Tender deadlines feel tighter and tighter because
of the effort needed to deliver a compliant bid
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Clients these days are looking for a submission and not just a price. They are now expecting a programme, site logistics, CVs, CSR etc., while still expecting a 4-6 week turnaround. Even though in most cases when requested, extensions of times are granted, this still means that tender deadlines feel as tight as ever. In addition to having to fill in gaps from the information received, the need for more varied information from the client means that we now need more internal involvement at tender in the form of a bid lead, planner, bid writer, commercial input, legal input and site team. Contractors now find that they have to maximise the efficiency of their teams just to keep up.
Tender deadlines feel like they are becoming tighter and tighter
As we moved from stage 4 complete tender packs to stage 2-3, more varied RFI’s, and yet more of them at tender, have become the norm. This has created a ‘new normal’ in which the information provided is often incomplete and the information requested from the client has become ever more complex, making the usual deadlines no longer sufficient to accommodate the additional work.
Everything feels rushed
The client now rushes his team to get a tender out for pricing, and seems to push to get on site far quicker than in the past. Previously, queries and issues were dealt with in the pre-tender submission to avoid undue risk to the client. Nowadays, however, more and more clients seem happy to run with issues and deal with them under contract.
Requirements to prove competence in diverse areas
Contractors these days are required to prove competence in many aspects and areas of their work, including safety, health and welfare, environmental issues, quality, operational or even social value. At the same time, they need to remain commercially competitive without appearing as if they are attempting to ‘buy’ the job.
More internal team involvement
Due to the complexity of some tenders, and poor tender information, contractors now need input from a variety of internal sources. At a minimum, to produce a robust bid Contractors may require an estimator, design manager, planner, operational support and bid writer.
Reduced timescales are driving changes in efficiency
With tender deadlines becoming tighter and tighter, there has been a drive by contractors to maximise the efficiency of their staff. This has resulted in a situation in which it has often become impossible for tenders to be completed by one person, due to the necessity of breaking them down into manageable chunks, in relation to timescales.
Tenders have become very much a team effort
Over the years, the increasing reliance on supporting bid information has required the inclusion of bid managers, risk managers, H&S, environmental advisors, liaison officers and planners etc., all working alongside the estimating team.
The involvement of more people increases tender costs
Competitively tendering a scheme is at the contractor’s risk. With more and more internal and sometimes external resources needed to deliver a compliant and robust bid, it can very quickly add up to a hefty bill for the contractor. This inevitably becomes a huge overhead and eventually a loss if the work is not secured.
Lack of understanding from the client’s side
In some cases, tender deadlines are getting tighter and tighter simply because of a lack of understanding by the client of the amount of time and effort required to respond to tender, and produce a compliant bid. An extension is often granted while you wait for the design team to answer numerous queries, but not always.
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How BidWork helps you with tight tender deadlines and more
internal team involvement
With the shift from price only, to submissions which include many facets, more and more internal team members need to be able to access all the relevant information. At the same time, with tender deadlines feeling tighter and tighter, any efficiency gained for the estimating team during tender, can keep down the costs of creating a compliant bid.
Invite the whole tender or pre-construction team
With the quality of information submitted by the client team becoming poorer and poorer, there are more hands needed to 'fill in the gaps' and assess risks more carefully.
Within every tender you create in BidWork, you have the ability to invite as many co-workers as you wish. You can even set the access level they should get.
Sharing access in a structured manner through BidWork makes collaboration easier between team members. Furthermore, no training is needed for new team members to collaborate on BidWork.
Connect your risk & procurement teams to enquiries
You will, by now, have already invested time and money in a qualification tool for subcontractors and suppliers, whether it be Constructionline, Chas or BuildersProfile.
With BidWork, you can create a connection to your accounts with these services.
This allows you to create many different rules within your business, e.g. only sending enquiries to supply chain members who are Constructionline gold members.
Find micro, social enterprises and local suppliers
One of the biggest recent variations involves CSR and any social improvements that you can offer. Sometimes these themes can be as much as a 10% part of the scoring criteria.
Usually this work is picked up by the bid manager, or a social value coordinator. Within BidWork, you can find local supply chains who only serve a specific location.
Additionally, you can search by enterprise type and find ‘micro’ companies..
Speed up the enquiry process with templates
Tender deadlines feel tighter and tighter because information provided by the client’s team is getting poorer and poorer. At the same time, clients are expecting a submission with extensive information, and not just the price.
Creating templates in BidWork allows you to proactively create your enquiries before receiving the tender documents, so that it is only necessary to upload the documents and click send. All your packages are then created to invite the right supply teams.
Using templates gives you increased efficiency, and helps to relieve some of the pressure caused by tight tender deadlines.
Assign different co-workers to lead different packages
If the enquiry is large, difficult or complex in nature, then mechanical and electrical estimators will often lead the M&E packages.
In BidWork, multiple estimators can work on one enquiry at the same time. Each co-worker can be assigned to a different package.
This means that all prices sought from the market are saved within one system, and only the relevant package lead will receive e-mails about their package.
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Book your demonstration by contacting us via email at: sales@bidwork.co.uk