Our team of bid and tender writers here at The Tender Team are based in Sydney (our head office) and across Australia. With over 70% of the tenders we work on being government tenders, we have a track record of:

• Winning government contracts for our clients across all levels of government.
• Creating supporting documentation for government tenders.
• Helping clients find and win more government contracts including specialist contracts such as for the Department of Defence.

Government tenders are becoming increasingly competitive as businesses seek to penetrate the federal, state and local government space. Leading government departments drive cost savings through culling service provider panels, and they often use the tender process to achieve this. Furthermore, Government procurement guidelines are becoming more complex at all levels with an increase in request for information and documentation seemingly unrelated to the core product such as WHS and quality control procedures.

In order to overcome this, businesses often engage a tender consultant to read through the lines and navigate the excessive compliance. Our consultants complete hundreds of government tenders on a monthly basis and are skilled in understanding and adhering to their requirements.

We understand the political motivations and implications behind tenders, as well as the need to provide constructive and relevant responses to seemingly simple questions on what may be considered irrelevant issues.

Australian Federal Government Bids

We have an impressive track record of delivering results and will work closely with you to draft exemplary responses to government tenders in order to give your business the best chances of success. A sample of strategies we employ to draft successful government tenders include:

• Adopting a clear, concise and persuasive writing style
• Write with a confident tone that conveys credibility and professionalism
• Support statements and representations with evidence
• Incorporate facts, figures and statistics
• Tailor environmental and other policies to your organisation
• Use government ‘buzz’ words
• Incorporate graphs and other graphical mediums to convey complex information.

We pride ourselves on assisting clients to increase their win rate for government tenders. Our team has experience drafting tenders across a range of industries, from defence, to equipment supply and biomedical. We are available on a 24/7 basis on 0410 448 770 and provide a responsive and flexible service.

State Government Tenders and Bids

State government tenders often require you to provide extensive paperwork, including support documentation and answers to complex project management questions. We have experience drafting State Government tenders across Australia including in Victoria, Western Australia (WA), New South Wales (NSW), Queensland (QLD), Northern Territory (NT) South Australia (SA), Western Australia (WA) and the ACT.

Our experience writing government tenders extends across all industries from construction to health and equipment supply. Since 2007, we’ve worked on over 1 Billion dollars worth of tenders with an outstanding success rate. We help our clients every step of the way, project managing responses, drafting content and helping manage your workload. For experienced businesses, we are the resource you can rely on when two or three tenders come in at once.

Local Government and Council

Many of our clients are small businesses that are eager to get started on their first government contracts such as local council tenders. While large scale tenders more often than not can be out of reach for some of our client base (especially relatively new businesses), local council tenders are an excellent and appropriate opportunity to service major clients directly within our clients’ backyard.

Our service extends across Australia from regional Councils in Northern Territory to drafting tenders for Randwick City Council in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

FAQ

Are government tenders different to other tenders from the private sector? Do you have experience in both?

Yes. We have worked on both Government and Private sector bids and tenders across Australia. Government tenders often have more compliance requirements than private sector tenders. In addition, the procurement process is generally more formal with government tenders and there is an increased focus on local / social value.

Government tenders have a set weighting criteria which they need to follow and there is often slightly less focus on price. In addition, there is more risk in non-compliance so you need to make sure everything is 100% correct.

Within government bids, federal, state and local government bids all have different requirements and a slightly different flavour in your writing is required to win them. When bidding for a local Council contract, you need to focus on how you will contribute to the local ecoconmy.

Will I increases my chances of winning government tender if I use The Tender Team or another expert writer rather than writing it myself?

We would certainly like to think so. If it is your first time tendering or you have a small internal team, we can bring our understanding of best practice from different industries in order to strengthen your bid and increase your prospects for success. So we can certainly help you win. Sometimes, where we work for larger companies with established bid teams, we note that you more than likely write exceptional bids and tenders and we can certainly write to your standard and release the workload from you.

