Beginners

Guide to
Tendering
Date: July 2017 VERSION 0.1
www.tendersinfo.com PUBLICATION OF TENDERSINFO
Greetings!!

This guide is an excerpt on essentials of tendering from Tenders Info - a leading global
procurement facilitator that connects you to the latest government tender
opportunities online from all the sectors across the globe.

With the shift in the government's way of procuring goods and services, tendering for
government contracts have become highly competitive. Businesses today consider
tendering as an essential strategy for their business development. However, making your
business stand among the top-notch organizations that effectively work with the
government is a challenging task.

Even though by having the most insightful knowledge about the working of the
procurement industry, it can be hard to establish your market, especially in the initial stages,
where nobody knows you and your brand. Under such circumstances, bidding for too many
small value tenders leads to wastage of time and efforts.
One of the most common problems that businesses come across is finding the
appropriate tender opportunity to bid for. Bidding for small as well as low-value
contract often lessen their chances of winning government tenders. As a result,
finding the right opportunity for bidding can be a daunting process for the suppliers
especially when they are new to the market and are trying to make a footprint among other
businesses.

This guide provides the readers with best practices, guidance and important checklists
especially for the suppliers, that they need to keep in mind at the different stages of
tendering process. It throws light on some of the important areas of the tendering
process that the supplier may find essential when they decide to go for their next Bid. It
provides guidance on how they can improvise on their capabilities to bid effectively as well
as make their business tender ready by articulating essential elements into their business
practices.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 1

Contents
Introduction

What is Government Tendering All About?

How to find right opportunities to bid for?
Participating in Government Tenders
How to write a winning Tender Response?
How are tenders Evaluated?
Why do Tenders fail?
How to improvise on your chances of winning Government Tenders?
Conclusion

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 2

Introduction
The government is the single largest procurer of the good
works and services globally. Every year businesses are
being awarded billion$ of contracts from the
government for buying their goods and services they offer.
With the most obvious benefit of cost saving that
government procurement offers, the federal marketplace
happens to be the most lucrative business opportunity for
most of the small as well as the large businesses. The
government procurement is managed and governed by the
procurement guidelines of every country government. This may vary from country to country and
within the country government i.e. state as well as the local government.

Tendering for government contracts allow the businesses to take its first step towards creating a
path to sustainable business development and continuous long-term revenue. There have been
businesses that solely rely on government tender opportunities for their business growth.

With large businesses organization trying to seek the government opportunities, the tendering
scenario has become highly competitive. The suppliers are being forced to constantly re-think and
upgrade their bidding strategies. In the era of global competition, tapping the right business
opportunities is highly dependent on finding the relevant information.

Another leap frog in the procurement function is that of Digitization of the procurement processes.
Digital request for proposals, e-signature, online supplier management and contract negotiations are
leading to technological relinquish of the organization. The paradigm shift in the governments way of
procurement has brought the procurement professional on the threshold of change. Only those
businesses that have operational expertise to integrate these major changes have been able to
stand the storm of change and mitigate the risk.

In Our first publication on Beginners Guide to Tendering well look at some basic yet important
questions that the supplier may encounter in his initially innings of the government tendering,
providing him with robust solutions that might help him to make his business tender ready and
articulate some essential elements into his bidding practices.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 3

 WHAT IS
GOVERNMENT
TENDERING
ALL ABOUT?

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 4

Government Tender commonly refers to a formal offer made to the supplier to provide his good
works and services to buyer. A buyer can be an individual, organization, government authority or a
private company. As defined by Investopedia, a tender usually refers to the process whereby
governments and financial institutions invite bids for large projects that must be submitted within a
finite deadline. The term also refers to the process whereby shareholders submit their shares or
securities in response to a takeover offer.

The Government institutions have a well-defined procurement process, that starts with opening
of tender, invitation to bid, submission of bid to the buyer, evaluation process that is
concluded with selection of the potential vendor.

