Why? Because they won’t do it!

We were told repeatedly to ‘read the question’ at school. I have always repeated that advice to my Foundation exam students. I even remind myself to do it. And still we get answers wrong because we haven’t fully answered the question. In the bids we review, my experience is that some questions go unanswered by the authors on every bid.

In fact, the Senior Procurement officer for Central Government agrees. He once said that the biggest reason that bidders lose marks is that they do not fully answer the questions asked. So, something is going wrong at a fundamental level.

Generally, all SMEs know they have to answer the question. They also know they should read the question in detail. So just reminding them to do it does not change anything. Instead, we need a process that enables it to be done effectively. Bid management needs to ensure the contributors have read the question and must take action where there is missing information in the response.

I think there are three steps to achieve this:

You may well be asking yourself ‘What’s so special about all that?’ And I’d agree with you. It isn’t special. It’s really simple, but if it is done it makes a massive difference to the bid because you won’t lose points for ‘not answering the question’.

I’ve been doing this deconstruction and checking process on most bids I’ve been involved in for several years. This is because it filled a gap in our client’s processes. Typically, we found 5% of the questions would have gone unanswered. These clients won over £500m worth of contracts in the last two years. And who knows? Maybe they wouldn’t have been so successful if we hadn’t fixed those missing questions. The full magazine can be accessed at https://bidsolutions.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/BQ18-Pages-Final-250224.pdf It is full of useful bidding guidance.  If you would like to chat over how all or any this may affect you and your business, please give us a call at any time for a no-obligation chat.

Back to Foreword

Andy and Peter were asked to take part in a panel discussion on this topic for APMG (the examination board for APMP Certification). For those of you that are interested, or know of anyone interested in starting out on a career in bidding, here is a link to Episode 226 – Level Up your Career – How to Become a bid and Proposal Professional in 2024 (Part 1)

Episode 226 – Level Up your Career – How to Become a bid and Proposal Professional in 2024 part 1.

If you are involved in the decision of how to structure your multi-organisational team for a strategic bid e.g. as a prime, sub-contract, consortium etc., you need to watch out.  Recent court cases have shown “Here may be Dragons” for the less well informed! Bevan Brittan (a Procurement Law specialist) has helpfully summarised two recent court decisions which may alter your view on how to proceed.  It advises that although there are several ways in which you may team to bid for a Public Sector opportunity, the choice of how to structure your bidding entity may come back to bite you at the end of the process.

In esssence if you are a sub-contractor, you will not have the right to challenge the outcome of a dodgy procurement.  If you create a Special Purpose Vehicle to bid, you will then be limited in the types of losses you can claim.  These cases suggest that if you expect to put a lot of work into a bid and want to retain the power to challenge, you need to be the prime or in a consortium.

The full article is at https://www.bevanbrittan.com/insights/articles/2024/lessons-for-bidders-in-public-procurement-sub-contracting-and-joint-ventures/.  I have tried to summarise it in these two paragraphs to help you get the gist, but I recommend you read it if the topic is of interest to you.

Happy bidding!!

Back to Foreword

Public sector contracts are a lucrative business. You may not win many at first but this will change with experience in leveraging the systems and processes to gain competitive advantage. More doors will open as you become known.

For over 20 years we have helped people bid into the public sector but it is the most frustrating (and often non-intuitive) area of bidding to work in with strict and well-defined rules. Both procurement and bidders work hard to get around these rules and if they do, their competitors try to find out how and take them to court for doing so. If the court finds no wrongdoing, everyone builds their own workaround to circumvent the rules in future bids.

Then procurement teams change the requirements. Bids should NOT be all about providing quality goods and services the public sector needs; they must support the latest ecology, quality and social engineering agendas which make the buying department (or local politician) look good (e.g. eye-catching support for disadvantaged communities, numbers of wildlife rehoused, etc).

So you refocus your business strategy to keep up and face another challenging hurdle – word limited responses to heavily worded questions. The responses in a recent multi-million pound public sector bid were limited to 600 words (difficult but manageable) – but several questions were 300 words and one was 400! At least all bidders had to contend with the same restrictions.

From my experience, the biggest and most successful public sector bidders have dedicated public sector sales teams, with bidding support focused on these types of bids. They understand the many nuances of competing in this field; many have their own well developed bidding tools and processes. They choose from a selection of strategies developed to best meet the latest requirement. Interestingly, the majority seem to value APMP accreditation, even if they do not specify it when they are recruiting or use the APMP methodology internally.

