Tender Notifications: what are they?
This might seem like an obvious question, but it never hurts to establish the basics, especially when it comes to tendering! Most tendering procedures (especially in the public sector) these days are carried out through ePortals including:
- ProContract
- Intend
- Multiquote
These are places where you will register interest opportunities, download documents and submit your tenders.
Tender notifications are, essentially, messages you will receive from a portal to say that something has occurred. This might be anything from a clarification being released by the buyer to notification that you have received a direct message from a buyer.
How many tender notifications is normal?
If you have ever used a tendering portal, you will know just how many tender notifications can come through for just a single tender.
Some portals are more ‘enthusiastic’ than others. For instance, you are more likely to get multiple notifications from Multiquote than ProContract but you’ll get tender notifications to one degree or another, whichever portal you are using.
The number of notifications you receive per tender can vary depending on such things as:
- The portal.
- The buyer (some buyers will frequently update the available documents, for instance, whereas others will hardly make a peep).
- The number of clarification questions raised by suppliers.
The real answer to the question ‘how many tender notifications is normal?’ is ‘how long is a piece of string?’. It really is entirely unique to each tender. Don’t panic if your last tender came with a whole slew of tender notifications, but your current one has hardly sent you any at all.
What’s so important about a tender notification?
So, we’ve established that every tender is different and consequently the number of tender notifications received will always vary. However, whether you receive 5 or 20 tender notifications has no impact on discerning whether each one is important or not.
It is tempting (especially if you are receiving a daily tender notification) to dismiss them as unimportant and unnecessary but try to resist taking that approach.
The number of notifications for a tender (especially if they relate to clarifications) can be a good indication of how well put together the tender is. For example, if there have been 90 clarifications raised from suppliers, this shows that the requirements or actions for the tender haven’t been put together all that well.
In amongst all of the notifications that you may not be as bothered about might be a really important one, like ‘updated TUPE information’ which would be a terrible one to miss as your pricing would not be accurate without the correct TUPE data.
Regular emails announcing yet another tender notification might feel akin to receiving spam. However it is much better to take a few minutes to check each one out than it is to miss an important tender update.
Okay, we get it – tender notifications are important. What shall we do about them?
It is really very simple; most portals will send an email to the email address registered on the portal account every time the buyer wants to send you a tender notification.
If you don’t have a dedicated bid writer and multiple people within the company are working on your tenders, it would be highly advisable to create a single email address (i.e. tenders@yourcompany.co.uk). Give all concerned parties access to register on all portals.
This will mean that no tender notifications are at risk of being missed.
It is worth noting that not all portals will send you an email if there is a tender notification to view. If you have a live tender on a portal (either to be submitted or recently submitted) and haven’t received any emails from the portal, it would be worth logging in and checking the portal daily, just to be safe.
Once you have established that, yes, you have got a tender notification then it is really just a case of thoroughly checking them out. Don’t send that email straight to trash; follow the link and see what it has to tell you.
Most commonly, tender notifications refer to the following things:
- Changes to the tender documents, or additional supporting documents that have been uploaded.
- The release of a clarification log, which is where the buyer has answered a set of supplier questions.
- A change to the submission deadline (you really do not want to miss that one!).
- A request for you to clarify something about your tender submission.
- A shortlist or result notice (also very important, and not checking this notification out could result in you missing out on a contract you were first choice for).
As you can see, none of these tender notifications are things that you would want to miss!
What next?
Hopefully, if nothing else, you have been at least partially convinced of the importance of actioning your tender notifications.
If you are trying to tender regularly then understanding how to manage your portal to best effect will really help you out in your bid management efforts.
Remember that in all but a few cases, communications with the buyer are firmly restricted to the use of the portal messaging system. Make sure you are familiar with the way the portal you are using works is really important.
If you would be interested in learning more about portal management (including those pesky tender notifications!) then check out our free to use online learning resource, Tender VLE, where you will find helpful instructional video content on key areas of the tendering process.
If talking to an experienced consultant is more your cup of tea, then contact our Bid Writing Consultants for a chat.
Find more helpful tips and advice in our blogs. We cover topics including: