Many companies, when first venturing into the world of tendering and procurement, have one question in mind: “Do I need a tender consultant?” Many others may not even have heard of the term and may be attempting to DIY their procurement application. In either case, tender consultants can do miracles for businesses, even those who have been tendering for a while.
Businesses choose the services of a tender consultant for many different reasons. First, they may have tried their luck at writing a few proposals for the very first time but haven’t seen much luck and are looking for a professional to go over their proposals and assess where their shortcomings lie. In another scenario, others may have previously won some contracts through tendering but have started losing more and more and want an assessment of what went wrong where. Finally, a tender consultant may even be able to review an unsubmitted proposal and polish it to an extent that it has the highest chances of winning the contract. In any case, hiring a tender consultant can be extremely beneficial for businesses at all steps of their procurement journey.
What Can a Tender Consultant Do For Your Business?
In addition to the above, here are a few more things a tender consultant can help you with:
– A tender consultant will be able to objectively assess your tenders and company
Many business owners fall into the trap of overestimating their company’s abilities to get a task done and may oversell themselves. A tender consultant will be able to look at your company objectively, what it has achieved in the past five years, your workforce and their capabilities, and the type of services you offer. They will then look at the buying company and see if you complement each other, and whether you have the expertise necessary to successfully win the contract. Spending time on a proposal that you have no hopes of getting is not just a massive waste of time but also your company’s resources.
Finding the right contract to tender for is not as easy as it seems. A tender consultant who has nothing to do with either you or the buyer will be able to look at both sides with an objective eye and make a better, more informed choice about a bid/no bid decision.
– A tender consultant can improve the quality of your bids
Because of their unmatched experience in the field of procurement, a tender consultant will be able to accurately point out places in your proposal that need more work. Perhaps a question was actually testing for something other than what you’ve answered, or a table or figure could be presented in a better way to be clearer. Perhaps you’re missing a few key documents that could put your proposal at risk of getting disqualified right in the interim stages. You may be underselling or overselling your company and its services which might be why you’re losing out on contracts. Maybe the format you’ve used is too confusing and a simpler, more streamlined layout would work better. A good tender consultant should be able to immediately notice and point these things out to help you improve your chances of winning your next tender.
– A tender consultant will save you time
Although there is no guarantee that you will win every contract you bid for, even after hiring a professional bid writer or consultant, these experts will ensure you only bid for contracts that you have some chance of winning. The tender writing and preparation process is long and time-consuming, and can sometimes take months to complete. If it’s a tender for a particularly complex industry, such as defence or construction and addendums are continuously being added, it can be helpful to have a professional on your side to help you keep track of all the different documents and requirements so you save time and meet deadlines. Because these professionals have worked on hundreds of similar tenders, they can also get the work done faster and more accurately than you who may have only bid for a contract a few times in a year.
– A tender consultant comes with extensive experience
Finally, what makes tender consultants such experts on accurately assessing companies and their chances of winning tenders is the fact that many of them have previously also served on evaluator panels. This gives them a unique ability of knowing how tenders are graded and shortlisted, what evaluators may be looking for and how the evaluation process is conducted. This will help you modify your proposal so it instantly catches the eyes of the evaluator and checks off everything on their list.
Because of all of the above, hiring a tender consultant may just be the best thing you do for your business!
Marta Jordan is a professional writer & blogger, who writes for a variety of online publications and loves working with words of all shapes and sizes.