There are 5 types of Tendering Opportunities

Open- Tendering opportunities: Under this, the buyer advertises his proposed project, and permits
as many contractors as are interested to apply for tender documents.

Selective Tendering opportunities: Under this, the buyer advertises his project and invites
contractors to apply, based on a selected list of contractors who will be invited to bid for the project.
Contractors applying are given a list of information they should supply about themselves to
pre-qualify.

Negotiated tendering opportunities: Under this, the buyer invites a contractor of his choice to
submit prices for a project. Usually this is for specialized work or when equipment is needed as an
extension of existing works, or for further work following a previous contract. Negotiation tendering
is extensively used in the engineering and construction industry.

Term Tendering opportunities: Term tendering normally used on major maintenance projects. It may
be awarded to a contractor to cover a range of different buildings in different locations. It is often
limited to a fixed time scale, although the needs of the client may often require this to be extended.

Serial Tendering opportunities: Under this, preparation of bid proposal is based on bill of quantities
or schedule work. The rates submitted can then be used to value works over a series of similar
projects, often for a fixed period following which the tendering procedure may be repeated.

Above are the methods used by the procuring entity to procure their required goods and services.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 5

GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT WORK FLOW

Basic Terminologies of
Tendering:

To understand the government

tendering procedure, it is important
to understand the terminologies
used in the tender document. Being
through with this term helps you
understand the what the buyer is
trying to convey by using a certain
term.

Listed below are few basic

terminologies used in the formal
government tender document.

Source: Linkedin

1. Bidder: Bidder is an individual that makes goods available for the buyer or the consumers. Most
of the procurement organization consists of a bidders list or Suppliers database from whom
they purchase their goods and services.

2. National Competitive Bidding: This is one of the methods of procurement where in the
procurement entity or the government decides that only the domestic suppliers or contractors
can Participate in the tenders. The national competitive bidding is undertaken to encourage the
domestic companies to participate in government businesses.

3. International Competitive Bidding: The process entails the procurement entity to internationally
publish their requirement of goods and services. International competitive bidding is undertaken
with the objective to bring in the foreign state of art technologies to the home countries. The
contract award is then awarded to the potential supplier with acceptable terms and conditions.

The procurement entity in such kind of arrangements gets opportunities to evaluate the best
suppliers from the international market. ICB procedures are normally employed for contracts with
estimated values that exceed minimum condition set at the time of procurement plan preparation.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 6

Basic Terminology of Tendering:

1. Request for Information (RFI): As defined by Investopedia, a Request for information is a

standard business process; whose purpose is to collect written information about the capabilities of
various suppliers. Normally it follows a format that can be used for comparative purposes. In addition
to gathering basic information, an RFI is often used as a solicitation sent to a broad base of potential
suppliers that helps them in building an appropriate tender strategy.

2. Request for Proposal (RFP): As defined by Investopedia, a Request for Proposal is a type of
bidding solicitation in which a company or organization announces that funding is available for a
project or program, and companies can place bids for the project's completion. A request for
proposal typically includes background on the issuing organization and its line of business. The
request sets out specifications describing the solution it seeks and evaluation criteria disclosing how
proposals are graded. Requests for proposals may include a statement of work describing tasks to be
performed by the winning bidder and a timeline for providing finished work.

3. Request for Quotation (RFQ): As defined by Investopedia, a request for quote (RFQ) is a type
of procurement solicitation in which a company asks all the suppliers to offer a quote for the
completion of a specific task or project. An RFQ is usually the initial step for submitting an RFP, in
which the bidders are asked to offer a more comprehensive price quote. However, RFQs may be
submitted as an attachment to an RFP. An RFQ is typically used when products and services are
standard or off-the-shelf, which allows the soliciting company to compare the various bids easily.

