How to prepare for a tender

We are often asked by clients how to prepare for an upcoming bid or tender. For some clients, they know through their existing relationship with a client that a tender or RFP will soon be released. This applies in both the private and private sector. Usually, your sales or business development team will have done a lot of work to get you into a strong position – and the tender release will be pending. 

Other times, you may be an existing supplier to government on a three or five year contract, and you will know that the contract will soon be ending. As an incumbent supplier, you will be looking to be reappointed to the contract and will be keenly awaiting the tender release.

Finally we have some clients that are small or medium businesses and have never tendered for work in the past. They are searching for tenders and want to know what they can do prior to the tender being released.

How to prepare for a tender if you are the incumbent provider on a government contract

This is a common problem faced by many clients. You have been servicing a government contract for three years or sometimes even longer, and it’s time for it to go out to tender. You know the tender is pending and are doing all you can to stay in the ‘good books’ and deliver a quality service. However, you know there must be more you can do. 

Here at The Tender Team, we recommend our clients who are in this (or a similar position):

• Check the previous tender or bid you submitted. Usually you will have made commitments in a tender document and these are often forgotten about. These could be around social value and helping the local community, environmental or reporting (as well as many other topics). Once a tender or contract is implemented, they are often forgotten about. However, you need to go back and check your tender, and then start implementing any and every one of these initiatives you can while there is still time. The reason is because you will want to make new commitments in the new tender and to give your bid credibility you will want to talk about what value-add initiatives you have delivered for the contract thus far.
• Check the current tender requirements and KPIs. Most tenders have KPIs built into them and sometimes these aren’t reported on through the contract process. It’s important that you check for reporting or other sometimes ‘irrelevant’ criteria as part of a contract and make sure you are delivering on / adhering to these. 
• Get feedback and testimonials in writing while you can. Many of our clients have great verbal feedback, however, they often don’t have this feedback written down in an email. The issue is that once the tender is released, you aren’t permitted to communicate with any internal government personnel about the tender (aside from day to day contract work). Therefore, it’s a great idea to get written positive feedback prior to the tender release.
• Make sure you come up with some innovative ideas and research the wider market to ensure you are keeping up with innovation. It’s easy when you are the incumbent provider to become complacent. In your tender or RFP response, you will need to be up-to-speed in terms of industry innovations and thought leadership. This may be related to innovative IT systems, reporting processes or new products. For example, in the building industry, new products that decrease whole of life costs may be critical to success and it’s important as part of the tender preparation process to ensure you are aware of these and have the right contacts to offer them to your clients. 
• Ask any staff who are new to your business if they can assist with references or previous government experience. Where strong relationships are in place, your bid or tender can be strengthened and government (at federal, state and local level) likes to do business with people and businesses that have government experience.
• Monitor any recent changes and future plans. Sometimes when you are servicing a government department, you are so busy with day-to-day work that you forget to look at the big picture. This has implications when it comes to tendering. For example, let’s assume you have a contract for pavement repair and concreting works. You may be working for the local Council, and be the incumbent provider. The local Council may have a large development and rejuvenation program which they are looking to implement in the coming year. Firstly, you need to read their plans for the future and understand them. You also need to tailor your upcoming bid to this potential expansion plan. I.e. talk about how you can manage increases in demand, rapidly increase resources and that you have the reporting and admin infrastructure to handle a higher volume of jobs. 

How to prepare for a private sector tender if you have an existing relationship with the client

The most important point in this situation is information transfer. The reality is that when the tender is released, you will have time to respond to it. However, you need to ensure that your response is influenced by the client’s pain points and that your win themes need to be interwoven throughout the bid. 

In order to develop your win themes, you need to  understand the feedback you have gained from working with and speaking with the client from a business development perspective. To achieve this you can:

• Ask your sales team to take notes on all conversations with the client, create a list of insights into the client needs and any issues with the existing provider. 
• Set up monthly meetings with your BDM or sales people to discuss the client and their needs. This is important as from a tender writing perspective, you will want as much information from your sales team as possible. In addition, your sales team may forget the little snippets of information they attain in their client conversations.

When you have these in notes, you can develop win themes that are tailored towards your prospect’s needs and ensure your bid or tender is tailored to these.

Other strategies you can implement to help you prepare for an RFT or RFP response and write an expert proposal to a private sector client include:

• Putting multiple faces to your organisation. Don’t simply have your sales personnel meet the potential client. Your bid or tender will likely include many of your operational personnel and it’s a great idea to have your team members meet your potential client, especially if they would be potentially involved in the bid. 
• Give the client a taste. This doesn’t mean giving anything for free as this may result in the client not respective your services. However, if you are a cleaning company for example, providing samples of specific cleaning products can be helpful. Also, you have some highly specialised capabilities, you can provide a sample of these. As tender and proposal writers here at The Tender Team, since we can’t share examples of our work due to confidentiality, so we often provide a free review where we spend 30 minutes reviewing a piece of content so clients can get a taste of what we are capable of. 

