Over US$450 million per calendar day was disbursed via open international development tenders in 2018 according to the World Bank. Involving around US$165 billion in funding per year, public procurement in the international development is a real opportunity to expand businesses and secure vital activities for companies. But it is not easy to enter and keep the “boat floating” while navigating through this market. As the leading provider of business intelligence in the development sector, DevelopmentAid has prepared a range of “Tenderwell” articles in which we take a look at the key elements of the procurement process as well as the critical choices organizations have to make during this journey. Use the following tips on how to tender well and discover efficient CRM tools for the process.
Bidding is not easy
Bidding on competitive tenders is difficult. Winning profitable work is even harder. Whether it’s a US$25 million water and sanitation consulting project in Kazakhstan or a US$1 million roads and bridges rehabilitation works in the Crooked River Valley, USA, businesses who want to win public tenders need to stand out. How? They must demonstrate an excellent ability to understand their customers´ needs and deliver high-quality goods, works or services that meet international standards. In order to achieve those goals, bidding organizations require an appropriate strategy, clear objectives, measurable results and a unique selling point.
Here are some tips to increase the chances to win a tender:
But companies cannot navigate with their eyes shut. They need an instrument to spot the business opportunity.
Identifying the business opportunities and the “Go-no-Go”
Identifying business opportunities such as open tenders would be a very time-consuming activity were it not for www.developmentaid.org. The platform gathers information from over 750 sources on tenders and grants every day. It also provides valuable CRM tools with which to acquire and prepare projects. This means there is no need to invest a lot of time in researching this information independently.
Sounds exciting, right? Well, finding an opportunity is only the start. Public tendering is an expensive endeavor for those that bid. Therefore, the “Go-no-Go” decision should be taken carefully and based on multiple criteria such as potential consortia members, the availability of resources (human and financial) as well as associated costs and potential profits.
Tenderwell App
A smart “Go-no-Go” decision should be based on multiple types of information the company may have accumulated over years of work within the public sector. The question then arises where should such information be stored? Some companies store this in folders on a shared server while others rely on Google Docs or Excel spreadsheets.
In many cases, most of the knowledge regarding the bidding process is in the possession of the employees. Accordingly, there is an inherent risk that, since most people are fairly mobile in terms of jobs, whenever they leave, become ill, or go on maternity/paternity leave then all that knowledge goes with them.
In order to ensure that the information obtained while working for an organization stays within that organization and it can therefore be used for critical decision-making, DevelopmentAid has created a project acquisition and proposal preparation application called Tenderwell.
To learn more, contact us at info@tenderwell.app and we will be happy to show you how Tenderwell helps companies to make smart decisions as well as ensuring that internal processes are open, transparent and efficient.
Stay tuned for our next article from the “Tenderwell” series, about how to identify the correct consortia members for a challenging international tender. Our corporate writers will shed light on the important steps to be taken during that stage of the procurement process.