One thing should be noted is A quote received in response to an RFQ is not an offer, and the
government cannot accept it to create a binding contract. The purchase order is an offer by the
government to a vendor/ supplier to purchase goods or services according to the terms and
conditions. A contract is awarded when a vendor accepts the offer.

4. Invitation for Bidding (IFB): Companies and organizations give in-depth specifications of projects
and invite contractors to bid for their various projects. Because the focus of the invitation for bid is
on the bidder's price for project completion, there is less emphasis on the bidder introducing its own
ideas. This separates the IFB from a request for proposal (RFP)

5. Expression of Interest (EOI): As defined by your dictionary, an Expression of interest is a call A

call to potential providers of goods and/or services to register interest in supplying them. Commonly
a document describing requirements or specifications and seeking information from potential
providers that demonstrate their ability to meet those requirements.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 7

6. Letter of Intent (LOI): As defined by Investopedia, letter of intent (LOI) is a term sheet that
formalizes key negotiations that are underway. A letter of intent (LOI) is a suppliers intention to
enter a contract with the buying authority at a future date. It is not a legally binding agreement, it is
just a formal offer that has can be accepted by the supplier at a future date.

7. Pre-qualification: As defined by Business dictionary, a pre-qualification is a preliminary stage in the

bidding process. where it is determined if an applicant has the requisite resources and experience to
complete the job as required. In other words, Screening of potential contractors, suppliers, or
vendors (based on factors such as experience, financial ability, managerial ability, reputation, work
history, etc.) to develop a list of qualified bidders who will receive the invitation-to-bid (ITB)
documents.

Knowing the terminology enables the supplier to clearly understand the buyers ask. Understanding
the basic terminologies will help you make sense of the tender process and save you from making
mistakes of misinterpretation in your tender proposals.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 8

 HOW TO
FIND RIGHT
OPPORTUNITIES
TO BID FOR?

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 9

Federal contracting offers tremendous opportunities for sales and long- term revenues. However,
finding that right opportunity matching your organization's core competencies and experience can
be a daunting process for the supplier.

Today for businesses that are interested in pursuing the federal opportunities have many options
available for them to showcase their businesses to the potential buyer. They may get themselves
registered with the contracting agencies or affiliated agencies that help them find the right
opportunities to bid for. There are also other procurement information providing portals like
Tenders info, that ease your work providing you daily opportunity alerts delivered right into your
mail box. These agencies functions as a facilitator for the supplier that effectively communicates
to them procurement opportunities and vendors requirement along with the contract value.

This is an opportunity identification stage for the supplier, to move on, he should consider working
with a consultant who can drive the bidding process unit he gets familiar with the government
procurement function.

Listed below are some of the important ways through which you can find the right bidding
opportunities to start with your bidding journey:

1. Look for Contract Opportunities on Government Websites:

Many upcoming contract opportunities in the form of tender/ contract notices are published on the
government portal regularly. You can get yourself Register on the portal and find relevant tender
opportunities from your business areas. However, you can also take help of agencies and organization
that may ease your work by providing daily alerts of the upcoming tenders delivered right into your
mail box. Keeping track of upcoming tender opportunities means you wont miss out business
opportunities and start your bidding process as early as possible.

2. Making Connections:
Networking is a crucial step for the suppliers who are infants into the federal market place. You will
have to develop a strong connection with the members of the department you are attempting to
serve. This process comes even before you decide to respond to the request for proposal. Try
entering in partnerships with the prime vendors of the government which will help you learn and gain
knowledge of the market functioning.

3. Tender Advertisement in Local Newspapers:

Government also publish the procurement/ tender notices in the local and regional newspapers to
ensure that it reaches to a large mass of business groups. Tender notice ads specifically mention all
the details, most importantly the contract value and the scope of work. This helps the companies in
making their mind i.e. to go for bidding or to not go for it.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 10

4. Look for Subcontracting Opportunities:
Receiving a subcontracting opportunity is as valuable as a receiving a direct contract. It is a great
initial step to enter in partnership with prime contractors that work for the government from your
business areas. Working as subcontractor gives you an edge to market your services to the right
government agency and to larger government contractors maximizing your opportunities to leverage
your business profile.

