs tender?
One of the big misconceptions about procurement is that it is just for the big, multi-million earning companies. We are very pleased to tell you this is emphatically not the case! In fact, in 2014 the UK government completely overhauled its legislation concerning public procurement to a) make it fairer and b) encourage SME business to get into tendering. In fact, it has been so successful that today most of our tender consulting work is for SMEs!
#5 – What is the difference between Private and Public sector tendering?
The main difference between the public and private sector is this: public sector is not for profit and private sector is for profit.
Public sector tenders mainly refer to contracts which are paid for using public money, for example; state-run schools, the NHS, local authorities, central government or public services.
Private sector tenders are offered by privately-owned companies, where the contracts are paid for using private money. For example, a privately-owned construction company might put out a contract for website development, which they will pay for from the business.
Still have questions not answered here?
I’m sure there will be many of you who still have a plethora of questions for our tender consulting team! These may be the top 5 questions that we are asked on a regular basis but it’s by no means the sum total of information that SMEs need when they are considering tendering.
If you would like to pose your question to one of our experienced tender consultants, then please contact us for a free chat, or visit our Hudson Succeed Insights page for more helpful blogs about all things tendering!
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