Working with a bid management agency is a preferred option for clients who wants to win tenders.

Many times, clients think employing someone to offer same results will work out but it normally doesn’t work. An agency is experienced in handling different types of bids from different sectors, interacting with different professionalship gives them a pool of skills and expertise to refer to.

As one of the most experienced agencies in Kenya, we have submitted thousand s of bid documents that have exposed us to different dynamics of bid preparation.

Bid management is competitive and demands a highly specialised skill set – enlisting the support of an expert bid management expert will help you produce a winning tender while balancing your day-to-day tasks.

Some of the reasons you should consider bid proposal managers for your bid management

The benefits of a bid Management agency

Businesses with an in-house bid team can benefit from partnering with a bid management agency – particularly if your resource is relatively small. There are many benefits, including:

• Access to wider resource in case of illness, holidays, absences or additional capacity if multiple submissions
• Insight from experienced bid managers and reviewers who likely support with dozens (if not hundreds!) of tenders each year
• Letting your team focus on daily operations, saving valuable time and resource for day-to-day tasks
• Improve your success rate by engaging expert bid writers and reviewers

Once a relationship is developed, our team will partner with your organisation and support you to identify contract opportunities, understand your bidding pipeline and generally be on hand to help whenever required.

How Bid Managers stands out amongst its competitors

With bid management agencies in high demand, we have developed a tried and tested methodology which stands out from competitors – as demonstrated by our 85% repeat business and 90% success rate. Bid managers has been in operation since 2009 under the parent company Silicon Consulting Limited and since then we have supported hundreds of clients to secure contracts.

Quality assurance process

Each bid response we produce goes through our stringent quality assurance process, where a quality reviewer checks to ensure:

• All aspects of the tender requirements have been comprehensively addressed and nothing has been missed or omitted
• The response is compliant with the requirements of the specification, avoiding loss of marks due to oversight
• Content is clearly structured and easy to locate documents, making it easy for the evaluator to award marks
• Colour, images and tables have been used where appropriate and if permitted by the tender guidance.

Tailored support based on your requirements

The strength and experience of our team allows us to tailor support based on the requirements of your business and the opportunity. In addition to bid management support, we also offer:

• Bid review services: A senior member of the team (normally a quality manager) reviews tender responses produced by your subject matter experts, leaving targeted comments to enhance the overall quality and ensure the best chance of success.
• Pre-bid consultancy or ‘bid capture planning’ services: for businesses who have an upcoming business, we do review compared with your requirements to see if you are able to compete or not
• Bid training courses: Offering beginner, intermediate and advanced courses, we conduct training sessions aimed at enhancing your knowledge of bidding, identifying opportunities and applying our own bid management techniques to future tender submissions.

Industry experience

Our quality reviewers and management team have industry insight and expertise from previous careers, includingg from all sectors of the economy. This supports a practical level of knowledge and detail, allowing them to support writers and ‘sense check’ technical content in responses – supporting accuracy as well as persuasive, evidence-based bid writing.

Wider bid management support

Under a consultancy model, a bid writing agency will offer end-to-end bid management support and guidance, from the beginning to the end of the bid submission. This can include:

• Bid administration, including opportunity monitoring and information to inform the ‘bid/no-bid’ decision
• Completing standard company information and data response documents, such as a PQQ or Standard Selection Questionnaire (SQ)
• Support with drafting clarification questions to the authority through the portal to gain further clarity on the requirements of the bid
• Navigating and uploading documents to the tender portal following any client amendments and checks for accuracy, sufficiency and suitability
• A final ‘portal check’ in advance of the deadline to check compliance and that documents have been uploaded in the correct place and format.

Bid management agencies should be flexible and adaptable, offering as much support as possible to ensure a smooth, error-free and compliant submission. A reputable agency will not draw the line just at preparing and sending back responses – instead, the approach should be collaborative and consultative, providing the best value for money.

If you would like to learn more about how we can support your tender to win, contact us today via email info@bidmanagers.co.ke or telephone +254 721 447 564.

Also known as ‘joint bidding’, consortium bidding involves two or more organisations joining forces to submit a tender. This differs from a contractor–subcontractor relationship in that a subcontractor is not seen as a ‘bidder’ during the tender process – no contract is signed between the buyer and subcontracting partner.

When bidding as a consortium, all members will be relied upon to deliver the works or services and will enter into a contract with the purchasing authority.

The benefits of Joint Venture Bidding

Even if you have had success bidding as a lone organisation, there are multiple reasons why you may choose to submit a bid as a consortium. However, they usually occur when individual companies cannot meet all of the requirements within the invitation to tender (ITT) document.

For instance, there may be a mandatory minimum turnover threshold your business cannot meet on its own – forming a consortium with other suppliers could satisfy this requirement. Some other reasons for consortium bidding may include:

• Access to a larger pool of resources and geographic coverage to deliver against the scope of works
• One of the organisations fulfils a mandatory condition to submit a compliant bid – for instance, a particular certification or accreditation
• Leveraging specific experience from member organisations across different contracts. This is particularly relevant if the contract is very high value or requires different services.

For these reasons, bidding as a consortium is usually reserved for large-scale contracts, including those requiring nationwide coverage. It can also allow small- and medium-sized businesses to access opportunities for which they may not have been able to qualify if they were bidding alone.

Structuring your consortium bid

Beyond a single-supplier or consortium bid, there are also different forms of a consortium bid. This usually depends on whether the consortium has been formed for a single contract or on an ongoing basis.