5. Supplier Registration:
All the government institutions and organizations have supplier database. Find the sector pertinent
to your business and register yourself with that department to help you find the right opportunities
for biding.

6. Subscribing to other Tender information portal:

Every government authority publishes more than 1000 tenders every day. Having a track of all the
1000 opportunities is tedious process. However, subscribing to services that do this work for you and
provide you with daily alerts of tender opportunities from your business areas is a good idea. These
organization collect and collate the tender information from 1000 of regional newspapers,
government sources and provide you with daily updates of tendering opportunities. This helps you in
saving your time as well money and help you concentrate more on bidding for those opportunities.
You may find huge market places working as an infomediary of the government procurement
opportunity.

Finding the right opportunities to bid for are some of the common hurdles that every supplier face
at his initial stages of bid processes. However, these hurdles tend to wither away with getting the
relevant and timely information from your business areas to bid for. Remember tendering is a
competition and making yourself stand out is largely depends on successfully bidding for right
opportunities. Above mentioned are some of the key gateways to your quench of right business
opportunities, choosing the right one will land your business at new heights.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 11

 PARTICIPATING IN
GOVERNMENT
TENDERS

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 12

Federal Government market place being one of the lucrative business, participating consistently in
the bidding activities makes increases your chances to win government tenders.

Companies entering the tendering processes at an initial stage often lose even after they try their
best to meet all the compliances of the authority. However, along with delivering the work
effectively there are myriad factors that needs to be considered when you decide to go for bidding.
There is a lot of homework that needs to be done on the suppliers part that may convince the
evaluator that you can deliver the scope of work more effectively than other competing bidders.

Listed below are some of the key guidelines that the supplier needs to bear in mind while
participating in government tenders:

1. Deciding to Bid/No-Bid:
Even before you respond to the request of proposal, it is important for the supplier to assess the
contract criteria thoroughly and make a checklist of the important criteria. Practicing bid/ No bid
decision rather than randomly selecting to bid, results in more successful tender. Only bidding for the
contracts that are beneficial for your companies and are achievable helps you channelize resources
to fewer yet profitable contracts.

2. Make Yourself Bid Ready:

This means making your business capable to undertake tendering. Submission of the bid often
handy is your past projects, financial statements, quality assurance, qualifying certification, relevant
product case studies etc. This is a proof to the tendering authority that your business is fully
compliant with the asked requirement and eligible to participate in the tender.

3. Understanding the Contract Structure:

Government solicitation documents and contract notices are both technical and commercial
documents that are generally organized with a uniform contract format. The contract structure
outlines.

The conditions of the contract,

Definition of key terms,
Deadline of contract completion,
Party contracting with their address
Details of subcontracting arrangement
Payment details
Key financers
key milestones achieved

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 13

4. The Contract Value Criteria:
As for all the government tenders, there is a minimum turnover criterion for the whichever
opportunities you choose to bid for. The buyer may request to share your turnover details as part of
mandatory requirement. This may differ from tender to tender and from buyer to buyer. To build the
confidence in the mind of the evaluator you must be able to demonstrate the turnover double the
value of the contract.You can also partner with funding companies or financers to support you with
finances to participate in bid execution. Therefore, your financial statement marks as one of the
important criteria while selecting the bid you choose.

5. Make Yourself Stand Out of The Competition:

The evaluators are always looking for some added value and space for innovations. One way you can
stand out of the crowd is by addressing the core problems. Convincing the buyer that have a robust
solution that can ease the problems of the buyers will make you stand out of the crowd.

