www.swimmingpoolnews.co.uk
Pool&SpaIndustry OCT 2010 SPN
31
ARE YOU READY TO BID FOR PUBLIC CONTRACTS?
Getting a tender document ‘bid ready’ means time, money and no small amount of skill and experience
A
n increasing amount of private sector – as well as public sector – procurement is via the tendering process. And with more and more suppliers looking for opportunities, the competition in such tenders is getting greater. It may, however, come as something of a surprise to learn that many tenders are lost before you even start writing.
There are a number of reasons for this – ranging from being deemed “unsuitable” to deliver the product or service, to being unprepared regarding the bidding process. In either case, with increasing competition, you are simply going to be wasting time, and therefore money, bidding for projects that you just can’t win.
Before even contemplating responding to a tender document you need to be “bid ready”. This basically means having key policies and procedures clearly documented, having appropriate insurance cover, being financially sound and being willing to spend time on preparing the bid and then delivering your solution if you have prepared the winning bid. With regard to policies, you really must have a health and safety policy (even if you employ less than five people), an equal opportunities policy, a quality management policy or statement (even if you don’t have formal quality accreditation) and an environmental policy. You are increasingly likely to be asked about your health and safety training policy and whether you are implementing a full environmental management system. You are likely to require (at least) three different insurance policies. In the public sector, you may well be asked for £10m of Public Liability Insurance, £10m of Employers Liability Insurance and up to £5m of Professional Indemnity Insurance. The first two are not particularly expensive and may only involve a minor upgrade to your existing policies (if any increase is actually needed). However many companies have no Professional Indemnity Insurance, let alone £5m worth! So the first thing is
to make sure that you have some degree of cover. Rather than spend out on a higher level of insurance cover, just in case you win the contract, may be difficult to justify. Most procurement teams will accept an answer along the lines of “we currently have £x million of (say) Public Liability Insurance, and undertake to increase it to £y million if we are successful with our bid”. That will generally do the trick, although I have recently come across some PQQs (Pre- Qualification Questionnaires) where they have specifically stated that companies will be “marked down” if they don’t have the full value of cover now... it seems unreasonable but it happens! The financial aspects of bid readiness are varied. However, if you are dealing with the public sector they need to make sure that they are spending public funds wisely. In effect they need to make sure that you are a “safe pair of hands”. That includes checking on your financial history and the size of the current contract compared to your annual turnover. Quite simply, a small company may not have the resources (human, equipment or financial) to handle a bid project. Typically – although there is some flexibility – you should not expect to win a contract where the annual value is more than around 20% of your turnover. And finally – can you cope? Are you willing to spend time, and money, preparing a comprehensive and professional looking bid? If not, then don’t bother to compete. Somebody else will do the job properly and you will have wasted your time. In fact it is better to complete
one tender response properly than to rush three or four. If you rush, then you almost certainly won’t do a great job – and this will be pretty obvious. Yet one of your competitors will have taken the time to respond in a totally professional manner and will probably win!
Tim Colman is a Director of PWL (Partnership Working Ltd) a leading bid writing and procurement consultancy.
PWL have developed a bid writing training programme for SPATA and BISHTA members that includes a full day workshop covering getting bid ready, where to find the opportunities, completing PQQs and writing bids. You will also be helped to get your policies in place and up to date. The workshop is followed by two half day sessions in your own premises, helping you to prepare real PQQ’s or bids. If you are successful in getting shortlisted for a presentation then you will also receive a half day presentation training session. Finally you will get a full year of telephone and email mentoring to help you with any specific queries you may have. The programme costs £1,500 +VAT, but if you qualify for “Train To Gain” funding, the first £1,000 will be provided in the form of a training grant. Tim will be speaking at SPATA’s AGM in September and at SPATEX in February.
i FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
F PWL (PARTNERSHIP WORKING LTD) ( 0845 388 7801 :
www.partnership-working.co.uk
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