But some provide bid support as a central resource (not sales-integrated). This can be a problem if bean-counters in some multinational HQ decide costs are too high and cuts are needed. They see bids as just another project, and assume the Project Managers already in place will be able to run their bids with support from SMEs in the business. No need for overpriced bid managers/teams!

In our business, we love it when this happens. The client’s bid performance crashes and we are asked to help put it right. We establish a public sector bid team inside the sales function, fully integrating its activities into the communication plan for each qualified opportunity.

So what’s my advice to a company wanting to get into winning public sector contracts? Entry barriers are significant and going after public sector contracts is not a business decision to be taken lightly.

For small contracts, you may get the impression the ‘playing field’ is not level and buyers’ personal agendas are followed at the expense of fair competition. Legal redress for any procurement or bidding shenanigans is unlikely; it’s just too expensive (though the threat of going to court can sometimes sort an issue). Your best protection is to strictly follow the precise rules, requirements and constraints of the ITT. Do not embellish the responses or add in text which is not absolutely relevant to the exam questions set. Only address what the procurement team ask and show you are meeting their needs, not selling what you have. They will be unable to drop you from the competition as a result of a minor non-compliance.

For big contracts, following the rules is not enough. You have to ‘game’ the entire system or you will be wiped out by a competitor. Of course, you need a sound, credible, adequately described solution to remain in the competition – though this is probably not where the final decision will be based.

Someone in your team will need to review the reporting requirements to uncover biases or weaknesses. Start with the price reporting template and create a pricing and solution design strategy that will exploit any weaknesses (e.g. when you know the activities or services to be priced against will be different from what is actually required). Find the people in your organisation who are good at this type of analysis, put them to work and give them a pay rise – it will be worth it!

Next, work out how every section of your response addresses each point in the scoring system, dealing directly with the points which will generate maximum marks. The scoring system may contain vague and unquantifiable tests, e.g. “excellent levels of proof” or “delivers the highest confidence”, so play these words back to the evaluators in the leading and final words of your response.

Finally, let it be known that you will not accept any impropriety in the competition. Make it clear that you will robustly challenge any selection decision which is not entirely justified.

My two top recommendations for all contracts are:

1. Critically review and score the written response from the evaluator’s perspective prior to submission. Try to understand their approach to scoring your work and the rules they must follow. This will provide a benchmark for investigation if your internal score is very different from the evaluator’s.
2. Do NOT use AI to generate text. AI is limited, it cannot innovate and is fairly easy to spot. The client wants innovation and your brain is the best tool for the job.

Go on, have a go! You may be one contract away from a brand new sportscar and a holiday home in Tenerife.

This article was written by Andy Haigh .

Andy is an expert in bidding and tendering, specialising in competitive formal bids into EU Public Sector organisations. He is an authority on EU procurement legislation and can bring all these capabilities together to initiate and drive major complex bids through to a successful completion.

Back to Foreword

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Reusing High Scoring Bid Content

You have to get a bid in against a looming deadline.  Four high-scoring questions are covering Social Value.  This is an area in which your company excels.  Your boss gives you some responses to a previous bid which the evaluators scored very highly.  “Easy-peasy.” she says, “Just use these and put together the responses.”.

This is a real situation which I ran into on a client’s recent bid.  The bid was strategically important.  Timescales and resources were tight.  I was the solution to the client’s problem!

I had a look at the “Good” responses.  They were all well written and had a good balance of solution and assurance.

The “How” question responses were laid out with clear descriptions of the steps in the proposed process and the associated timelines.  The individuals responsible, the metrics, reporting processes and an outline of how things would be put right if they go wrong, were all included.  There were several references in each part of the response labelling where the business had done this before.  Testimonials supported and the successes they claimed.  A one-page, “feel good” case study completed the response.  No wonder the evaluators liked them!

However, then reality kicked in.  Each of these “Good” responses were 12 pages long.  However, the page limit in my bid was 4 pages per question.  When I broke down the question elements in each of my bid’s requirements, I discovered that I had 28 to 30 specific points in each question I must address!  That is about 7 elements per page.  One short paragraph per point.  In each requirement, several of these points were of the form “How will you …”.  My list of “How” elements now looked uncomfortably long.

The next problem was that the specific questions asked in the previous bid’s Invitation to Tender document were not the same as in my bid.  They were similar in that they covered the same main topic areas.  However, many of the question elements were new or different.  What “in Heck’s name” should I do now?  A lie down in a darkened room beckoned.