6. Organize Your Bid:

Every bid is different and varies largely with every previous contract you choose to bid for. So, it
advisable for the supplier to decide and spend time on organizing the responses to the tender along
with the specification and evaluation criteria of the contract notice. It is good exercise on the part
of the supplier to create a bid checklist and provide all the credentials and important certifications
of your company.

Even when bearing all these individual elements in your mind you should be able to persuade the
evaluator that you are better than all the competing bidders. It is always to keep in mind that
tendering landscape has become highly competitive and being ahead of the competition, is the need
of an hour.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 14

 PRINCIPLES
OF WRITING A
WINNING TENDER
RESPONSE
Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 15
Only after you have analyzed the request for proposal and decided to bid for, you can start with the
process to formulate a formal tender response. As a supplier, you should draft your response in such
a way that will make you stand out of the crowd. Remember, tender response is more than just a
business proposal, it is an opportunity to market your business to the right contracting authority.

A request for tender comprises of some important criteria that the supplier needs to address. These
key requirements should be stated clearly as well as should be convincing enough for the buyer to
select you as a preferred supplier for the contract.

Structuring of your tender response is a marketing opportunity for the supplier. Therefore, clear
and a convincing tender response have greater chances of winning government contract. It is
always advisable for the supplier to carefully evaluated the tender opportunity before
formulating a tender response.

Listed below are certain principles that will benefit you in writing an effective tender response:

1. Planning your tender proposal:

Call for a meeting with your bid team to go ahead with the proposal. Plan scope of your tender
response. Make the checklist of all the important components of the tender document and develop
a strategy to address each of them effectively. While planning a response consider influential factors
such as buyers profile, their track records and completed projects.

2. Follow the Format:

Some government tender notifies a certain format of the tender response. Specification may include
word limitations, required response templates, submission in the given file format etc. These formats
are designed specifically by the tendering authority to help them ease their evaluation process.
Therefore, it is advisable for the supplier to structure its tender response in the asked format.

3. Make your communication easy:

Start your tender response with a company introduction, your purpose, your anchor statement, your
bidding rationale etc. Avoid using technical jargons, instead use a clear and easy language to make the
buyer understand your business. Remember the easier you make for the buyer to understand your
business, the more are your chances to win the tender.

4. Provide all the relevant details:

The tender document demands for certain important information of your business systems. Provide
with all the relevant documents asked for in the tender document.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 16

The tendering authority usually demands for documents that exhibit your;
Experience
Past projects
Financial soundness
Your business social value
Your product profiles
Employees strengths
Extra Accreditation etc.

Organize all your relevant documents properly, and make sure that you attach all the required
documents exhibiting your successful track records. Attach documents of the past projects along
with experiences of your client satisfaction. Providing extra information such as affiliation or
accreditation certificates also gives you an extra edge over the competing bidders.

5. Address the essential Criteria:

Make sure your response meets the buyers selection criteria effectively. Feed the buyer with relevant
examples on how your business meets its expectation rather than simply describing your work
process. Highlight your important credentials, provide them with major verifiable experience etc.
Identify the pain areas of buyer and explain him how your services are the robust solution to their
problems. Remember to cater to the buyer needs in your tender response.

6. Selection of right references:

Choose your references wisely, include the references of only those customers that know your
product as well as are regular users of your product. Take the permission of your clients before
including their references into the response. References are the best way to highlight the credibility
of your business providing you with the competitive edge over the competitors.

7. Proof Read:
Proof read your tender document for silly mistakes and spelling errors. you can also get it done by a
professional copy editor to avoid mistakes.

8. Meet the deadline:

Late tender submissions are usually rejected from acceptance so make sure that you are ready before
the closing date of the tender.

Apart from the mandatory compliance, the evaluator also looks for some added value in your tender
document. Make sure you provide them with best examples for your works and innovation brought
by you solving the buyers problem. Above all a clear and error free tender response is always held in
high regards by the evaluator.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 17

 HOW ARE
TENDERS
EVALUATED?

