In conjunction with the previous blog post, here are a few more tender response plans and systems that are often asked for in any worthwhile tender;

Marketing Plan

Not all companies or organisations responding to a tender may come equipped with a marketing plan. As the name suggests, this plan documents all marketing (promotional, etc) activities that would raise awareness of the tender’s purpose and hopefully create feelings of positive acknowledgement amongst a particular target market or the public at large.

Often, these plans are required when the work or products to be supplied are conducted in a public environment, such as vending machines near public transport or construction activities that may possibly have an effect on the local environment (positive or otherwise). A marketing plan can sometimes be prioritised last in the face of more practical requirements by the tender proposal team as their effects are harder to sometimes measure. With the Tender Team’s assistance, we can help to develop your marketing plan with the same level of care and emphasis as any other document in your submission.

A marketing plan should be utilised to help the selection panel or procuring team demonstrate how your particular company or business is acutely aware of your actions outside of simply fulfilling a contract. They show your potential business partner that your company organisation does not operate in a bubble and accounts for things that even the procuring team did not realise at the creation of their tender itself.

As always, having a marketing plan works through these contingencies with a set of procedures to either proactively create a positive impression of the tender’s purpose or effects or to minimise damage from both expected and unexpected sources. Activities that are often adopted in a marketing plan include;

• Promotional Staff
• Signs and other promo materials
• Media advertisements

Construction/Operation Schedule

Depending on the tenderer’s nature of their supplied products and/or services, a construction/operation schedule is a document that is surprisingly not always asked for in a tender. These schedules show the selection panel/procuring team how you intend to perform all aspects of the task itself. It is more often than not a logical series of steps that can be followed from start to finish, documenting the time and resources required for each progressive stage.

In many engineering and construction tenders, the selection panel/procuring team will often require this schedule in order to assess your tender proposal on a technical basis, judging whether you have logically given enough time and resources to successful complete each step without unnecessary risk or failure.

The Tender Team aims to act as a second opinion on many of these schedules, depending on their technical complexity. We ensure that the basics of the schedule are perfect and are written adequately in an easy to understand manner without compromising the schedule’s technicality.

From our past experience, many of our clients often devise this schedule as a list of activities or even a bar chart categorising the following aspects;

• Day and time of performance period
• Materials required
• Reports to be provided
• Contingencies for unintended delays

Environmental Management Plan

For many engineering and construction tenders, the work that is being offered usually involves making an impact upon the local environment. This impact can be categorised, depending on the person being asked, as either negative, positive or both.

An environmental management plan sets out all policies and procedures for generally minimising damage or other negative influences on the local ecosystem. By-products from projects being constructed, maintained or improved are numerous and with assistance from the Tender Team, we ensure that all of your tenderer’s bases are covered when it comes to foreseeing possible sources of damage to the environment.

Some of the environmental safeguards implemented by our clients include;

• Guidelines on distances, times and proximity to sensitive areas when completing activities designated under contract
• Sustainability of project resources and assessment of their environmental effects
• Adequate waste procedures concerning their removal
• Appropriate initiatives that are practical in minimising, reversing or preventing environmental damage

At the Tender Team, we are constantly aware of what environmental damages can occur in our client’s intended activities and so we endeavour to ensure that our experience is applied to help maintain the nearby environment.

For many tenders issued (government, in particular), the tenderer will often need to provide Tender response systems and plans. Below are some examples of tender response systems and plans that will greatly increase your tender win rates.

Quality Management System

There are many possible tender response systems and plans in government tenders that will require you to have implemented or be willing to implement a quality management system that applies to all aspects of the business. A QMS is a set of policies and procedures that ensure that the business provides products/service standards that align with customer expectations.

For many first time tenderers, however, the notion of paying thousands of dollars for a certified 3^rd party QMS seems unreasonable when there is never a guarantee you’d even win the tender. Here at the Tender Team, we prepare for these situations by providing a sensible QMS outline that demonstrates your confidence in having such a system in place quickly at the start of the contract, or during its implementation period.

We recognise that a QMS is unfeasible for those businesses responding to tenders the first time around and we ensure that any responses we provide in our tender proposals do their utmost to satisfy the selection panel/procuring team’s requirements.

Risk/Safety Management System

In line with OHS standards, the risk/safety management system amongst the many possible tender response systems and plans showcases how a tenderer does it best to mitigate risks in the business’s operations. These plans and systems are a must and are often asked about when the services required involve a fair amount of risk. Working with dangerous materials such as industrial chemicals, operating in hostile environments or even acknowledging extreme events are all included in a risk/safety management plan.

The Tender Team walks our clients through their business activities, analysing what risks to appropriately identify and how best to reduce their possibility of occurring. For the first time tenderers, it is useful to construct a table listing out

• Potential risks
• Characteristics
• Time and tools necessary to mitigate or rectify them.

The Risk/Safety Management System and Plans are always important to have for any tenderer as they apply to the business regardless of whether or not they are required as part of a tender response.