So, here comes the roll of the dice.  I think I had three options.  In this situation and if I had ample time, I would choose the Good solution:

1. Lay out each of the individual and specific points which needed a response, in the order of the client’s question, in table form.
2. Using the client’s question structure as main headings, create a sensible heading structure for the response from the tabled points.  This needs to be worked to fit the allowable pages when the heading structure is fully populated.  Better still, allocate space or word counts to each heading.  This will make it even easier when you are writing.
3. Carefully go through the “Good” responses and extract the text that best fits against each point in the table.  Add this to the table against the particular point.  An exact fit against the question is not needed, only that the specific point in the new question is reasonably well covered.
4. Start writing against the specific topic in the heading using the “Good” response text as guidance (or lift it directly if it fits).  Rigorously exclude any word, phrase or sentence which does not directly address the specific description in the heading.  Then, revise the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.
5. Either write the response text missing from the “Good” response yourself or (better still) find an appropriate expert to write it.  Again, rigorously exclude any word, phrase or sentence which does not directly answer the specific description in the heading.  Keep revising the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.
6. When the response is complete, leave it for 24 hours and then read it through again.  If it is still too long, consider deleting some specific responses (and risk ignoring a client’s question element).  Choose bits of the response which will have the least impact upon the overall solution you are proposing.  Keep revising the text until the word count or space limit is achieved.

Of course, this all takes time.  If time is tight, you may just want to carefully read the “Good” response, create a heading structure from your client’s question and then begin writing.  Your recent review of a good response should permeate your thinking and your new text?  I would label this as a Bad solution.   Of course, the underlying story and flow which made the “Good” responses so good will be difficult to reproduce.  It, also, relies upon your own expertise in the subject and your knowledge of the Social Value achievements made by your business.

The Ugly solution is to take the previous work and just cut it down to fit the page limit.  On the basis that the original text scores well and that it covers the main area of the question, it should work?  Plus, this has the advantage that your boss will see you have done what you were told.  You have used the “Good” text.  Another plus is that when the scores come back as very poor, you can avoid much of the personal responsibility for the score.  After all, the boss told you what to do and a previous evaluator scored it very highly!

Which did I use for my bid and did it score highly?  Contact us if you would like the answer!  Either way, we hope the considerations above will help you navigate your own scenario.

You may not be aware that you have a new resource available to you.

What we all can learn from the experience

Provision of an Expert Witness

Recently, one of Sixfold’s directors, Peter Lobl, appeared as an ex parte expert witness in a ground-breaking procurement case in the High Court in London.  The case was filed by an aggrieved bidder against the Ministry of Defence claiming an erroneous bid evaluation result.  The judgement established a precedent for the information which must be provided about the evaluation process in bid instructions.  In addition, there were some salutary lessons for all bidders which emerged, which are summarised below.

Our Client, MLS was delighted with the result.  The MLS General Counsel and legal strategist, Dr Anton Micallef, said “MLS has been awarded the contract by the court, a remarkable achievement and the result of great team work.  Peter’s contribution was considerable and key to the success of our efforts.”

The Background

In November 2017, MLS filed a claim to seek remedies against the MoD over its mishandling of the evaluation of their bid for providing and procuring port and support services to British naval vessels worldwide.  The procurement value was expected to exceed £400m.  As the incumbent provider, MLS had enjoyed an excellent relationship with the Royal Navy, for whom they had provided these services over the previous decade.

In the re-compete of their contract, the MoD rejected MLS’s bid even though it was ranked first, had the best quality score and the lowest price in the competition.  They did this because they evaluated one Pass/Fail sub-question as a Fail.  However, the MOD had not disclosed to bidders in their instructions that a Fail score meant instant elimination or that a single Fail score would result in rejection of the entire bid.

The Judgement

MLS sought Expert Witness evidence to support its case that this was a hidden criterion and Sixfold was selected to act in this role.  We had a ringside seat as MLS challenged the rejection decision in the High Court and won back the contract award.

We believe that this is only the second time in the UK that a challenge during the standstill (Alcatel) period has resulted in the challenger being awarded the contract.  Previously, like most others in the profession, we had believed the best outcome you could get in a standstill challenge was either damages or the competition being cancelled and then restarted.

The Insights

Firstly, we have seen a clarification for the 30-day time limit to bring a challenge to a procurement issue.  The MoD argued that MLS’s challenge was out of time because the error was made in the ITT and not challenged within 30 days of the time of its release.  The judge ruled that the decision to reject MLS’s tender was the actual start of the time limit period and not the date the ITT was published.  So, we need to carefully assess the time a court would accept we could have reasonably known about a problem before assuming a challenge is out of time.