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 18

Following to the invitation to tender, tenderers submit their responses to the tendering authorities.
Tender response may include all the important documents of how the suppliers services will fulfil the
desired requirements of the buyer. Once all the tender responses are received, evaluation process
begins, to identify the preferred supplier for the contract award.

The evaluation team now sits for the careful assessment of the bid proposals. The evaluation team is
the team of experts that involves; technical experts, financial experts, purchasing experts and if
required legal and commercial experts. To start with, they thoroughly go through the proposal
making sure the bid is compliant and all the important documents are properly attached. As the bid
proposals are important commercial documents that are highly organized, they have a uniform
pattern. The evaluation process also has a defined pattern and all the bid proposals are evaluated in
the same set pattern.

A formal evaluation process may consist of the following criteria:

Financial Evaluation
Technical Evaluation
Capability Evaluation
Service Evaluation
Contract Award

These criteria are then given weightage according to their importance, and each tender response is
given score ranging from 0 to 10. 0 represents the lowest score whereas 10 represents the highest
possible score.

Financial Evaluation:
The financial expert of the evaluation team will weigh the benefit of your tender proposal against the
entire cost of the tender. Your financial statement will provide proof or assurance of the financial
soundness of your organization. The assesses may consider the wider benefits of doing business with
you and the benchmark for excellence.

Technical Evaluation:
Technical assessment represents the response of the bidder towards the technical aspects of the
contracts. The technical evaluation scrutinizes the capability of the suppliers product characteristics,
availability of key resources, product feasibility, innovations and added value. On technical
background, your bid response should demonstrate how your product can meet the clients
requirement on basis of above parameters.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 19

 Capability Evaluation:
This evaluation criteria will evaluate your clients experience, system management and procedures,
resources, claimed manpower, geographical coverage etc. this will help buyer to gauge the suppliers
working process, his strengths and weaknesses against the proposed tender requirement.

Service Evaluation:
The evaluation team will conduct a detailed assessment of the suppliers services ranging from his
experience, resource structure to service delivery model. This evaluation criteria will give a fair idea
to the buyer regarding how the mobilization of suppliers services will meet the buyers requirement.

Contract Award:
After evaluating all the received proposals, the team will give its recommendation on each of the
received bid proposals and will announce the winner. Both successful and the unsuccessful bidders
are notified with the results. The unsuccessful tenderers will receive a feedback from the contracting
authority as to why they could not make up to the contract award. The winner and the contracting
authority then set up a meeting to discuss the pre-start-up activity and other negotiations to start
with the work.

Once you submit your tender response against the invitation to tender, the contracting authority will
evaluate your proposal on above mentioned criteria i.e. financial, technical, capability and services. All
the contracting authority produce a scorecard for all the tender proposals after evaluation this might
help you understand where you stand in the evaluation process. In cases where you lose the
contract, you should always request the authority to provide you with constructive feedback.
Constructive feedbacks help you fill your gap areas and improvise on your bidding strategies.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 20

 WHY DO
TENDERS
FAIL?
Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 21
M ost of the businesses out there fail to tap business opportunities from the public tenders.
There can be many reasons for the failure of a tender bid, it can be an administrative error like
late submissions, misinterpretation of some crucial terms in the tender documents, or it can be silly
mistakes of spelling errors, not signing of the documents etc. Losing a government opportunity is
frustrating for a supplier this might often lead on his part to give up on participating in government
tenders altogether. However, holding such a notion is the wrong idea as public tenders offer
long-term business with low overhead cost and high revenue. Failure to grasp the complexities and
challenges involved in the tendering process is what business need to address while they plan to bid
for a competitive tender next time.

According to the statistics published by the European public sector 80% of the tenders fail due
to the price concept. Though the price is a critical criterion its not the only sole reason why
businesses bidding for tenders fail. One of the reasons why businesses fail to tender effectively is
the planning process and failure to undertake consultations from right expertise wherever required.

