Tenders/Contracts & New business

tomnbecky11

Hi,

We are a new company starting up,I have been looking at contracts and see alot of work goes through tenders, I havn't a clue, I've looked over and over some of the forms, but due to being a new start up company is there any chance i will have any luck this way.

Like with companies asking for account's for other years, Im new start up business

Would really appreciate any help i get off here

Tom. :eek:

glasgowdan

Tom you must remember it is a human that assesses the tenders; enter text to explain things like the fact you have not been trading for very long. Give them references, examples, perhaps embellish the length of time you have been trading slightly. They need to know that you have the capacity to do the job and are not going to have financial struggles during the contract. Price high - you won't have the facilities in place to offer a rock bottom price the same way as larger companies. If you get it then you have a chance to learn and build, but if you price very low you'll end up struggling to keep up and make a living from it.

I put in a tender for a national historic grounds maintenance contract. My price was double the eventual winning bid, but I would have had to purchase very expensive equipment to carry out the work if I did win. Had I won at the eventual winning price I would not have made a penny from it by the time I upgraded my equipment.

Cpe1978

Hi Tom

I am not sure what industry you are working in and I suspect that a lot depends on that. However I am a commissioner in children's services and agree with you it is a challenge. One of the things that will be assessed will be financial risk, and there is no doubt that contracting an organisation with no financial history represents a higher risk than an established company. That said, it is not insurmountable.

Try building a relationship with the person who commissions the contracts that you are likely to bid for. Whilst this won't influence directly the evaluation process of an individual tender, it may well enhance your credibility in the eyes of people evaluating.

Also critically, make sure you submit a tender for what is asked for. You would not believe the number of organisations who submit a bid that is linked to what they would like to do rather than what we know we need.

Finally make sure you deal with the pre qualification questionnaire fully otherwise you won't even get to the stage of submitting your bid. Again, it is amazing how many people don't and in this age of austerity local authorities are becoming really tight on this.

Good luck.

terra_ferma

Tendering and procurement are areas a know a lot about, having experienced it from both sides.
If I have to be totally honest, I think it's unlikely that you would be able to win a large tender as a new company with no trading history, at least in the areas I'm familiar with (which covers a wide spectrum).

It's fairly normal to have requirements like minimum turnover, value of the contract can't be more than 10/20% of turnover of the company, references etc.
It's all about managing risk and making sure the contractor is not likely to go bust and also will be able to cope with delivering the contract.

EU tenders are stricter, but some organizations have tenders for non-EU contracts (i.e. EU regulations don't apply due to smaller value of the contract, or type of service/goods). Some still use the full procurement process for good practice reasons, but there is a bit more flexibility. If you find a smaller tender you might have better chances, but the large EU tenders I would say they may be out of reach for now, unless your area is very specialised.

If you see a contract you are interested I would suggest you contact the organisation (following the instructions on the tender documents) and ask them if they accept bids from a new company without trading history, rather than just spend hours and hours filling in all the documents. They should be able to tell you, some are more helpful than others.

Anyway not all is lost, a way round it is to start as a subcontractor.
If there is an organisation you are particularly interested in, you could check their website or contact their procurement team to get a list of major contracts, then contact the main contractors to find out if they need a subcontractor.

However this is general advice, and things can be different if say you specialise in a non-EU procurement area such as Social Care, or are a maintenance contractor, and also depending on the type of organisation.
If you cold say what's your area of work, I might be able to give more specific information (well can't take credit for all of it, actually, a good friend of mine works in procurement and gave me a couple of tips too).

tomnbecky11

Hi,

Thank you all so much for the replies, Atleast i am a bit clearer now.

We are a cleaning business, My dad started doing it in 1986 but sold the company in 2007, Thinking that he could go into another business and blah blah,

But now we are starting up fresh again and he said its all changed since he got his contracts for the previous business.

Thanks again for all the help.

Regards
Thomas