Secondly, we have learned that any error or ambiguity can be challenged, however insignificant it may appear at first sight.  If it is possible that a requirement could be interpreted ambiguously by tenderers then we could have a case.  So, we need to be prepared to “nit-pick” and forensically examine the details if a decision looks “wrong”.

Finally, we should remember the very wide scope available to challenge any procurement decision.  We have seen that the mere threat of legal proceedings can bring more detailed disclosure and changes to process.  We have even experienced contract awards being revoked, based on the threat of a formal challenge.  We need to look out for any instances of unfairness, e.g. non-transparency, unequal treatment, discriminatory criteria, hidden criteria and manifest errors.  If we find them, then we need to act quickly.

Of course, if you are not certain of the way forward, then please ask Sixfold to come and chat to you about what you need to look for.  The findings will be your bullets should you wish to fire them at an Authority who has not used the procurement processes correctly

Moreover, if you feel your team could benefit from a more detailed understanding of the ammunition for challenge, you might like to meet our Expert Witness.  Sixfold has a one-hour team briefing on this topic, looking at the potential for challenge from the bidder’s viewpoint.  Please give us a call on 01227 860375 if you think this would be of value.

A few organisations are starting to pick up that on 25th May 2018, the new Data Protection Legislation (the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)), comes into force.  It is targeted at improving privacy and preventing data breaches.  It is based upon EU legislation.  However, we expect that it will continue after Brexit, essential unaltered.  The Public Sector is already being pushed into altering all existing and new contracts, to bring them into alignment with this legislation.

Under the new regulations, companies must keep a complete record of how and when any individual gives consent to store and use their personal data.  Individuals, also, have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.  When somebody does withdraw consent, their details must be completely, permanently and swiftly erased, and not just deleted from a mailing list.  In other words, the legislation gives individuals the right to be forgotten.  There is some good guidance at https://ico.org.uk/media/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf

The impact upon bidding organisations seeking both commercial and Public Sector contracts may be substantial.  It is routine for us to include CVs and references in bids.  We often name individual personnel to give credibility to their achievements or pass personal telephone numbers as emergency contact routes.  From May, each business will need to record the consent to those involved and have an accurate system of managing withdrawn consent.  It means we have to know where every instance of the personal data is lodged and to be able to amend it quickly.  For instance, can you be sure of where every one of your old bids are located?

When the legislation kicks in, companies will be required to provide regular data audits for EU authorities to prove they are compliant.  This means someone will have to go through every software application and database and record details such as the exact type of data they contain – whether it be names and addresses, or more personal information like achievements.  They will also have to identify who has access to it.

We expect that any organisation looking to comply with the new Data Protection legislation will incur costs in doing so, especially if it needs new systems or processes to be put in place.  The Public Sector view is that such costs are attributable to conducting business and not just supplying the Public Sector.  As a result, it expects all suppliers to manage their own costs in relation to compliance.  This means the overall costs of doing business with formal proposals is about to go up.

As bid professionals, we need to prepare for the changes now.  We must maintain a register of the personal data we use, when it was agreed to be used and where it is included in all our bids.  We need to let everyone who has personal data used in our work know where and the reasons for its use.  Plus, we have to tell them how they can withdraw their consent and how they can be sure that this has been achieved.

We think that this is a good time to include a preamble in every bid which contains personal details.  Like the statement that identifies that a document contains sensitive information which needs to be kept confidential, we now need to add something like:

“This document contains personal information provided with the consent of the individuals involved.  This information is highlighted on pages 7 to 9 and in Annex B.  This information is provided for the sole purpose of fair evaluation of our proposal and may not be copied or passed on to others for any purpose beyond the evaluation in this competition.  The individuals may withdraw their consent for the use of this information at any time and you must account for all copies of this information so it can be recovered or destroyed, if circumstances require.  Should you be unable to comply with this requirement, you must return this document and all copies to us immediately for all personal data to be redacted.”  We must then highlight the information accordingly.

How we might deal with such information which has been distributed in past proposals, is uncertain.  The GDPR covers the information in them too.  No doubt, we will have some court cases in the future which will set the direction.  In the meantime, your organisation may have a nominated Data Protection Officer and now is a very good time to talk through the issues with them.

Here you are, striving away day after day dealing with a relentless stream of complex and demanding bids.  There have been countless evenings and nights when you have been working alone in the office to meet a bid deadline.  And then, when you have had company, it was because it was “all hands to the deck” to overcome the crisis (not caused by you) of a strategically important bid not being on track to be completed on time.  When the bid was won, little of the credit was given to you as it was the sales team’s success.  Your reward was stale coffee, cold pizza and yet another bid to complete.