There is a need to understand that submitting a tender bid is more than submitting a business
proposal, it requires a greater magnitude of knowledge and detailed
planning of every execution step.

Below listed are the principle rationale that may form the ground basis failure of successful tender
submission for most of the businesses

1. The Price phenomenon:

Every business that is seeking to grow and earn revenue through government tenders are watchful
of the total cost of tendering. There is no golden rule that quoting low will award you tender it might
also cost you the tender. Therefore, carefully review and evaluate every bid to make sure that the
prices quoted are complete and accurate. Ambiguities or incomplete pricing will generally lead to a
rejection of the bid or proposal. Remember that a fundamental tenant of public procurement is that
bidders should be afforded fair and equal opportunity to compete.

2. Bidding for the Wrong Project:

You dont have to bid for every project that you come across. It can be enticing to participate in every
tender that comes at your desk. Instead be selective in your approach selecting the right project to
bid is vital for maintaining a profitable business.

3. Failing to read the fine Print:

You need to read the document carefully to understand the buyers requirement. Neglecting to
provide a required information, gives the buyer a good reason to toss your proposal.

4. Submittal Deadline:
Your Solicitation will include specific time/ date/location for submission. Failing to submit on given
time may get your proposal rejected from the acceptance.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 22

5. Requesting Clarification:
If you are in doubt as to the meaning of a bid term, then follow the procedure to seek clarification. It
is advisable generally, not to rely on oral representations. Seek clarifications in writing if the terms are
unclear. There are also pre-submission meetings held wherein you can seek clarification for your
doubts to avoid any misinterpretations of your terms.

6. Bidding through Proper entity:

The bidding entity should itself be a qualified pursuant to country law. It is not advisable to rely on
affiliated companies for guidance

7. Failing to specify sub-contractors:

The solicitation may require the disclosure and/or certain qualifications of subcontractors to be used
or offered to meet requirements of the project. If so, you need to provide this information and proof
of the subcontractor qualifications must be included in the submission.

8. Making it all about you:

Apart from talking only about the company, talk about your product and results. Talk about What will
the customer get out of what you are offering, and how it will benefit the customer. Make sure
everything that you have written is what customers want to hear and not what you want to say.

9. Failing to sell yourself:

Differentiate yourself from your competitors and convince the buyer that your proposal offers
something that outshines competing offers. Be specific about what makes your proposal unique, new
or different.

10. Proofread:
Always proof read your document before submission. A proposal filled with errors gives the
impression of your oversight approach as well as less detailed oriented that could ultimately hamper
your credibility.

11. Feedback:
Regardless of whether you win the bid, always request for the feedback. Always ask for a constructive
feedback about where your services lacked to comply with the buyers requirement this will help you
know the exact reason of why you failed as well as help you improve future chances of winning
tenders.

These are fundamental building blocks that might prove to be substantially beneficial to increase your
chances of winning tenders and can be applied to majority of your bidding decisions.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 23

 HOW TO IMPROVE
YOUR CHANCES
OF WINNING
GOVERNMENT
TENDERS?
Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 24
With improvement in the government procurement practices, effective methods of contract
management by the suppliers are also gaining importance. The perspective for winning a government
contract has undergone a paradigm shift from a simple bid proposal to a planned and constructive
document that is to be managed effectively.

The bidding process for government contracts are often rendered to be long, fierce and costly
moreover, losing a contract to the competitor is more frustrating for supplier. However, improvising
on your capabilities to bid effectively depends on how you correct your wrongs, as there is no
instruction manual that guarantees you with winning government tender.

Working with government organization needs lot of work, it requires that extra efforts to
make your business land among those top -notch organizations that are effectively
working with government.
Listed below are few key best practices that might help you improve your chances of winning
government contracts next time you decide to bid for a competitive tender.