Business Continuity Plan

Sometimes, a tender will ask you about ‘what-if’ situations where staff are unavailable and resources are missing in order to fulfill a contracted product or service. The Business Continuity Plan covers these contingencies and with the Tender Team’s assistance, we tailor such a plan to your own specific needs and requirements.

Here are some common themes for this plan;

• Risk Management Planning
• Business Impact Analysis
• Incident Response Plan
• Recovery Plan

The aim of the Business Continuity Plan is to demonstrate that the tenderer is prepared in all situations to handle any significant impact (often negative) to the business’s operations while maintaining normal productivity and delivery. Should a specialised employee fall ill or decide to leave their position, this plan will account for that scenario and provide a guide for how best to address the sudden gap in skills required and steps for filling the gap as soon as possible.

The Tender Team proposes that regardless of whether or not a tender response requires this plan, our clients should always consider forming one anyway for future purposes. In doing so, we are able to assist our clients with not only winning new business but helping to protect the business itself.

Contract Management Plan

A contract is a primary document between two or more parties for any business arrangement. At the Tender Team, we are often asked in our tender proposals what Contract Management Plan the tenderer will have in place at the start and during the contract’s duration.

If the tender response is successful, our client will need this plan in order to clearly set out the procedures in place for performing the contract and also the steps to be taken when the contract stipulations become complicated or impossible to perform.

Here are some of the common areas these plans cover;

• Pricing Models
• Key Performance Indicators
• Contract Terms and Variations

These areas help both businesses to enforce their sides of the contract, keeping the business relationship harmonious while providing an avenue for dispute resolution should it ever be necessary. The Tender Team encourages our clients to take this plan in particular quite carefully and to acknowledge how best their needs will be protected as they perform their services for their own customers.

Key Performance Indicators, in particular, are often a source of conflict as a failure to meet them often leads to disputes between either party. In this case, the Tender Team will advise on ways our clients can protect themselves in this scenario while endeavoring to meet KPIs adequately in future.

Need more detailed assistance with tenders requiring any or all of these plans above?

Call the Tender Team today at +61 410 448 770 or email us at info@thetenderteam.com.au to enquire about our services with a free consultation or to answer any questions regarding tender response systems and plans.

For first-time tenderers, your first tender proposal may be a bit intimidating when you’ve been asked for documents that your business and yourself don’t already have. The Tender Team have provided a list of documents that are often common asked for in many tenders;

1) Occupational Health &Safety (OHS)/Work Health Safety (WHS) Policies

These policies are a tenderer’s guidelines when things go wrong in the workplace. They are designed not only to ensure that the procuring team/selection panel for your tender response is aware of how you will react in an emergency but how your provision of goods and services are done safely.

These documents are often certified by a third party to ensure compliance but even if not, a good OHS/WHS policy will always be looked upon favourably. When the tenderer is able to provide evidence that their operations will pose no additional threat to the procuring team/selection panel, their tender proposal is more highly considered.

For those new to bid proposals, tenders often include a requirement that those tenderers who don’t possess these policies will acquire them before the start of the contract. The Tender Team are able to advise you on these OHS/WHS requirements and ensure that your tender response is presented in the best possible light if these tender attachments are not yet available.

2) Insurance Certificates

• Workers Compensation
• Public Liability Insurance
• Professional Indemnity Insurance

These three certificates are often asked for depending on the nature of the goods or services that need to be provided to the procuring team/selection panel.

Attaching an appropriate Certificate of Currency to demonstrate your insurance cover is essential to many tenders. In further detail, insurance requirements can go further, asking for both head agreement and customer contract insurance certificates. The difference between these two categories is that depending on the size of a tenderer’s business, head agreement certificates cover the entirety of the business’s operations whereas the later certificates are required only in respect to the tender or related work already being carried out.

Not all organisations will have, or even need, insurance certificates for all of these categories. Our experts at the Tender Team will make you aware of what is required and have them included in the final tender proposal.

Insurance certificates however are often a given criterion for legal reasons and providing them as tender attachments demonstrates the seriousness of your business’s operations.

3) CVs

For many procuring team/selection panels, CVs are an easy method to analyse the personnel that will be provided in response to the tender. The Tender Team are adept at including the most relevant CVs for a bid response, satisfying the selection criteria with their collective experience, education and other relevant skills. Presenting the CVs in an easy to read format and categorising them as necessary make the procuring team/selection panels’ jobs easier and are often required to abide by the tender’s clauses.

A well-formatted CV with essential experience (or any at all if possible) is vital for a successful tender proposal. These tender attachments are often incorporated in to the main response and are one of the fastest ways for a tender proposal to be assessed objectively on merit and qualified staff.

The Tender Team views these tender attachments as a ‘no-brainer’ when it comes to their inclusion. Without them, the tender proposal will be not considered.

4) Organisational Charts

The Tender Team proposes an Organisational Chart for many tender responses to help the procuring team/selection panel gain a glimpse of the tenderer’s business in its most simple form. This tender attachment is a nice visual aid and gives those reviewing the tender proposal a break from the required worded responses.

