Case Study – Writing a winning plumbing and maintenance tender for a local Council

By Jason Cooney, Director – The Tender Team

Quick facts:

• The Tender Team was engaged to assist a local plumber based in Victoria to write a tender to the Council due in 14 days.
• It was the first time they had tendered although they had held the contract for over 12 years.
• They had limited documentation, were not confident in responding to RFPs, and had an excellent reputation with Council.
• Our plumbing client also had 0 reporting or IT capabilities.
• Our team helped our client prepare the bid and they were successfully reappointed to the panel with a 92% quality score.

The situation: A plumbing contractor already servicing Council is seeking reappointment to the panel

Our client was a plumbing contractor who had been servicing the local council for the past 12 years. They had a very good relationship with the council. However, when they were appointed to the contract 12 years ago, they didn’t have to go through the tender process. They had strong relationships with the on-site supervisors and were an experienced plumbing team who had achieved all KPIs and provided an excellent service to the council.

Given there was no formal tender process 12 years ago, they didn’t have an explicit contract in place with the council outside of the standard work orders and building works process. They also had safety documentation in place however it wasn’t up to the latest ISO standards.

The council represented approximately 60% of our customers’ revenue. For our client, the plumbing contractor, this was a must-win tender opportunity and would have resulted in them losing significant revenue if they were unsuccessful.

The challenge: No safety documentation, no methodology and a lack of reporting and IT systems for our client

There a number of challenges including:

1. The RFP and tender requirements asked for ISO certification or, if not ISO certification, the appropriate safety documentation for providing plumbing and maintenance works. Our clients didn’t have any safety documentation and there wasn’t enough time to get ISO certification in place.
2. The tender required reporting processes to be in place, including photographic evidence of each job, updates via iPad or other alternatives, and some sort of software management system. Our client didn’t have a software management system in place. They didn’t have a CRM in place nor did they have any photographic or other equipment, such as an iPad, in place for their personnel who were conducting maintenance works for the council. This was a challenge as they needed to put it all in place to ensure they complied with the reporting and communication requirements.
3. The council was looking for a more professional feel in general from their contractors. There were a number of contractors who serviced other councils across Victoria, would be bidding for the contract, and were much larger and had, you could argue, better infrastructure and account management procedures in place. Our client was a smaller operation so they didn’t have that in place to date although they did provide excellent plumbing service works and were very honest and direct in their pricing.

The Tender Team solution: We brough our client up to a professional level, implemented a new IT system, created branding and a robust internal account management functionality

1. Our team firstly created the supporting documentation for the ISO certification. We also engaged with a specialist ISO consultant to help the client start the process of getting accredited. We provided this evidence (i.e., the SWMS and the JSAs, as well as other documentation and a work health and safety management plan as part of the tender) as well as a letter from the consultant confirming that they had commenced an engagement.
2. In addition, we worked with a software provider to develop a software solution that was an off-the-shelf solution. The benefit of the off-the-shelf solution was that they could start using it straight away and we managed to put in a process whereby there were reporting processes in place. There were photographs of works that would be taking place and an automatic communication reporting process directly with the council. We started the implementation process of this, as an incumbent provider to the council, so that the council could see that we had started the work and we’re implementing it. We also did this to ensure compliance with the IT requirements and wrote about this in the tender, including the fact that we were using the tender as an opportunity to improve our processes. We provided evidence in the tender through screenshots of how the reporting system would work and ensure that it complied with all their requirements. It was a national state-of-the-art reporting system, and it didn’t take a lot of financial commitment from our client.
3. We upgraded the clients general marketing and graphic to a professional level. This included developing infographics and a well presented tender document as well as bringing their account management processes, case studies and other content up to scratch.

The outcome: We help our client retain this must win local government contract and prepare for future tenders

Our client was successfully reappointed with strong positive feedback from the local Council. They were also more expensive than other businesses from a pricing perspective, however, their high qualitative scores outweighed these on the scoring criteria and they were appointed for another 3 years with a two year option. 

Our team of expert bid and tender writers helps plumbing and maintenance contractors write plumbing tenders and respond to government and private sector RFPs across Australia.