Winning tenders
Intend provides direct, one-to-one support to companies during the preparation of tenders or proposals, whether you need a few hours help or more intensive involvement:
Analysis of tender documents
Tendering is different to direct selling, with plenty paperwork to work through before you even get started. Requirements can be “buried” in other procedural text and the criteria for selection/award are not always well articulated. Intend will review all tender documents in detail for you, highlighting key requirements and compliance elements and establishing where questions need to be sent to the contracting authority. This saves valuable time early in the tendering process, especially if the client’s requirements are ambiguous.
Bid management
Intend will create a bid management framework and schedule to ensure that there is sufficient time to develop a high quality and compliant tender/proposal. A checklist will be established to designate responsible people for all tasks and highlight key milestones, such as review points and client deadlines. We can also provide templates for frequently used elements of tenders/proposals.
Advice and support
We don’t usually write the whole tender for clients —you will have the expertise to know what makes a winning technical and commercial proposal in your sector. However we can help draw out win themes and work on presentation aspects to make sure your expertise is not “sold short”. If your tender is in English and this is not your mother tongue, we will do a spelling and grammar review.
Frequently throughout the tendering or bidding process, various queries will come up that cannot be easily answered from the contract documentation (e.g. rules for subcontracting, eligibility for certain types of organisation, views on variant options, etc). Intend will follow up these queries for you to ensure they are quickly resolved and do not hold back the bidding process.
Partnering and strategic alliances
It is common for tenders to require more than one organisation to deliver the required service(s). You may be a prime/lead contractor looking for specialist skills or a small business interested in a sub-contract role for a large contract. Intend can help in both cases to source partners and provide guidance with partner evaluation/selection, even where deadlines are short. We can provide templates for teaming agreements and check the rules for partnering for your specific contract(s). We can also advise on the best use of strategic alliances with stakeholders to add value to your proposal.
Compliance
At the end of a frenetic bidding process, it is easy to overlook elements of the tender or proposal that are small but required for compliance with the contract notice. Intend can provide a “fresh pair of eyes” and a methodical compliance review as your documents reach completion. We will advise you when the best points are for this type of review, depending on the complexity of your bid and where to source evidence for financial/legal compliance.
Follow-up and Evaluation
Successful in your tender or proposal? You may be required to enter a contract negotiation stage, particularly with European institutions awards, and may need help with this if it is your first time. Intend can work with you during this phase to explain how the process works and help you prepare documentation.
Bid not successful? Whether you came in second or twentieth, it is vital to get good feedback on your proposal. For public procurements, there are rules you will want to know about which cover this stage of the tender. For other procurements, the principles still apply and Intend can support you to ask the right questions.