1. Bidding Smartly:
All the tender opportunities that come to your desk are not meant to be tapped. Therefore, one of
the good practices that businesses need to follow is to analyses the right opportunities to bid for.
Bidding for all the tenders not only lower your chances of winning but also increase your overhead
cost and wastage of time and efforts. Hence, it is important to bid for projects that will complement
your companys strengths and assure you with continuous and long-term revenues.

2. Prevent Pipelining contract:

Prevent pipelining of contract opportunities. It is advisable to put limitations on contract you add to
your system. It is okay to have few contract opportunities as it is easy to monitor few then to loosely
handle too many. Therefore, once you add up a contract make sure you eliminate other unwanted
contract opportunities.

3. Know your Buyer:

One of the most important thing for the supplier is to know his buyer's profile thoroughly. It is
important for the supplier to take the notice of buyers working as well as procurement process. This
will give you a competitive edge to demonstrate your product and services in the way that will best
benefit the buyer requirement highlighting your selling point.

4. Create a Bid document library:

Having a bid library containing information needed to create a bid can help suppliers not only save
time but also ensure you provide up-to-date and valuable information in the proposal. The content of
the library might differ from supplier to supplier but should contain documents most requested by
the buyers and frequently asked questions.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 25

5. Look for Teaming:
This is one piece of advice for the small and new contractors to find team mates or strategic alliances
with the businesses they share a good compatibility with. Teaming up may reduce your risk, extend
your experience and give much deeper insights into the industry. Teaming up has becoming an in-
creasing trend today as, most of the procurement organizations undertake teaming up for larger gov-
ernment contracts.

6. Go an extra mile to meet the Compliance:

The suppliers must stay on the top of the compliance requirement within the industry and ensure
that they meet every single one. Checking the compliance needs of the buyers is essential to read the
RFP properly before preparing for the bid. Add some a little extra valuable information other than re-
quired information to make your proposal stand out in the competition.

7. Gain industry recognized accreditations:

One of the most important thing buyer looks for is any accreditations that the suppliers hold in the
industry. This can be both country specific or globally. Having such extra qualifications can give suppli-
er a competitive edge over other bidders and might increase your chances of winning tenders.

8. Perform constructive Reviews:

This is one of the best practices followed by the successful procurement organization is to formulate
constructive reviews of their proposals. It is advisable to have a team of executives and subject matter
experts that will look at the proposals with the fresh eyes and invariably put in efforts to conclude
the proposal with constructive recommendations accompanied with every problem.

The above mentioned are some of the key elements that the suppliers need to improve his chances
of winning the contracts.Therefore, to get started it is important to figure out your areas of strengths
and expertise and upgrade it from time to time to increase your chances of winning contracts.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 26

The beginners guide to tendering is to help you through your initially inning of tendering processes.
Businesses today undertake tendering for myriad reasons, it can to expand their businesses, increase
their market share, have constant work in hand, reduce marketing cost etc.

This guide provides you will some helpful tips that are equally important for you to mark an initial
foot-print in your tendering journey. These guidelines will not only help you to drive your bid
effectively but also help you in improvising your current bid strategies in lines with the current
scenarios of the bidding process.

Tenders Info have been publishing such guidelines every month to help potential suppliers to bid
effectively. Our next volume outlines the bid submission journey of the supplier, providing guidelines
on responding to various kind of bid proposals. For more tender specific content you can also follow
our blogs for more tender specific content.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 27

 About the Author:
Shivani Paturkar is Market Research and Analyst at Tenders Info managing research assignments on
International Public Procurement Domain. An Expert in analysing Public Procurement trends
Shivani has been delivering Sectorial and Country based Economic and Market Reports for
International Companies. She is a regular contributor to Blogs on International Government
Procurement Trends and guiding Global companies and New Entrants with information to Bid
Successfully in tenders. A Post graduate in Development economics dealing with economic aspects
of the development process in low-income countries from Mumbai University.

Beginners Guide to Government Tendering 28

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