5) Financial Information

Well-presented (and accurate) Financial Information will always be required for any tender proposal. Pricing is an important aspect of whether or not the tenderer will be successful. The Tender Team always promotes the view that it is not the cheapest tender response that always wins but the one that provides the most ‘Value For Money’ in its services.

These tender attachments are often the most important documents in a tender response and require transparency in the valuation of a tenderer’s goods and services.

While we are generally not responsible for pricing, we always encourage that our clients pay great attention to this area so as to provide a strong bid proposal.

In need of assistance for a tender response, grant application or other documents? Call us on +61410 448 770 or email info@thetenderteam.com.au for our assistance in working with you on your next project.

Are you looking for expert help on your tender?

Firstly, if you are stuck on a tender and are looking for expert help, give us a call or email. We help businesses across Australia and New Zealand win government and private contracts. We provide an obligation free quote, and will work with you to deliver an exemplary tender response. We love writing bids and proposals and it’s all we do all day. We’re based in Sydney and are a team of four writers.

Our Director, Jason Cooney, is available 24/7 (feel free to wake him up although we do prefer 7am – 10pm so why not give us a call or email info@thetenderteam.com.au with your RFP docs. To get an idea of our fees, you can review our fees page here.

What is an Addendum for Tenders?

Well, nothing is rarely perfect the first time it is released and many tenders fall under this category. When the procuring team/selection panel releases the tender documents out to first-time tenderers, mistakes and misunderstandings are bound to occur.

For these eagle-eyed tenderers, the first course of action is to bring up these points with the company tendering for goods and/or services. In response, the procuring team/selection panel will provide answers to most of the tenderer’s questions within reason – not doing anything, in particular, to give one party an advantage over the other.

So to answer the question, “What is an addendum for Tenders?”, these issued changes in the tender are known as tender addendums, either editing/inserting/removing any clauses or other criteria that may be erroneous or no longer apply.

These are common examples of tender addendums;

• Changes in nature/types of goods/services required
• Addition/removal of locations where the tenderer will be needed
• Administrative changes in the documents – such as clarifying whether one section only permits four pages for a response over four pages for an entire document.

With all these changes, the tenderer must keep your tender response on track and ensure that nothing important is omitted from your winning bid. It is important then to be prepared for these changes lest you find yourself asking the question, “What is an addendum for Tenders?”.

Regardless, addendums are not only important for the tenderer but also a way to gauge the responsiveness of a future employer/business partner. If responses to questions in addendums are well-detailed, accurate and most importantly objective, then the tenderer should focus even more on the tender response in order to produce the winning bid. When these addendums are issued, the Tender Team always encourages our clients to read the contents closely. Addendums should clearly state all changes and sometimes provide reasons for why they have been changed. While every change may not apply specifically to a tenderer’s response, there are often times where certain sections of your response need to be altered accordingly.

Most procuring teams/selection panels will require you to acknowledge all addendums issued for a tender, a process that the Tender Team is more than able to assist with when appropriate.

Rarely an addendum is made where tenderers are caught off guard, wherein new tenderers often find themselves a little confused and asking the question, “What is an addendum in tenders”, though with a little preparation it is easily within reach of any new tenderer to push through any future tender addendums.

Government tenders in particular issue a variety of addendums as their tenders often abide by more stringent conditions than private companies and other organisations. For tenderers responding to a government, these addendums serve as worthwhile experience for customising a response that is both relevant and addresses the strict evaluation criteria as set by the government department or agency.

Addendums are often posted on tender noticeboard websites, providing a fair opportunity for all tenderers to review and respond appropriately as required. They will only be posted from between the time the tender is first issued to the closing date for tender responses.

The Tender Team will help both first-time and experienced tenderers to interpret these alterations and propose a strategy that will incorporate this new knowledge into the tender response effectively. Furthermore, we are equipped to repurposing particular sections of the response and carefully wording affected sections in a way that is both inviting and convenient for the procuring team/selection panel.

In a way, tender addendums can be used by tenderers as a fair Q&A process that benefits everyone involved. While the Tender Team will do its utmost to protect our own side, insightful questions asked by other competitors will be answered for the benefit of all.

You may have your initial question answered, “What is an addendum in Tenders?” but here are some examples of how questions answered within addendums can reveal information that the tenderer may not have asked for, but will nevertheless benefit from;

• Will the company require our goods/service for other locations later on?
• Will the company provide additional benefits for the successful tenderer in the future?
• Will the company cover the tenderer for damage/loss of profit from exceptional events?
• Will the company plan to renegotiate in the near future for a better deal from the incumbent provider in exchange for long-term business?

Tender addendums give additional depth to a tender that may or may not be a good thing for the tenderer. The Tender Team provides not only tender writing per se but tender advice from our experienced professionals. We make sure that we account for unforeseen circumstances in our services and provide adequate solutions to resolve any problems that may occur if the tenderer finds themselves incapable of providing or performing a good or service because of a new addendum.

In need of assistance for a tender response that may have you asking “what is an addendum”?

Call us on +61 410 448 770 or email info@thetenderteam.com.au for our assistance in working with you on your next project.