Who is The Tender Team and how can we help?

We are a team of experienced bid and tender writers. Our headquarters are in Sydney and we also work from major cities across Australia. We help engineers and engineering businesses / consultancies write bids and tenders to the government and private sector.

Our team can help you:

• Find engineering contracts and tender opportunities.
• Write bids and tenders to the government and private sector.
• Create graphics and infographics for your bid.
• Negotiate the contract and prepare for presentations.

We can assist engineers from all different disciplines with all types of contracts including:

Civil Engineering Tenders

We have helped Civil Engineers write bids for major government projects, expert panels and to Tier-1 construction companies. These cover all aspects of Civil Engineering including infrastructure, geotechnical engineering, transportation, water resources and environmental (wastewater etc).

These RFT and RFPs are generally highly complex and are often for major engineering and infrastructure projects. Therefore, the tender and bid preparation period is long and extensive, with multiple stakeholders to manage and complex engineering solutions. Our bid writers have the experience and knowledge to project manage bids for major civil engineering projects as well as help civil engineering consultancies to secure government and private sector work through the bid and tender process.

Mechanical Engineering Tenders

We have helped mechanical engineering consultancies write bids and tenders for all types of services. These include machines, HVAC systems, production, automation and even automotive. Areas where contract opportunities arise also include aerospace and biomedical.

We have helped our mechanical engineering clients secure contracts and tenders for a broad range of projects such as plumbing, fire protection and building automation systems for large building and infrastructure projects, as well as for the supply, installation and maintenance of mechanical equipment. We have also helped with engineering services tenders which including mechanical engineering.

Some of these proposals and tenders are in highly specialised areas of mechanical engineering such as design and construction of synchronous condensers for power networks. The responses are generally quite technical – however, our team of writers work with clients to clearly summarise technical solutions and present them in an easy to understand and interpret manner.

Electrical Engineering Tenders

Our writers have helped electrical engineers win a range of contracts across multiple sub-disciplines. This includes bid and tenders for power systems, control systems and electronics engineering. There are substantial opportunities in Australia as well as globally.

We have worked on design and construction tenders and and contractors for complex electrical engineering projects.

Chemical Engineering Tenders and Proposals

Our team has a general knowledge of engineering tenders although we have limited knowledge in Chemical Engineering tenders. Therefore, we can provide general guidance and tender writing help for chemical engineering contracts including process and design optimization (such as chemical plants), materials science, and biotechnology.

Environmental Engineering Tenders

Environmental Engineering businesses consultant and undertake major projects such as waste and wastewater treatment and the design and production of emission reduction technologies. We have also got experience in waste reduction and recycling bids.

Mining Engineering and Petroleum Engineering Tenders

Please refer to our mining tenders page for information on winning tender writing strategies for mining and petroleum engineering bids.

Medical Engineering Tenders

Please see a link to our medical page where we discuss our expertise in medical tenders. We have helped medical device manufacturers write bids and tenders in Australia and internationally, including Biomaterials and Biomechanics.

Software Engineering Tenders and Bids

Our IT writing team has experience in software engineering bids and tenders. More information on their capabilities is available here.

Strategies to help you win more engineering contracts

Engineering tenders are often complex and sometimes very lucrative. From small contracts for the provision of specialist consulting services to large multi-billion dollar projects, a formal procurement process is almost always adopted. Irrespective of the size of the contract, to be successful in engineering tenders and bids you generally need to:

1. Present a professional, polished and well designed bid. This often involves graphics and infographics, particularly in order to present complex engineering solutions in a simple and easy to understand manner. There is no need for generic marketing material or collateral. The procurement personnel generally see straight through that. You do need to show that you have consistent styling throughout your bid that aligns with your website, and that you have the credibility from a branding and proposal presentation perspective of a professional service provider. Generally speaking, the larger the bid, the more graphics and infographics required.
2. Provide a detailed response – and clearly highlight critical details throughout your bid or tender. This applies across all aspects of your response. From previous experience, to machinery and equipment, and the expertise of your personnel, the detail matters. You need to write a comprehensive response to each question that is tailored and relevant. Throughout your proposal or bid, there will be details that you want to highlight to draw the attention of the reader. For example, let’s assume you are mid tier engineering consultancy with 70 personnel. You may have four personnel with extensive expertise in tunnels. If you are bidding to provide design services for a major tunnel project, you will need to highlight the tunnel related experience of your personnel. In addition, let’s then assume that of your previous tunnel related experience, two of the projects were of similar size and scope to the proposed project. This will need to be highlighted with key details of the project, including key challenges and how they were overcome, detailed as part of the bid.
3. Take a broad and open minded approach to answering each question. In order to score full marks for each question you need to cover all bases. For example, when asked to provide a case study for a previous project / experience, you shouldn’t just talk about the technical aspects of delivering the project. You should look at the project more broadly and talk about safety performance, quality control, challenges overcome and innovation. Don’t restrict the scope of your response to a strictly engineering or technical response.
4. The in-house resources to deliver a quality bid. A robust bid/no bid process is a necessity. Once yo have decided to bid for the project, you need to allocate the appropriate in-house resources. Put a strong bid team together with a bid manager and support writer, as well as technical specialists, engineers and other stakeholders. Treat the bid as a must-win. Put forward a detailed response and competitive market pricing.
5. Present complex engineering solutions in a clear and easy to understand manner. Whether it is by minimising the level of technical jargon in your writing and adopting simple English, or developing a graphic or infographics that summarises a complex solution into an easy to understand graphic, it’s important to communicate clearly in your bid. Procurement teams often comprise of a mixture of subject matter experts and non-subject matter experts. When you are communicating the benefits of your proposal and solution you need to appeal to the non-SMEs as well as the SMEs as they form part of the decision-making group.
6. Focus on quality and whole of life cost. This is often overlooked. When you are putting forward any engineering solution, whole of life cost and your ability to service the client over the long term more generally are often critical to the outcome and sometimes overlooked. You need to focus on the whole of life cost of any solution, give a detailed account of potential maintenance and other costs, and talk about the benefits of your proposed pricing structure over the long term (if applicable). From an organisational perspective it is important to present yourself as a credible long term provider that has the internal quality assurance and continuous improvement processes in place to not only win and implement the tender but continue to service the tender over the full term of the contract.
7. Write confidently to increase your success rate. Your writing style needs to be one of confidence. You need to demonstrate that you come from an informed position and are confident about the the services you will provide. You need to write in a way that shows you ‘want’ the work, are excited to service the client, and have the skills and expertise to deliver. This is reflected in your writing style. For example, instead of writing about what you ‘could do’ or ‘could deliver’ you need to write about what you ‘will do’ or ‘will deliver’ to the client. That is critical. Even if the project is slightly larger or more complex than the projects you have worked on thus far, you can’t give any hint of hesitation or weakness in your writing as this will generally rub off on the reviewer.

How our team of bid writers can help you

Our team of bid writers have helped hundreds of engineering and construction companies secure government engineering and major project contracts. Our team can help your organisation:

• Conduct the bid no bid process. Put a framework in place to qualify opportunities. We can assist you to identify potential joint venture partners if required especially for larger infrastructure projects or for projects which require highly specialised expertise you may not have in-house. We will help you identify the tender opportunities if you do not already have alerts set up.
• Write the tender response. We will work closely with your in-house SMEs such as engineers, safety personnel and quality personnel to gather the necessary information to write your bid. Where there is highly technical input provided by your engineers or other subject matter experts, we will re-write this to ensure it is easy to read and understand by the reader without losing any context. We will brainstorm and storyboard each response to ensure you put forward a comprehensive answer.
• Review your response. Where you have an in-house team of writers to complete your bid, you may consider employing us as a second set of eyes to peer review it. We will review your draft response and provide purely constructive feedback that may benefit your team. Of particular focus will be your response structure to each question – making sure you answer the question comprehensively so you can score the maximum points available.
• Project manage the bid process and produce quality graphics. Project managing a large bid is one of the most challenging aspects to bid management. Our team have experience project managing bids for major infrastructure projects across Australia with bid teams of up to fifty personnel. We have the gravitas to manage sensitive political issues within bid teams and take a proactive, methodical approach to managing bids. We manage online bid rooms and also have a team of two graphic designers that help ensure engineering bids we work on are professional, polished and concise.

Knowing your audience in engineering and infrastructure tenders and review panels

When drafting engineering tenders it is equally important to know your audience and keep them in mind. More often than not,  the procurement or decision-making panel consists of personnel who are not trained engineers. Our consultants have a range of engineering backgrounds coupled with the writing skills and experience to appeal to and persuade a range of audiences. Some of the procurement personnel may be administrators, procurement specialists or third party advisors. Where there are benefits of your bid that you consider to be obvious or completely standard, these may need to be highlighted to appeal to the audience.

Our experience

Our experience with engineering bids entails:

• Project managing multi-billion dollar bids for national and international companies. These include for large highways, bridges, infrastructure projects, defence projects and tunnels.
• Complying with Australian laws and regulations and coordinating the supportive documentation. We have helped write supporting documentation for a range of projects and for difference purposes such as indigenous engagement plans.
• Leading the tender process from end-to-end
• Developing proposals for boutique firms with unique expertise
•  Coordinating translation of bids where expertise are sourced from overseas offices
• Depicting complex engineering and infrastructure solutions in a graphical manner
• Coordinating joint-venture proposals and liaising with joint-venture partners

A number of our consultants have held senior procurement positions in large infrastructure organizations and have a unique understanding of what organizations are looking for. We have helped hundreds of organizations win engineering tenders on some of the largest infrastructure projects in Australia including several PPP projects. Recent examples include:

• The North West Rail Link
• M5 West Widening Project
• Christchurch City Rebuild (Geo-technical and Seismic Professional Services)

Client testimonials

We are a professional engineering services consultancy with a practice in civil and structural. We were on a number of government panels and needed to retain these positions when the panels expired. We completed one of the tenders ourselves which was unsuccessful. We spoke with Jason from The Tender Team who quickly reviewed our previous bids and immediately identified what we needed to improve on. We then contracted The Tender Team to assist us with the bids. The service is good and they know what they are doing when it comes to government bids and tenders. Another advantage was that they have worked on engineering tenders in the past as well as bids for other professional services. I know they have completed a lot of bids for lawyers. I would recommend them to engineers looking to increase their tender win rates.

