Ride the Wave: Julian Wood's top tips for smart bidding

Julian Wood is the Procurement Services Manager at the University of Brighton and has spent the last 14 years working in public sector procurement. Below he shares his top tips on tendering, following the Ride the Wave Smart bidding workshop earlier this month. 

1.    Find out which sorts of organisations are likely to want your services.
2.    Find out who in the organisation may be interested in your services.
3.    Understand your capabilities – it is unlikely you will be selected to tender where your organisation has no previous experience or does not have the resources to deliver.
4.    Read the documentation thoroughly and understand the requirement (look at the evaluation criteria and weightings to understand their relative importance to the buyer). 
5.    Demonstrate your organisation’s capabilities according to the requirements; respond to the question at hand, do not get side tracked and try to tailor your response to the buying organisation.
6.    Respond to all sections. Failure to respond to a section could lead to your bid being discounted.
7.    If for any reason, you are struggling to provide the information or do not understand the requirement ask for advice. 
8.    Don’t include publicity material in your submission unless specifically asked to do so.
9.    Keep a library of previous responses; there is no need to reinvent the wheel, many Pre-Qualification Questionnaires (PQQs) and Invitation to Tenders (ITTs) ask the same or similar questions.
10.    Proof read your response prior to sending (it is not uncommon to see responses reference a different organisation – see 9 above). 

If you would like to contact Julian please email J.D.Wood@brighton.ac.uk. For information on our Ride the Wave workshops please contact ridethewave@businessinbrighton.org.uk or call 01273 719097.

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