For many businesses either bidding for public sector contracts or already winning government tenders, a core issue that they face is the time and resources required versus those available to proactively research the market and also find relevant public tender opportunities as they arise.
This is true of experienced bid teams just as much as smaller businesses who have perhaps seen limited success for all their efforts to date.
In this post, we will share how you can use business intelligence tools to maximise your resources to find and win more public sector contracts, meaning your teams can streamline their activities while still aiming for all-important growth.
Why is business intelligence important for maximising efficiency?
Government has a multibillion-pound requirement across the UK for a range of works, goods and services, making this an extremely diverse and lucrative marketplace. However, many businesses like yours (PS: this includes your competitors) are using multiple online and offline resources to find tender opportunities – typically through signing up to multiple tender portals and government websites.
The problem with this approach is that teams and individuals can end up spending hours each day trawling through countless emails, forgetting passwords for multiple websites, finding irrelevant contracts and coming up against tight deadlines for tender responses – putting the pressure on to write the perfect winning bid in record time!
It’s an extremely reactive cycle that could mean your business is missing out on potential opportunities.
So, what if we told you that you can be proactive, streamline your efforts and be in with a bigger chance of winning those sought-after government contracts or securing a place on a lucrative government framework agreement?
How to maximise your time and knowledge to win more tenders
- Use a single-source tendering platform
First things first: save time by signing up to a platform that provides all contract notices and awards in one place. While there are a lot of options on the market, signing up to multiple sources wastes time due to finding repeat opportunities across platforms – and you will still potentially be missing relevant tenders. Ideally, you’ll want a platform that provides daily email notifications and updates on new opportunities – also perfect if you are on the go and checking emails.
- Utilise public sector spend data
Many businesses look past important data such as spend award information. As part of the Transparency Agenda, local and central government in England are required to publish details of all transactions over £500 and £25,000 respectively, which includes both buyer and supplier information.
This is great for market positioning, keeping tabs on new market entrants, understanding competitor wins and also identifying potential sub-contracting opportunities. Rather than researching all this via multiple platforms or websites, pick one that includes this insight to support your overall public tender strategy.
- Use the past to predict the future
Award data isn’t only useful for spend information; it can be an incredibly powerful tool in understanding what buyers are looking for based on past requirements. Using this data intelligently could allow you to identify potential buyer prospects with a need for your offering, flag up potential re-tenders ahead of time, and consider how you could help improve the buyer’s understanding of markets where they are not typically experts.
- Keep on top of the latest news for potential upcoming projects
Using a blend of the latest news and previous awards, suppliers can really stay ahead of the competition and better build a pipeline of potential contracts before they arise. This allows for more strategic planning and finessing of your tender response.
- Engage early with buyers
In the regulated sector, suppliers often feel they cannot engage directly with buyers outside the official tendering process. This is untrue; buyers actively encourage engagement to support their mission of finding innovative solutions to their requirements. Engaging early saves you time and helps you understand the opportunities worth bidding for. Read our guide to Early Engagement to find out more.
As you can see, there are plenty of ways to get on top of the opportunity and seek to improve your win rate – all the while maximising efficiency.
How Tracker can help
The Tracker platform is designed to support suppliers in being more proactive in their approach to public sector tendering, offering actionable insight through researched data in a single-source solution to save your business time and resource in looking elsewhere for this invaluable information.
Through a range of modules, our customers are able to perfectly position their business by engaging earlier with buyers and identifying opportunities before they arise – the ideal strategy for supporting growth in this market.
Take a look around
Why not take a look at what your competitors are winning, find the most relevant opportunities and even look up details about frameworks and dynamic purchasing systems? Our free trial allows you to do just that with no obligation.
Take a look at what you could be missing today. Start your free trial >
