Finding opportunities that are suitable for your business is the first step to success with public sector tendering. The more you look at tender specifications, the better you will become at spotting public sector opportunities that are the right fit for your business.
Find out how to choose the right public sector tenders and get the top tips for preparing your bid below.
Choosing the right public sector tenders
Before bidding, you need to understand the costs involved; this will help you to see the true value of the opportunity. Direct your resources in the right direction and target the opportunities that lie easily within your grasp, otherwise you may be paying for the privilege of working with the public sector.
PASS Principal Procurement Consultant Eddie Regan offers bid support training to businesses of all sizes. He advises suppliers on the types of opportunities they should be looking for and the types they should be avoiding, noting that:
“The scattergun approach to bidding, whereby bidders chase every opportunity, irrespective of how tenuous the likelihood of success, costs companies financially, but also uses up hundreds if not thousands of hours of valuable work time.”
Start looking for relevant opportunities using a tool like Tracker’s Tender Alerts. As you are the one optimising your profile, you can tailor your account so that you only receive tender opportunities and award notices that are relevant to your business.
Low value tenders
SME businesses may find winning several low value contracts, where the resources needed to bid can be significantly less, to be as rewarding as winning the occasional large contract.
Smaller contracts are often a good place to start for small businesses seeking to build a bank of public sector references. They can also be extremely lucrative, as in some cases aiming for lower value contracts may be something that your competitors haven’t thought about.
While your competitors are aiming for contracts that may be out of their reach, your business will have better odds of winning low competition and low value tender opportunities.
Be aware of these opportunities
Tenders below the value of the public procurement thresholds are not carried in the OJEU. Public procurement regulations mean that if a tender value is under the threshold published, the public sector body awarding it does not need to advertise in the OJEU; this reduces the number of potential companies who are aware of the opportunity.
Tracker customers have access to both types of tender, those that are published in the OJEU and those lower value contracts falling below the thresholds. We source information about lower value tenders independently, manually review them and notify our customers of relevant tenders that are suited to their business.
Supply chain opportunities
Supply chain tender opportunities are another option for businesses that want to expand their tendering potential.
In most cases here, the buyer is a private sector organisation. Supply chain procurement begins with a private sector company, or companies, winning what is usually a large public sector contract.
In most cases, they will not be able to provide every aspect of the goods, works or services required; therefore, they will seek subcontractors. These opportunities may be of interest to businesses just getting started in the world of procurement.
Market Leads
The best way to capture this type of tender opportunity is to use Tracker’s Market Leads tool. This gives your business instant access to hundreds of private sector leads. The main benefit of using this tool is that your business will have visibility of tender opportunities long before your competitors, giving you space to start conversations with buyers before the contract has been announced.
If you are currently a Tracker Tender Alerts customer you can upgrade now to Tracker Premier to gain access to Market Leads.
If you are new to Tracker, sign up for a free trial of Tracker Premier and start identifying more public and supply chain opportunities.
Coming soon: Keep reading our “Public Sector Tendering” blog series and learn more about “What to ask before writing your tender response”.
