Winning Tenders - Winning Tenders

How to remove your tender handicap. Mark Lane finds out how SMEs can make their tenders count – employ ISCL’s excellent winning tenders service.

One of the key factors in enabling a business to develop and grow is, in many cases, an ability to write successful tender documents. Yet it is in such a scenario that SMEs often encounter a ‘catch 22’ scenario.

Put simply, their larger rivals regularly have in-house bid writers to submit tender documents on their behalf – thus greatly increasing their chances of winning the contract. Hence while the large firms grow larger, the SME is left to reflect on what might have been.

If your business finds itself in this situation, it could be well worth your while investing in the high quality tender writing services of Winning Tenders, an operation that has been established by vastly experienced consultant, Ian Smith of Ian Smith Consulting Ltd (ISCL) which provides information management consultancy services.

Ian has established Winning Tenders in order to remove the handicap that SMEs often face in the tendering process when compared to their better-resourced rivals. He says: “I realised that there must be thousands of SMEs who avoid even submitting tenders altogether as they believe that it is unlikely they would have any success with the tender process.

“This is ironic given that the government has said that it wants to see more smaller firms participate in the public sector.”

A particular problem for SMEs is that, although they might be very good at what they do, they are not always adept at putting this into words. Moreover, with tender documents often referring to things such as corporate social responsibility, equal opportunities, environmental issues and so on, SMEs often don’t know where to start. Tender documents can be notoriously complex, often reading like legal documents and, for the uninitiated, they can be highly intimidating. Ian and his colleagues can lend their experience to this process and enable SMEs to present their appropriate company information clearly and succinctly.

Says Ian: “When working with any client, I would initially explain how the process works and also the likelihood of success for them in winning the tender – I believe in being up front about this.

“If, having used my services, a client is not successful in the tendering process, they only pay half my costs. If they are successful they pay the other half plus a modest win bonus.

This shared risk shows commitment on our part as it is obviously in our interests to ensure that the client wins the tender.”
Ian and his colleagues work through each tender document, devising a way of presenting clients in the best possible light and in a way that puts them on a more level playing field with their larger rivals.

Adds Ian: “What is key for SMEs to understand is that the organisation placing the tender is only interested in the extent to which the bidder can match what they are looking for – there is a danger for the inexperienced of putting in a lot of unnecessary material which doesn’t go down too well.

“For supporting material such as equal opportunities, corporate social responsibility and so on, we often produce a statement for the client that can be used again and again, thus forming part of and adding to their ’bid library.’ We have nearly two decades of experience in writing winning tenders. We know what has been successful and what hasn’t. To offer an example, only a few months ago we wrote a bid for an office services company which won them a £10m contract with a London borough. The client was, understandably, pretty pleased and admitted that they couldn’t have won it without us.”

Ian concludes: “A lot of people find tenders very onerous – we enjoy writing them, we are enthusiastic about them and this is what sets us apart – there is nothing like the feeling you get from writing a winning bid when a finely crafted tender wins the business.”

For more information, please visit www.iscl.uk.com or call 01494 714041.

Article kindly reproduced with permission of Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce www.welcometobusiness.co.uk

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