How To Get In With Councils And Larger Contracts

TOTALLY_SKINT_MARE

My Husband Has A Carpet Retail Company And Has Built The Company Up Very Well, But We Want To Get More Into Bigger Contracts For Say The Local Councils Or Breweries / House Builders For Fitting Out Pubs / Council Houses/schools/new Developments Etc.

Does Anyone Know How We Go About Doing This Or Who To Contact?

Any Ideas Would Be So Welcome.:d

ukbill69

Its called tenders and they can be found by searching google.

vivatifosi

Some of the websites on google charge you for the info.

Tenders Electronic Daily is free and a service of the EU. It will help you search government tenders and tenders that come under the government (eg housing associations if the tenders are large enough). It won't help you with pubs and other commercial jobs.

Go to: http://ted.europa.eu/

At the title page click on EN for English

Its worth registering to get full functionality (I use it myself).

I use standard search as in that you can search the archive (and see which of your competitors have won jobs). You should click on the + symbol for country and then the cross next to UK. Then click on go at the top. This will load your search as a UK search. CPV codes are where you put in your specific industry/product. For example CPV code 17231310 will get you to carpet tiles.

Pub and housebuilders I don't know of tender sources for, but I'd contact the big ones direct and find out how to get on their supplier lists.

With government tenders you also need to be aware that the trend is towards OGC framework contracts. These are pre-tendered, so the government department can go to a supplier that has already won a framework, cuts out the time and effort of negotiating a tender, though the tender route is still used where the solution isn't one that's liked/appropriate (and in some cases probably because they want the independence). These are often the manufacturers rather than suppliers, but it depends on the product sold.

For more info on OGC see http://online.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk/bcm/Supplierzone/

There may also be a different system outside of England, not sure how that all works now that there is devolved governnment.

Savvy_Sue

Be aware that if you are tendering for local council and government work I believe there is an awful lot of paperwork generated, and some of it revolves around you demonstrating that you are an equal ops employer with absolutely sound recruitment practices etc. Also long lead-in times, while you aren't earning anything but still needing to spend money to keep the tender live and up to scratch. And at any time they can change the rules / decide they don't want to do the work after all.

I have at least heard of these things happening. Once you've got the hang of doing it, I'm sure it's all perfectly straightforward, but I can't help thinking that there would be easier markets to get into - eg pubs, housing developers (although in this climate ...)

vivatifosi

Good point Savvy Sue, you're absolutely right. There is also the issue that government tenders are seen as a safe haven at the moment, so there are lots of companies trying to move into them without having experience in that background. It takes time and effort to move into government sales and you do need to be able to show an understanding.

Another key point is that if you win a "framework" contract for £200k, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to get £200k of work.