Background
Our client, a cleaning company in the South West, had been working with a housing association for several years. When the contract came up for renewal, the housing association were required to run a tender process in compliance with procurement regulations. Our client was therefore required to submit a tender, which they had little experience of.
The cleaning company contacted Tender Victory to obtain help with this tender and also to gain training on public sector tendering, so they could start winning more contracts in this way.
Challenges
When faced with an important tender to submit, the main challenges facing this new client were lack of bidding experience and lack of knowledge of procurement and tendering.
- The client had tendered before, for another client, but had been unsuccessful.
- They did not know how to improve their bid responses or how the bidding process worked.
- They wanted to have a better understanding of how and where to find tenders and what to do when a suitable tender was published.
- They wanted to understand how to manage the tender process and what to include in their responses to give them the highest scores.
Implementation
Our approach to support and upskill the client’s team included a blend of our services, delivering training and also bid writing services.
Tender Victory was engaged to write and submit the tender for the housing association. To complement this and develop the in-house business development team, we also recommended that they attend one of our quarterly workshops on tender writing, to better understand what is required in tenders in order to be prepared for subsequent opportunities.
We also subsequently delivered a further workshop to help support them in navigating tender portals to find and assess potential tender opportunities.
Result
The cleaning company has now submitted two tenders with Tender Victory’s support. Their housing association tender achieved the highest quality score of all bids!
They have established systems and processes to ensure they do not miss out on any further opportunities.
They have put in place the foundations of a strong bid library which they are developing by investing in relevant accreditations, systems and procedures.
Their team is now conversant with the public sector process and are evaluating each opportunity for suitability.
Summary
Our client was keen to understand the whole bidding process and have set themselves up for success by both utilising the services Tender Victory provides through writing and reviewing, as well as investing in and educating their team on how the public sector bidding process works and what needs to be included to ensure they achieve the highest scores.
The client team has become more conversant and confident in the tender process in a matter of weeks and are well on their way to winning their first tender!
At the time of writing, we are awaiting the outcome of their latest ITT submission!