Do you want to top the tender shortlist?
It was one of those moments when I realised that my greatest strength was also my greatest weakness. “I can’t believe how well you simplify things!”, I said. “I can’t believe how well you complicate things!”, he replied.
And it wasn’t just me. Over the preceding days we had both read and evaluated many tenders. These had been received from major corporations bidding for a high profile multi-million dollar government transformation program. All of them had strived to impress us with their sophisticated solutions for our needs. Some of them had.
From this experience reading responses, here are 8 great tendering techniques to help you get on top of the pile.
1. Submit on time.
2. Write with the evaluation criteria in mind.
3. Answer the question. No more. No less.
4. Retain the prescribed look of the response document.
5. Be clear about your capabilities (and where you have gaps).
6. Respect government probity obligations.
7. Provide case studies of clearly relevant experience.
8. Recognise the public service is not deliberately awkward.
Government evaluation of tenders is a different kettle of fish because it is a thorough, slow, deliberate and a highly analytical process. Traditional business-to-business sales techniques are far less effective in this environment.
Mensard will give you competitive advantage by sharing how to tender effectively in the public sector.
How effectively are you investing your time on tenders? Call us for a no obligation conversation.