24/02/2016
10 Best tips to winning a tender in kenya
1) First things first, make sure that your company meets
the minimum requirements for the opportunity. These
will be set out in the bid documents. You don’t want to
waste time and resources submitting a bid that is
doomed to failure from the beginning!
2) Pass / Fail questions do what they say on the tin… If
your answer doesn’t meet the Pass criteria then the
client’s assessor is likely to fail your entire submission.
Always check through the Pass/Fail questions first to
make sure you will pass them before starting work on
the rest of the bid.
3) Assume ignorance! Don’t fall into the trap of thinking
that the person reading your bid knows anything about
your company, even if you are already working with the
organisation that you are bidding to work with.
4) Answer all the questions as fully as possible. If you
can’t provide all the information then explain why not
rather than leaving blanks. Use N/A (not applicable) for
the questions that are not relevant to your company.
5) Read the submission instructions carefully and follow
them to the letter. Check early on to see what format/s
are needed – leave enough time at the end for printing
and packaging hard copies. This always takes long than
you think and no amount of willpower can make a printer
go quicker.
6) Now is not the time for modesty! Make sure you
clearly explain what you do, how you do it and why your
company is a good fit for the opportunity. It takes time
and care to craft well-written bid responses but
remember that this is the only information that the client
will be assessing.
7) Stay within the word limits. The assessor may well
stop reading anything over the word limit. Also try to use
the word limits as a rough guide for how long to make
your answer. The contracting organisation is looking for
a certain level of information, e.g. 100 words is a quick
overview whereas a limit of 1000 words means they
want a detailed in-depth answer. A good rule of thumb is
to aim for a minimum of 80% of the word count.
8) Give substance to your answers. Back up what you
have said with evidence – statistics, quotes from clients,
awards and accreditations all add credibility to your bid.
9) Use diagrams and photographs to illustrate your bid.
A picture tells a thousand words… and often don’t count
towards a word limit! A well-presented bid that makes
good use of graphics will give a great first impression
and will be easier to read.
10) Last but definitely not least – read, review and
proofread your bid. Use the client’s evaluation criteria
(from the bid documentation) to mark the bid from their
perspective. It can be helpful to get someone else who
hasn’t written the bid to review it from an objective
viewpoint. Be critical and thorough with this, you want to
make sure you’ve said what you think you have.
If you are bidding at the moment then good luck! Bids
and tenders really aren’t that complicated, you just need
to read the documents carefully and tell the client about
your business.
These tips will help you get through the procurement
process and allow your business to be assessed on its
own merit rather than failing on a technicality. If you’ve
covered the basics then your bid has every chance of
success!