There is an antidote available for this situation.  You will probably be aware of the Bid Solutions Salary surveys.  They show that bid professionals who have achieved professional recognition through formally recognised programs earn significantly more than their unaccredited peers who are doing the same job.

The reasons for this are multifaceted; selection of applicants with an externally tested and recognised qualification reduces the hiring risk for a business and the hiring decision maker.  A “standard” methodology and basis upon which people develop their bids, leads to less ambiguity and lower error rates in the activities which need to come together when a bid is developed.  However, probably most importantly, companies pay more for people who contribute more.  People who have got the qualifications have demonstrated their ability to contribute and higher contribution leads to higher reward.

If this is not enough to convince you to put aside a chunk of time to get your APMP Foundation examination under your belt (or to progress to the next level), we have an even more compelling argument.  We recently ran a short survey of the people who had been through our Foundation training courses.  We wanted to know what impact the training, and its preparation which they had had to do, had made to their daily working life.  The results were instructive.

Over a quarter of our alumni responded.  What they reported was highly encouraging and when we analysed the detail we found:

• 94% reported that they had found the information they picked up on the Foundation course assisted them in the way they did their job.
• 54% reported that gaining the qualification helped boost their status within their organisation.

and

• 13% reported that the qualification had directly helped them earn a promotion or (for freelancers) win a new contract.

So next time you are feeling overworked and undervalued, you might want to reflect upon how your status might be affected by gaining a suitable level of professional recognition.  And, if you already have recognition but it is not affecting the way you are treated in your current job, just remember that it will be so much easier to move somewhere else where your talents will be more appreciated (and paid for!).  Otherwise, there is still that cold pizza to look forward to?

Sixfold’s latest success was with Grosvenor Services where we have both trained the team and then supported the bid manager.  They bid for all lots in a very large Government cleaning contract and have been selected against stiff competition in every one of them!  We just had the win decision yesterday .

Lessons learned from some years of working in the world of Public Sector procurement

After what seems a lifetime in either selling into the Public Sector or advising Public Sector clients on how to get the best from their procurement activities, I thought I had seen it all.  But now and then, something else happens and my “all” expands a bit more.  So what are my latest thoughts on getting that elusive “good” procurement?  Well, here are a few.

It is no secret that the entire Public Sector procurement process is designed to remove unfairness.  It tries to ensure that the supplier with the best overall answer to the needs will get the contract.  It is based upon the people with the problem, documenting their requirements and then making a case for the spend.  If they can convince their organisation, then they will get the budget and the procurement begins.  So far, so good!

However, the success of the procurement exercise depends upon three quite disparate groups agreeing that the eventual choice of supplier is best.

Those With the Problem

There is the group who has the problem.  They know what they want.  Indeed, they are paid for their expertise and their operational knowledge.  They absolutely know what is best for them to deliver the service they are set up to provide.  They are looking for the very best they can get, to be able to do their jobs most effectively and most easily.  They are probably measured on how well their job is performed and excellence in delivery is a key aspiration for them.

Those With the Money

Then you have the group that controls the money.  Of course, they want the best product or service.  However, their view is tempered by the availability of funds and the competing pressures of other funding requirements.  What they want is for the entire organisation to be seen as effective and to be making the best use of its resources.  But they are not practitioners and so they have to make their judgements based on their interpretation (generally as non-experts) of the competing claims for money which have been heaped upon them.  To them, success looks like keeping the funds under control.

The Procurement Experts

Then we have a third group who are expert in engaging the marketplace and ensuring that the process is conducted fairly and accurately.  Although they may well be absolutely committed to assisting the organisation to achieve its goals, their focus is on getting the competition run without a hitch.  They want a procurement exercise completed on time, without any competitor challenges to the decision and to able to robustly defend any later scrutiny of the procurement with a complete and auditable paper trail.  They will tend to measure success in terms of the level of adherence to the process and be less concerned (but not unconcerned) with what is purchased and its costs.  After all, they are not practitioners and it’s not their money!

So we have a process which attempts to bring each of these differing views into alignment.  The practitioners come up with a series of detailed criteria against which the procurement should be measured.  The money controllers decide the budget and what the relationship between price and “extras” should be.  And then the procurement team sanitises all these requirements to ensure no particular supplier or solution is obviously favoured.  This latter team then runs the procurement competition.  Whatever the outcome produced by this process is, this result will entirely satisfy all three groups – of course it will?

Well, sometimes it does not.  So where does it go wrong?  My experience is that it is at the boundaries.