It depends on who you are and what experience you have writing bids and tenders.

Can I complete a government tender myself or will I need the support of The Tender Team?

You can generally complete a government tender in Australia yourself if you have some solid writing skills and the time to dedicate to it. With our team of writers from The Tender Team supporting you, you can rest assured our writers will work with you to develop a compliant and compelling tender proposal or RFP response that boosts your prospects of success.

We also provide a read and review process whereby we read your tender at first draft stage and provide you guidance on what to improve. This ensures your bid is on track and the time you are spending writing your tender is time well spent.

Some industries are more complicated than others and some tender ask for a lot more supporting documentation that others so it generally depends on how complex the RFI or RFT documents are.

We have just started writing a government tender. Where should we start and what is the first thing we should do or work on?

We recommend you start by creating a compliance list of all the questions and supporting documentation you require for the bid. Then you need to sought this list for any lead times (i.e. if it takes for example two weeks to get a licence or other certificate). After that you need to start to work on the requests that have the longest lead times.

Will The Tender Team help us submit our government tender from start to finish or will we need to submit it?

We can certainly help you submit the bid from start to finish. This includes submission especially with online portals where you may not be confident using online portals. From a confidentiality perspective, if you would like to keep your pricing confidential, that is fine. We can write the entire bid and you can submit the bid together with your pricing.

When you engage us to assist with a government tender we will be with you every step of the way.

When we engage a tender consultant such as your consultancy, how will the writing process work for us when using you?

We will work with you collaboratively and constructively and will lead the way in terms of writing and submitting the bid. We have an internal system and process to ensure we create a checklist and will provide you clear instructions on what information we require. Once you provide us the input (either by phone, bullet points, even hand written notes, we will write the tender for you.

Throughout the process we will send you draft tender responses to review and provide further input up until sign-off.

Where we require information from your employees or other stakeholders, we will chase up that information as required.

If we get The Tender Team to write our government tender, what information will you need from us and how much time will we have to provide it?

The information and documentation required for every tender is different. All we can say as a general guide is that we will need a fair bit of information irrespective if you are writing a construction tenders, medical tender or professional services bid.

We will give you as much time as possible to provide the input we need to help you win your government contract and it’s one of the first things we do when working with you. Generally speaking 1 – 3 weeks is an approximate amount of time.

Will the tender team keep all our information confidential?

Yes of course. Most definitely and it will be kept stored on storage servers in Australia. We also have a strict conflict of interest policy and do not believe in Chinese Walls. If we are working on your government tender, it will be our only focus.

Can The Tender Team help me make my bid or proposal look for polished by creating nice looking graphics and infographics?

Yes. Although increasingly government procurement departments and procurement teams are increasingly moving away from requesting proposals with fancy graphics and are using excel to receive information and responses.

How long will it take to write the tender if we get a tender or bid writing consultant to help us write it?

It depends on the size of the tender. The quickest we have ever written a bid is five days and the longest it has taken is six months for a large infrastructure bid.

I need a specialist government tender writer. Can you help?

Yes. We specialise in government tenders and bids. Over 70% of the bids and proposals our firm writes are to the government sector. We can help with responding to RFPs from all levels of government and we have specialise expertise in defence contracts which are highly complex.

Is there a tender writer in Melbourne that specialises in Government bids and can help us?

Yes. The Tender Team is based in Sydney and Melbourne and has writers across the country. We have experience writing government bids in Melbourne.

Can small businesses win government tenders? What can we do to win?

Yes they certainly can. We have helped lots of SMEs write and win government contracts. This extends to local, state and federal government contracts. We have helped small tradies and other community businesses win contracts with the local government, as well as high-level boutique consultancies win federal government tenders and bids. Our writers here at The Tender Team love helping small and medium sized businesses win contracts. It’s generally a personal and exciting journey where we work closely with you and get to see the positive effects it has on your business if you are successful.

Do you assist businesses from all industries?

