With over 300 funding opportunities having been published daily in 2019, the international development sector represents a wealth of business opportunities. In the pursuit of lucrative contracts in this highly competitive market, implementing companies have to fight for each tender/grant. The ability to be the first to identify those opportunities and fine-tune the delicate acquisition process in the shortest possible time are key factors to being successful. However, the first question to answer is, what is the best way to identify funding opportunities?
Hundreds of bilateral and multilateral donor organizations spend billions of dollars on development assistance, releasing over 72,000 tenders and grants each year which all become funding opportunities. From a US$22,000 call for the selection of local partner organizations for a startup ecosystem development in Georgia to a US$15 million Rio Grande Supervisor’s Office Construction tender in the USA, these opportunities attract the attention of the private sector. Consulting companies, engineering firms, suppliers of equipment, service providers, NGOs and academic institutions are all eager to submit their offers.
But how can one spot a relevant funding opportunity from among over 850 sources of tender information? Moreover, some of the opportunities out there are open to bidding for only a very short period of time. Getting the information promptly, or a day or two earlier than the competition, will give the bidder a competitive advantage since there will be more time to prepare the best offer and submit this within the tight deadlines of a tender.
There are certain tactics that bidding companies can consider in their search for funding opportunities:
Day to day monitoring of search engines and relevant websites for tender information is an approach that is very time-consuming and requires specially trained staff for it to be performed effectively. Although, search engines are a great way of identifying opportunities, there is a high risk of failing to spot announcements because of using the wrong key-words or due to the search engine’s own algorithms.
Subscribing to newsletters from international donors and governmental agencies is a less dynamic method of research that relies on the notion that donors will release of the opportunity immediately. Although the bidding company does not need a dedicated staff member to constantly look for opportunities, the chances of spotting the announcement ahead of the competition are very low.
Regular checking donor’s website for news on procurement and tendering is a frequently used way off identifying funding opportunities. However, this is only feasible if the bidding organization works with a limited number of donors because otherwise there would be over 850 websites to check – a highly time-consuming task, even for specialized teams of data entry specialists.
Subscribing to a business intelligence service provider, such as DevelopmentAid, allows members to save the time, often days or weeks, that would normally take to identify funding opportunities because the company specializes in aggregating tender announcements and grant notices on a single platform.
DevelopmentAid goes beyond simply offering daily updates on available and upcoming funding opportunities. It provides access to all the tender-related documentation, facilitates the identification of optimal consortia partners and maintains records of companies’ past-performance. Furthermore, its members can organize the entire project acquisition process through the specially designed apps and instruments that it has available.
Tips and Tricks from Project Acquisition Professionals
“One missed funding opportunity can have a significant impact on your business”, says Sergiu Casu, Business Development Director at DevelopmentAid.
According to him, there are certain tips and tricks that can significantly reduce the number of missed funding opportunities.
Firstly, every firm that takes public procurement seriously needs to optimize its research process by utilizing the business intelligence that is available. Companies should ensure their valuable employees focus on preparing project proposals rather than spending time looking for available opportunities.
Secondly, companies need to learn to take decisions based on the data available.
“DevelopmentAid is a platform with scores of features. Some of these, allow members to configure daily tender alerts, others to check the list of sanctioned organizations and individuals – a crucial feature during the partnership building and recruitment process”, explains Casu.
If you receive notification of tenders/grants that meet your expertise in your inbox every day, you don’t need to then spend time identifying those funding opportunities yourself – you can focus on taking the go-no-go decisions and move on.
Thirdly, check your Profile within developmentaid.org daily. This routine is very important because there are hundreds of announcements every day. Bidding companies must keep a watchful eye for the tender notices that are relevant to their sphere of interest.
One of the easiest ways to identify the funding opportunities from 175 donors and 850 sources is to become a member of DevelopmentAid. The platform has been aggregating funding opportunities for 12 years and knows virtually everything there is to know about the bidding process.
Join today and discover all the funding opportunities that will enable the exponential growth of your business.