John H | Engineering Consultancy | Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne

We engaged The Tender Team to assist us in responding to a tender for mechanical engineering certification and inspection services. They were proactive from the start in terms of their approach to assisting us and provided us an excellent service throughout the process. They challenged us on some of the input we were providing which simply wasn’t good enough. Although a little frustrating at first, once we was the second and third drafts we were amazed. They really do put a lot of thought into helping you win and produced a quality tender proposal for us. I would recommend them to engineering firms looking to boost the quality of your bids and tenders.

Sarah P | Civil Engineer | Perth

We are a boutique electrical and mechanical engineering consultancy. We don’t have an in-house tender writer although we are tendering and bidding quite often and it generally uses up a lot of our internal resources. That was until we engaged The Tender Team. They came up and quickly go up to speed with our entire operation and service provision. Jason and The Team know our business and help us with bids and tenders when we need them. It’s more cost effective than hiring an internal bid writer as we use them when we want them and the quality of work is outstanding. They really are focused on helping us win.

Timothy D | Sydney Based Engineering Consultancy

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you help with civil engineering and excavation tenders and bids? Does this include the construction sector?

Yes – certainly. We help civil engineers, including those responding to RFPs for building and civil works, including demolition and excavation. Our team of bid writers has experience in all types of bids and tenders.

Do you have experience writing government tenders to provide engineering services to state government and local governments?

Yes we certainly do. We have helped engineering firms, including civil, mechanical, electrical and others, bid for contracts and panels in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Victoria, Northern Territory, the ACT. We have also helped, and are able to help, engineering firms write bids and tenders to local Councils and the local government sector. For example, we have helped clients write bids to the City of Sydney, City of Brisbane and Sunshine Coast Council.

How much does it cost to get professional help for our engineering tenders or RFP proposal?

Information on our fees are available here. In general, our fees depend on what you need from us from a service perspective. If you would like us to write your entire bid we are able to provide a fixed fee. Alternatively, we can provide a review service and answer specific questions for you. This is provided on an hourly rate basis.

Can you help me find mechanical engineering bids?

Yes. We provide a tender alert service.

Do you provide contract, casual or urgent bid writing services to large mechanical or electrical engineering businesses that have a temporary need?

Of course. Many medium to large engineering firms have in-house teams and often use us as a temporary resource. For example, if staff have an unexpected illness, maternity leave or other contracts, our team are engaged to ‘fill the gap’ and manage tenders and bids as they come in for set amounts of days, weeks or months. We provide this service to business across Australia.

Construction Tenders

If you’re interested in an easier, more efficient way to manage your construction bids and tenders, have a chat with us. We are your one-stop shop for services related to tender writing in Australia.

Even people who are veterans in the construction industry find it challenging to develop bids and tenders efficiently. By working with our team, you can streamline the tender process and increase your chances for success. If you are a small or newly formed company asking yourself how to write a tender proposal, are looking for guidance on how to write tenders, or simply need assistance writing a tender proposal, we’re the right fit for you.

We know what goes into a great construction bid. When it comes to tender writing in Australia, we have experience in pitching for both government and commercial procurement opportunities. Our writing consultants are skilled in the following areas:

• Drafting well-constructed technical construction bids
• Bid quality audit and tender review
• Construction tender submission management
• Professional layout and design
• Bid response development
• Bid writer recruitment
• Tender submission and documentation

We are adept at preparing winning tenders because we understand the key elements essential to tender writing in Australia. We make it a point to address your needs and meet your specific requirements. Our company is made up of professional tender writers and tender managers, each of whom has a wealth of experience. Regardless of your industry, we will work with you to develop a comprehensive strategy that will showcase your company’s strengths.

Call us today

For assistance with your next engineering tender, call our Director on 0410 448 770 or send through your documentation. Regardless of if you only want to review some tender writing examples or require assistance with a major response, we can assist. Our team specializes in proposal writing in Australia across a range of industries. We’re based in Sydney and service business across Australia and New Zealand. Our writers are located in Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Darwin.

We have worked with clients of all sizes in different capacities. Whatever stage your business may be at, we are is interested in your growth. Tendering is a great way to access lucrative work contracts and bring in more profit. Don’t waste valuable opportunities with ineffective, badly structured proposals.

As we are nearing the end of 2024 and heading into 2025, we are excited to help our clients in the new year win contracts.