Yes of course. We assist businesses from all industries such as building and construction, health, defence, maintenance, community services, not for profit, allied health, equipment supply and operations.

Key components of Government Tenders

Tendering Conditions

These conditions are more concerned with the structure and style of a bid response over its substance. They cover aspects of a tender such as preliminary site meetings and discussions for all interested applicants. These meetings themselves are often mandatory and we always advise our clients that participation is strongly encouraged in order to peruse the location for a tender’s requirements and to pose as an opportunity to clarify or delve further information on the products/services necessary for the tender’s fulfillment.

Other aspects of the tender are also covered under these conditions such as the amendment procedure that consists of limited back and forth between our clients and the tender evaluation panel on sections within the RFT that are incorrect or need further clarification. As a result, there are strict regulated processes on the implementation of new addendums that can possibly affect our clients’ bid responses as a whole depending on their nature.

Conditions also extend to the late acceptance or rejection of tenders themselves if they are submitted in an incorrect format. We always closely review these processes as all the hard work and effort put into a comprehensive bid response can be rejected on the basis of submission past the deadline or formatting mistakes that an evaluation panel simply would not accept.

In addition, the following conditions are usually specified as below;

• Tender validity period
• Alternative or non-conforming tenders
• Variation of tenders
• Opening of tenders

Contract Conditions

Moving away from the general tender conditions, the contract conditions for many local council tenders are obviously more legally focused, adhering to all relevant laws and regulations that are covered by the tender itself.

While we will always alert our clients to any terms or clauses that may conflict with their operations, there is always no excuse for any tenderer to closely review the contract themselves.

Like most legal documents, contract conditions specify all the details for how the tenderer will plan, deliver and support their products and/or services. Unlike the tender conditions, contract conditions are more concerned with what happens after our clients have been selected as the winning bidder as opposed to submitting the tender itself.

Furthermore, local council tenders often cover the following specialised contract conditions;

• Issues Reporting and Resolution
• Communication Requirements
• Standards
• Work by Others
• Project Duration
• Site Access and Security Measures

Specification

Alongside the contract conditions, we consult with the client closely on all parts of the specification for the tender. The specification is concerned with all of the following details;

• What exact products/services are required?
• Where do they need to be located?
• When do they need to be provided?
• Why are they required?

We always advise our clients that paying close attention to the specification is paramount for a relevant and effective bid response. The worst-case situation would be to provide a response that has misread the original specification and ultimately offers the tender evaluation panel something they don’t actually need or ever asked for. For local councils, we consult with our clients on how best to tailor their responses on a smaller scale to efficiently meet council needs.

Non-Price response schedule

This section is the main part of the bid response and where we consult closely with our clients to help persuade the tender evaluation panel of their competitive advantage and values.

In a non-price response schedule, all manner of questions will be asked on our clients such as the following;

• General information such as contact details, business structure and key personnel
• Client history and personal/business references
• OHS/WHS, quality and environmental management plans and more

A good bid response for local council tenders will adequately cover all questions asked with logical and clearly structured, factual answers. From completing a non-price response schedule, our clients have covered how their bid response is more competitive, from multiple perspectives, over other bidders. With The Tender Team, we focus our efforts mostly on this section to the client’s benefit and ensure that their response satisfies all tender requirements while distinguishing ourselves from the competition.

Price Response Schedule

While The Tender Team does not consult on price responses for our clients’ bids, we always encourage our clients to complete their pricing schedules as the first step whenever possible. Pricing is an extremely important part of any bid response and often is a leading criteria for being selected as the winning bid.

How we will help you win government tenders 

Executive Summary

The executive summary is the first opportunity to present your bid response in a positive and effective manner. It is critical that you clearly articulate your key differentiators.

Exemplary executive summaries will cover your organisations:

• Identity – Who you are.
• History – What you have accomplished.
• How your proposed products and /or services will be able to address the tender requirements.

Email info@thetenderteam.com.au with your rft documents and we will immediately provide an indicative fee proposal.