subject: Advice On How Smes Can Successfully Bid For Public Sector Contracts [print this page] SMEs often find it hard to figure out whether a public contract is within or is beyond their capabilities. They must factor in that the awarding authority states the total potential value of the contract, rather than its total annual value. Read on to discover how an SME can successfully bid for a public contract.
SMEs in Scotland often dont realise just how many public tender opportunities are open to them, or perhaps they are not confident of submitting a successful bid. They may feel that they lack the resources to bid for public contracts, which may run into millions of pounds.
An SME may consider a potential contract is too big for them, and fear wasting their time chasing something beyond their capabilities. But SMEs can win their share of business from public tenders and thereby strengthen and grow their business.
When publishing a tender opportunity, a public body will state its total potential value rather than total annual value. This means that if there is a public tender with a value of 150,000 over five years, it is actually worth 30,000 a year, a figure that will usually be well within the reach of most SMEs and even micro SMEs.
A problem arises when an authority prefers not to reveal the exact value of the contract as they believe that the bidders may tweak their replies around it. Some bodies use value-banding as a solution. Instead of giving the total value of the contract, they can categorise it. For instance, contracts between 1,000,000 and 3,000,000 may be categorised as Category A; 500,000 to 1,000,000 Category B; 100,000 to 500,000 Category C; and so on.
This system protects the interests of both contracting authorities and bidders. It promotes appropriate competition for public contracts while saving small enterprises from wasting their resources in chasing contracts that do not suit their size.
Legislation requires public authorities to ensure that all contract opportunities, regardless of their value, are adequately advertised to allow all interested parties to bid for them. All you need to do is to keep tabs on all newly published contracts and bid for those which you deem suitable.
The best way to do that is to subscribe to a web-based contracts finder service which will keep you updated about newly published public contracts in your sector within the value-band chosen by you. Such a service will send you daily contract email alerts, and if you need more information you can log on to their website and browse the data there. You wont just get the latest tender information but enough data to gauge market trends for the last few months or years. There will also be industry sector intelligence and information on your competitors to help you formulate a winning tendering strategy.
Such a service will extend dedicated support to maximise your use of the subscription. The service will provide you with procurement Selling To guides, eBook user guides and helpdesk support as well as assigning you a dedicated account manager to help you make the most of the available opportunities.