The most common methods of consortium bidding are:

• ‘Lead bidder’ model: Consortia members nominate a lead supplier as a contact to complete the bid on behalf of all members. Final responsibility for completing quality responses and submitting the bid will remain with that supplier.
• ‘Special purpose vehicle’ model: Also known as an SPV or joint venture company, members of the consortium will set up a separate company and submit the bid under that name. This is more typically employed for consortium bidding on a more frequent basis.

It is important to note that there are financial and legal commitments stemming from a consortium bid. The buyer will assess the overall financial health of the consortium, and if you are providing any guarantee arrangements to other members, you will be held liable over the contract term.

For this reason, consortium bidding is a considerably ‘high-trust’ activity. You should only enter into an agreement or partnership with organisations who have been properly vetted. A bidding agreement – separate from the authority – should be signed by all members to ensure any deals made are legally binding.

Even experienced bid and tender writers will occasionally find themselves in a race against the clock to submit that all-important bid. However, this is not a sustainable bidding strategy or advisable method for tender submissions. Effective time management is a crucial element of the bid process.

Although the size or bid pipeline will naturally dictate some submissions will go down to the wire, last-minute bid submissions can run the risk of missing out key quality assurance processes, or even incorrect or uncompliant tender documents – for example, missing an element of the selection questionnaire (SQ) or incorrectly formatting a tender response document.

The consequences could be severe – even leading to a disqualified tender, with potentially weeks of hard work and a key contract lost. We advise some best-practice approaches for effective time management for your tender submission, avoiding unnecessary stress and giving you the best chance of success to submit a winning bid.

Create a project-specific bid plan

Your project-specific bid plan should serve as a guide for the rest of the submission. At the beginning of each tender exercise, make sure to complete the following:

• Read the specification and accompanying tender documents in full, making note of any unusual elements within the submission
• Begin preparing your submission plans by breaking down each quality question into constituent parts, which saves time and avoids any gaps or omissions in a tender response
• Make note of deadlines within the tender timetable – this could include dates for site visits, deadline for response to clarification questions, and the time of the deadline alongside the date of submission
• Ensure appropriate time is allocated for appendices or supporting documents to tender responses – for instance, mobilisation plans, equipments, financials, organisational charts and CVs of key personnel.

As tenders come in many forms and lengths, so should your bid plan. Putting aside several hours at the beginning of your submission will proactively mitigate any last-minute, haphazard rush to submit, informing your bid planning and time management.

Submit a clarification if something is unclear

After your bid plan has been created, there may be conflicting or uncertain elements within the ITT, specification, wording of the question set or other part of the tender pack. Rather than speculate or make unqualified assumptions, the most advisable and risk-free option is always submitting a clarification to the contracting authority.

It is crucial to submit a clarification early in the tender process – although most clarification deadlines close a week before submission, this can be earlier in the tender timetable. All government agencies have a duty to provide a substantive response to clarification questions from bidder organisations. Questions are published anonymously on a central, easy-to-access location on the clients websites, ensuring the tender process is fair, open and transparent.

An experienced bid and tender manager will also keep a watchful eye on the clarification log, regardless of whether or not they have submitted a clarification. Results of a clarification from the authority’s representative could include updated tender documents, changes to word limits, amended requirements to submission (e.g. new appendices) or even a new submission deadline/extension.

Assign task owners to each element of the tender

One of the most common causes of a last-minute bid submission is a bid and tender manager who has taken on too much. Rushed submissions will naturally lead to shortcuts in drafting responses, quality assurance processes and portal uploads. For larger bids, assigning different task owners to each part of the tender submission will lead to more controlled, measured time management.

Consequently, all parts of the tender should be assigned an individual task owner, who is fully aware of their scope of work within the submission. This includes:

• Bid and tender responses to provide the technical information as required in the bid document.
• Standard company information, data responses Working on the filling the company data as required in the bid document.
• Mandatory attachments and appendices ensuring all the required documents are available and up to date. Reaching out to other authorities to ensure what is missing is acquired in good time.
• Pricing schedules and Bill of quantities, this should be assigned to someone who has knowledge when it comes to pricing in the sector submission is being made.

It is critical to ensure each returned element of your bid submission has a task owner – a missed document is one of the most common reasons for a last-minute, rushed submission.

Organise information-gathering sessions for tender questions

Regardless of whether a bid manager works for a consultancy or is part of an in-house bid team, certain quality requirements will likely require input from a subject matter expert or other individual with a technical knowledge or background.

Ideally, an information-gathering call or meeting will be scheduled as early as possible within the tender exercise. Just like bid managers, the subject matter experts have busy schedules, and just a few days’ complacency paired with an ill-timed holiday or sickness can leave the bid manager lacking that vital information and input from an industry perspective.

To mitigate this and a scramble in advance of the submission deadline for relevant information, schedule a meeting with a subject matter expert as a point of priority well in advance of the deadline. Not only does this leave adequate time for submission of responses, but also the all-important bid review stage of the bid process, which ensures high-scoring, competitive responses.

Ensure sufficient time for a portal check

Finally, a last-minute rush to submit incurs unnecessary risk of a non-compliant or disqualifying submission during the upload to the portal. Where possible, a final review of the bid submission should be scheduled 24 hours in advance of the final deadline. This leaves sufficient room for any final amendments, completion of documents or appendices, or potential IT failure which could result in a late submission.