Preparing for a tender if you have never tendered in the past

This is generally a daunting task and a lot of the time there is nothing you can do – i.e. you don’t know the questions in the RFT so you can’t respond to them. However, the reality is that once the tender is released, there are a lot of supporting documents which will be required. There are also certain questions in tenders that are almost guaranteed to be asked in one way or another.

Many small and medium businesses tendering for the first time find it hard to project manage the bid and develop all the documentation. Some initiatives you can implement to make sure you are ‘tender ready’ include:

• Create CVs and Bios for all your personnel including previous experience
• Create a Work Health and Safety System
• Create an Environmental Management System
• Create a Quality Assurance System
• Develop a tender library with case studies of previous works you have completed.
• Create a modern slavery statement if you are a supply business.
• Gather your previous tenders and create a bid or tender library with master responses to common questions and topics. 
• Research the competitors and your potential client as much as possible.
• Ensure you attend the industry briefings.

There is a vey high chance, particularly for government tenders and bids, that the above information will be required in your next tender or bid.

What can I do to prepare for an up-coming tender?

As discussed above there is a lot you can do to prepare for the release of a pending RFP. Our team here at The Tender Team recommends:

• Evidence: Collecting evidence and case studies of works completed or services provided to date.
• Testimonials: Collect and store testimonials from key clients and other stakeholders.
• CVs: Update all of your CVs
• Bid library: Update your bid library with case studies.
• Current tender obligations: Ensure you deliver on the reporting and other requirements of your current contracts.
• Industry trends: Keep up to date with industry trends and market changes. This should include new technological innovations applicable to your industry or business and ensure you can incorporate these into your bid.
• Competitors: Continue to gather market intelligence on your competitors. Look for different (ethical) ways to find information on their pricing and services from other industry stakeholders. For example, sometimes when hiring new employees, they can provide insights. This will be important to help inform your win themes in your bid or tender.
• Tender-ready assessment: Conduct a capability assessment of your tender library and other documentation. A central portal for key documentation is critical – especially insurance and other certificates that are generally required in bids. 
• JV Partners: You should start to build relationships with potential JV partners .

The key point is to balance your preparation efforts with not wasting time. This is because it is impossible to predict what will be asked in a tender, even if you completed the tender in the past. Sometimes there are word limits or newly introduced questions. Most importantly, ensure that when the tender is released you start working on it and put in place a checklist straight away. 

Talk to The Tender Team for assistance

Our team of bid and tender writers can help you prepare for an up-coming tender. From creating a bid library to coach BD personnel and helping create supporting documents, our team will review your needs and let you know the best way to get tender ready. Contact us today to discuss how we can assist. 

FAQ
We want to prepare for future tenders so that we can win more tenders and government contracts. Can we get help with this? Is there a consultancy that can create a bid library?

Certainly. Our team here at The Tender Team can assist you to prepare a bid library and get your business bid-ready for future tender and RFP opportunities. We believe that by developing a good set of base content which is tailored to your business, you can develop quality, tailored tender responses more quickly and effectively.

We have helped national, state and local businesses create bid libraries and will help you integrate AI software to help streamline your bidding process. 

This helps put you in a position where you can respond to multiple tenders at once, regardless of if you are in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or anywhere across the globe.

We need help with tender preparation. Is there an expert who can assist?

Yes. The Tender Team has six bid and tender writers who specialise in tender preparation. We will work with you to prepare for future tenders as well as put together a quality compelling response for your tender or bid. We will ensure your bids are:

• Compliant – with all relevant requirements (especially for government bids).
• Compelling – we will incorporate persuasive language and specialist bid writing and readability techniques into your bid.
• Evidence-based – because anything you write in your bid should be backed up by evidence or it will not have as much credibility in the eyes of the reader. 

Do I have to prepare for a tender or RFP in Australia before it is released? If so, what can I do to prepare?

You don’t have to. You can still create and submit a compelling response even if you don’t prepare in advance. However, you will generally be in a much stronger position if you do start the preparation process regardless of if it is a government or private sector tender and regardless of what industry (education, community services, defence etc). Information on what you can do to prepare is provided above. Establishing win themes is critical.

We are a small to medium business in Victoria. We have held a contract for 12 years and it is coming up for renewal. We are up against a lot of larger providers and competition and it’s a scare process. What can we do to prepare and beat larger businesses who will bid for our contract? We are in the community services space.

There is a lot you can do to prepare for an up-coming tender. Part of it is covered in this blog / article. However, additional strategies include:

• Focus on being local and talk about the benefits being a small business brings (such as locality, responsiveness and care).
• Talk about how the contract is a large contract for you and therefore demands the attention it deserves. Highlight how senior members of your team (including executive level) are involved in servicing the contract.
• Research your competitors and adopt any innovative services which they are adopting. Put the work in early, prior to the RFT or bid documents being released, to speak to possible vendors and increase your product offering.
• Get organised. One point our tender writers here at The Tender Team notice, is that many small businesses aren’t organised in terms of insurance and other business documentation. This extends to CVs and case studies. If you get organised, it gives you more time to create a compelling submission.

Let us help you create expert proposals. Contact Jason Cooney, Director, here at The Tender Team to talk about your next bid or tender and how we can help you get prepared and increase your chances of success.