The Boundaries

The first boundary is where the practitioners set out their requirements, which are then pruned back by the money controllers and the procurement team.  The practitioners know that they won’t get the money they really want so they may inflate their requirements.  The money controllers know what is going on and, in any case, they have to get the balance with the other areas of spend right.  As a result, they will seek to limit the budget and raise the impact of price within the evaluation process.

Then the procurement team will water down the specification so that it is “fair” and here is further potential for the practitioners to lose out.  We have seen that when a Public Sector contract is let, sometimes what is purchased works out fine.  But as a result of the successive dilution of the requirement, sometimes a purchase can be made which is entirely correct by the process but does not actually meet the practitioner’s original need.  This can often be seen when a high level of spend has occurred on a project and then it is suddenly discovered that a large overspend is needed to get the real results the business actually has to have.

The next thing that happens is that the competitors, who should know even more about their specialism than the “expert” practitioners, try to put the buying organisation “right”.  They do this by not answering the questions they have been asked in the Invitation to Tender, but answering the questions that “should have been asked” instead.  Of course, the practitioners may think that such responses are entirely right and justifiable.  However, the process police cannot let these “right” answers through; to do so would open the entire procurement up to challenge, delay and financial exposure.  This competitor does not get the contract and everyone loses, including the taxpayer.

Incumbent Example

We had a good example of this recently (albeit the other way around) where the incumbent was desperate to provide the ongoing service, but fixated on doing it at the absolute minimum cost.  It generally ignored the weightings in the tender documents and totally relied upon the information it was getting (from its long term, supportive and friendly practitioner contacts in the business) that ultimately cost would overcome everything else.  The practitioners, also, badly wanted the incumbent to continue and everyone wanted to avoid the transition costs of changing suppliers.  However, the procurement team had excluded transition costs from the evaluation (to make it a fair competition!) and, surprise, surprise, the incumbent subsequently lost out to what turned out to be a higher cost but better scoring competitor.  Then, of course, all the costs of transition were incurred!

In fact, any deviation from the process will put a competitor’s bid at risk.  We have had a bid which could not be loaded onto the electronic portal (because too many competitors were uploading bids at the last minute) and arrived 2 seconds (yes – 2 seconds) late, and which was denied entry into the evaluation process.  I’m sure you can visualise the challenge which would have arisen if they had been allowed to continue.  We have, also, had procurement teams who have helped their preferred bidder to the “right answer”.  When this was uncovered the entire competition had to be rerun.  However, on this occasion the bidder came top for the second time, without any assistance.

Process Divergence

Diverging from the process can also put the procurement team’s evaluation at risk.  We had another bid where the winning bid was supposedly 0.2% better than our client’s, who was told it had lost.  At the debrief it emerged that the price had been normalised (lowest price gets 100%, the higher prices get a reduced percentage by the amount they are more expensive) through a process which was described in the Instructions to Tenderers.  However, the procurement team had then applied the same logic to the quality score (100% to the best score and lower scores get a reduction in percentage in proportion to how much lower they were).  However, this process was not contained in the tender instructions.  Once this second and illegal “normalisation” was removed, our client had actually won by 0.1%!  In the end, instead of demanding the win decision must be reversed, our client accepted that the competition would be completely rerun for the sake of the “relationship”.  In the new competition, both these top scoring competitors came second and third to an outsider who decided to have a go when the competition was restarted!

The Supplier’s Responsibility

We have had many other similar situations which have all led to our belief that a “good” procurement cannot be achieved without a realistic and long term objective view being taken by all sides.  We believe that a “good” procurement always starts with the supplier.  After all, if the supplier is not more expert in its core business than its clients, it should question if it has a viable business.

We think it is up to the suppliers to educate the practitioners in the “art of the possible”, the benefits of its innovations and their constraints.  The procurement team also has some responsibility here too.  It must engage in really good market testing and then give feedback across all groups, to help ensure that the practitioner understands what is possible and available in the market.  Through these processes the practitioners can then make a convincing and balanced recommendation to the non-expert procurement team on how the technical elements of a competition should be run.  The suppliers, also, need to have sufficient dialogue with the money controllers so they can understand the cost/benefit of the specification approach the practitioners will be suggesting.  Then they can more realistically balance this against their other long and short financial pressures.

The Procurement Team’s Responsibility

The next step is for the procurement team to put a specification that works best for the taxpayer.  Artificially cutting out chunks of cost or capability to seek a “fairer” competition may not be fair for those that eventually have to pay the bill.  It is crucial to achieving a “good” procurement that the specification is not constructed in isolation within the terms of any one specific procurement exercise; we think it must always consider the wider aspects of what the taxpayer should expect to receive.  Moreover, if the procurement function is seen as an obstacle or blocker by the practitioners, it is failing and any subsequent purchase will not be a “good” procurement.

