Tenders come in many different shapes and formats. Still, there are usually some common threads in all tender requests, so matter how specific or vague a particular question may be, there are four main areas that you'll need to respond to for nearly every tender submission.
Demonstrate Your Experience
The tender issuer wants to know that you've got the skills and expertise to get the job done, so this is your chance to showcase your awesomeness. You should include:
Your Capabilities
Precisely what you do and how long you've done it for.
Your Capacity to Deliver
What resources do you have (people and equipment), and how you would structure yourself organisationally to deliver the services.
The Experience of Your Key People
Who they are, their qualifications, what they've done and how they would add value to the tender response.
Your Customers
Make sure you profile customers with similar requirements to those in the tender documents and then reinforce the contract similarities.
Show How You'll Manage the Project
It's your opportunity to demonstrate that you've got the right systems and processes to manage whatever needs to be delivered. It includes things like:
Management roles and responsibilities
Your Quality, OH&S and Environmental Management Systems
You back office processes
Your service standards
Your reporting ability
Any key performance indicators you want to set
Contract and Relationship Management
Include information about the person or people who will be responsible for the tender response document and contract compliance and the quality of client relationships at all levels for the scope of work. Include previous experience, qualifications, and your process for resolving complaints.
Innovation and Value Add
If you have any cutting-edge equipment or processes that you use, make sure you highlight them. Innovation doesn't need to be groundbreaking —it can focus on more efficient equipment or utilising cloud-based and mobile applications to be more productive. If you can't think of anything that you do that's particularly innovative or adds extra value, now's the time to research and refer to a tender response template most suited to your business.
Need a hand?
If you need a hand with your tender submission or if you'd like to get ready for the next one by developing some standard responses you can cut and paste from, TenderWise can help. We've written loads of winning tenders across a wide range of industry sectors and we can help you too.
Just give Pauline a call for a chat at 0400 514579 or contact us here.