Nowadays, almost all products on the market are purchased on a tender basis. A tender is, in fact, a competition, as a result of which the Customer company selects a Supplier or Contractor who is ready to offer the most favorable conditions for cooperation: low price, original solutions or unsurpassed professionalism.
So, you have decided to apply for the tender. This means that you will have to carefully draw up the proposal, show the Customer that you really know your market segment and have sufficient experience.
Tender vs. Auction: what is the difference?
Here you may have a very logical question: how is this scheme for selecting Contractors and Suppliers different from others?
Firstly, all auction participants can familiarize themselves with the offers of their competitors, find out at what price they are willing to work. That is, there is always the opportunity to adjust your own proposal in such a way as to stand out from other companies. But the tender is, first of all, the lack of such openness. All participants submit proposals, so to speak, “in a closed envelope”.
In fact, the content of the documents is completely hidden from competitors and is available only to a special commission.
What is the tender documentation?
The customer company and the participants are preparing a package of documents containing the terms of the ongoing tender and the future contract.
The documentation must contain two parts:
- Technical It includes a description of the main conditions of the contract, general information about the object of bidding, information cards indicating the procedure for preparing and filing applications.
- Commercial. It contains prices and a scheme for determining them, payment schedules and conditions, sources of financing, bank guarantees, as well as requirements for certain types of insurance.
It is important to consider that in each case, the tender committee determines the content individually. Proper preparation of documents is of great importance. Best of all, if you control the entire process will be an experienced specialist in tenders. This is important, since your future success depends on how competently all the necessary documents are prepared and prepared. After all, having no experience with your organization, the Customer will be able to rely solely on the papers that you provide.
Secrets of success for those who are going to participate in the tender
There is an opinion that, when choosing a suitable offer, the company-customer focuses solely on price. Of course, this happens, but much less than you can imagine. When making a tender proposal, experts recommend adhering to several principles. These truths are as old as the world, but over time they have not lost their relevance.
1. Do not apply for all contests in a row
Before you rush into battle and send an offer, weigh the pros and cons ten times, understand whether it is really worth taking part in this particular tender. Not always the desire to make a profit should be a decisive factor - sometimes it’s much more important to focus on developing your own business, pressing issues or looking for other, more profitable projects that you will work with great pleasure and that will bring you much more profit.
2. Let your offer carry additional value
One of the main rules that a company that wants to win a tender must remember is that it is not enough to achieve full compliance of the proposal with the conditions specified by the Customer. However, even a lower price does not guarantee that the contract will be concluded with you. Try to learn more about the Customer company, understand what kind of problems management is facing, and then supplement your proposal so that the commission cannot fail to pay attention to it.
3. Pay attention to little things
Once again, we return to the topic that we have already touched on above. Even if you manage to make a favorable impression on the Customer and offer a favorable price, but you do not pay enough attention to the correct paperwork, you run the risk of missing many opportunities. But you shouldn’t get too carried away either, because it happens and vice versa: having become bogged down in bureaucratic fuss, you can forget about the essence and purpose of the proposal.
4. Remember that decisions are made not by organizations, but by people
It depends on them who will win the tender. How it works? Sometimes, in order to get an opportunity to work on a desired project, it’s enough just to establish contact with those who will make a crucial decision for your business.
5. Keep the mark of a true professional
But even if your proposal is 100% worked out, it is not a fact that it is you who will win the tender. This may be due to many reasons, and one of them is the inability of your negotiator to give intelligible answers to customer questions during negotiations. Therefore, the degree of involvement in the workflow and the competence of all participants without exception is one of the decisive factors for success.
How to prepare a tender? Customer Information
For its part, the Customer company, which decided to organize such a competition, must also carefully prepare for it and provide all the necessary documents:
- Invitation to participate for other companies.
- Qualification application form (in it, participants will indicate official information about themselves).
- Brief (questionnaire in which the basic data on the subject of the tender are prescribed).
- Additional information on the project.
- The main criteria for evaluating the participants that you will be guided by, making the final choice.
It is imperative that all information in the documents is truthful, reliable and well-structured. Nowadays, it is possible to create an electronic tender without any problems - this is, in fact, the same competition, but all the information from the customer company and potential contractors comes through the network, the Internet.
The competition itself consists of three stages: searching for potential participants, a detailed analysis of their proposals, discussing the project and, in fact, concluding a contract with the winner.