The Bid Team’s Responsibility

Then, the competitors must only respond to the questions they have been asked.  It is too late at this point to put the procurement team right if the published specification is wrong.  Either they must bid for what is asked or withdraw (which if, as a supplier, you give a good explanation of your reasons for not bidding, you may still get the competition stopped and rerun with different, better criteria).

Even more important for the supplier is that all the questions must be answered in line with the evaluation criteria, otherwise they may not be marked.  But then the supplier still has to make a convincing sales argument.  Woe betide the organisation who puts a project manager in charge of the bid because “a Public Sector bid is only another project.  Isn’t it?”  Do this and you will get a bid document delivered on time and to bid budget.  But you probably won’t get bid document which wins!

A Way Forward

So I believe that running and responding to a “good” Public Sector procurement competition is very different from procurement in a commercial environment.  We run consultancy engagements and training courses for both Public Sector and commercial teams.  Yet, on every engagement we find that exposing the aspirations, constraints and practices of one side to the other still delivers blinding insights about how things can be done better.  Counter intuitively, it is generally the most experienced members of these teams that seem to gain most from these insights.  Want to see what we can do?  Have a look at www.sixfold.biz or give me a call on 01227 860375.

I was at an event recently when the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Matt Hancock, raised a really interesting prospect.  He said that one of the things his team, presumably the Crown Commercial Service, are working on is a Crown Marketplace.  In essence this is the extension of the G-Cloud concept into non-ICT categories.  According to Civil Service World, these would be what CCS calls common goods and services, which can cover all generic requirements of departments.

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John Fernau was previously commercial director at the Home Office and has now joined Sixfold International to help its clients win public sector contracts.

He draws on his experience to provide an insight into the way Whitehall engages with small business suppliers and shares advice on how to win work from national and local government.  We quizzed him about his experiences and this is what we learned.

What did you learn about small businesses and public procurement during your time at the Home Office?

I learnt a lot about it! As well as being the commercial director I was also the Home Office’s SME champion so I was very heavily involved in setting out the direction for the department’s strategy for small business engagement. My strong view was that the only way to really increase SME spend was to make changes on the buy-side, rather than just having lots of SME market engagement which looks good but doesn’t deliver much. This meant that the Home Office’s SME strategy focussed on breaking down large ICT packages into smaller chunks which SMEs could contract for, mainly using the SME friendly GCloud framework where the Home Office is still the biggest user.

SME success is seen as excellent news by civil servants and ministers (including the prime minister) and they like to see new and innovative SME suppliers breaking through. Sometimes unfortunately the machinery of government can impede small businesses. My sense was that complex public tenders favour the big established firms as they already understand how government decisions are made and who makes them; and also they have dedicated bid teams who have developed strong techniques and know how to ‘play the game’.

I wanted to personally work to change this beyond what I could do as a civil servant, so I left the Home Office to set up Fernau Solutions and help to ‘level the playing field’ for SMEs and give them some of the understanding and bidding acumen that the established suppliers have.

What are the key things business owners need to bear in mind when pitching for public sector contracts?

There are a lot of things to consider: in strategic terms about which bodies within the public sector to aim for and in what order, through to tactical bid skills such as understanding what is important to the buyer (as shown in the evaluation weighting) and making sure your bid effort reflects this.

I think it is really important that businesses think hard about which areas of the public sector their offerings are most relevant and to target those public bodies. There is a balance here though, as although government is increasingly encouraged to buy ‘off the shelf’ solutions rather than bespoke ones, public sector bodies are parochial and smaller businesses must tailor their marketing and language to be specifically relevant to the those they are targeting.

Although small businesses want to grow and may want to present themselves as bigger and perhaps more credible operators, it is important that they play to their strengths. If you are a UK based SME, then say so very clearly. Small businesses are perceived as being flexible, disruptive, and innovative; and these are rare and required qualities in government, especially given the unprecedented efficiency challenges which will emerge over the next five years. Although public buyers can’t formally favour small suppliers why not take advantage of this positive perception?

What are the common mistakes small business owners make when pitching for public sector contracts?

Firstly, I think small businesses often decide not to bid for opportunities as their turnover doesn’t meet the minimum required. meaning they are too small. However especially in competitions for framework agreements, the turnover requirement is often excessive compared to the resulting contracts, meaning that smaller businesses could have delivered them. To meet the requirement on turnover, small businesses often forget that they can partner with, or sub-contract, other small businesses and count all of their attributes, including turnover, in their bid and the government likes to see this collaboration.

Successful bid technique is like good exam technique; you have to answer the question. Too often, bidders provide answers that are easy for them to put together, as perhaps they can recycle a response or policy, rather than submitting the right answer. Given their limited bid resources, it is vital that small businesses are disciplined and honest with themselves in making their bid/no bid decisions and preparing their bids. There is nothing to be gained in submitting a weak bid.

I think small businesses can also get a lot more out of debriefing sessions with government buyers. If a small business is unsuccessful in a tender I would recommend insisting on a debriefing meeting and clearly stating that this is about improving your next bid and certainly isn’t about disgruntlement or challenging the decision. This will help the buyer to open up and give a candid steer on how to bid better, and small businesses will find this feedback ‘from the horse’s mouth’ invaluable.

How can business owners who win government contracts ensure that they deliver on them and maintain a good relationship with their client so that they get more work?

This is really important as having gone through all the hurdles of winning a contract, small businesses need to deliver really strongly to build their reputation in government and capitalise on the effort they have made. However, I have seen even major multinationals come unstuck once they get into contract with government for the first time!

I think the most important thing to understand is the need to build confidence with your new client by setting out very realistic plans on how and when you will deliver. It is more important to government that you reliably keep your promises, than to aim for very quick delivery and fail. This requires self-discipline, as naturally small businesses will be keen to please their demanding new client.

The media loves a bad news story about the government and this drives the government to be very risk averse with its programmes. Ministers and officials need to believe that you will deliver and this trust is built by steady and on-time delivery. Proposing to ‘throw everything at it’ and ‘it will be alright in the end’ simply aren’t acceptable. Especially in a new relationship it is important to start building trust and credibility by delivering as promised from the outset.

If you would like to meet them and see how his experience and expertise can help your business prosper, ring Sixfold now on 01227 860375

November 2015

We have just seen that a court has annulled a tender award decision for “lack of adequate reasoning”.  This decision was made when Ricoh bid for a contract for the purchase or hire of printers and their associated maintenance services.  Ricoh was informed its bid was unsuccessful for 3 of the 5 lots it had bid and, sensibly, it asked for a debrief.  It was given several items of information and even more when it complained that the information provided was inadequate.  The contracting authority dug its heels in at this point.

Ricoh took the case to court and claimed that the contracting authority had not provided sufficient reasons for its decision, in particular not explaining (either immediately after the decision was given or in the subsequent correspondence) how or why it had arrived at the technical requirements scoring.  As a result, Ricoh was not able to understand why the contracting authority could have concluded that the successful tender was better than its submission.

The court agreed and stopped the tender award.  We wait to see what will happen next.

From our viewpoint, this is another step along the pathway to more transparency.  It gives us, as bidders, the justification to be given (and to understand) the full reasoning for the scorings awarded.  We have reported before that a bidder is entitled to a “full tender evaluation report” once the competition is concluded.  The Ricoh case gives even more support to the argument for release of this information and shows us that we have a right be given the reasoning behind the evaluation as well, if it is not obvious from the information provided.

The message is clear.  Unless you can see that you have been fairly beaten in the evaluation, you owe it to the taxpayer to find out the detail of why you lost.  Then you must use this information to put matters right (and protect the taxpayer from misuse of its funds) or to make a better bid next time (and get some return on your investment in this bid to protect your shareholders).

If you need any more information on how or if you should seek the details of the tender evaluation you have been involved with, please call us on 01227 860375 now for a chat (no obligation).

26th January 2016

The European Single Procurement Document (ESPD) is now a standard form for part of the Public Sector tendering selection process.  The Public Contracts Regulations requires a contracting authority to accept an ESPD from bidders as part of the selection process to reduce the administrative burden on bidders and the authority by simplifying the manner in which information and evidence is provided at the selection stage.

The ESPD is, essentially. a form of self-certification that the bidder does not fall within any of the listed grounds for exclusion and has the necessary financial resilience and technical and professional ability to perform the contract.  The intention is to reduce the amount of documentation required from bidders at an early stage in the competition by avoiding the need for bidders to submit evidence and documentation in support of the ESPD statements.

Of course the door is still open for the contracting authority to see his evidence at any point where it is necessary to ensure the proper conduct of the process.  However, it is likely that the contracting authority will not need this, except for the evidence from the bidder who has been nominated to be awarded the contract.  The winning bidder will have to produce the documents.

The European Commission recently published the standard form for the ESPD.  From today, 26th January 2016, in England and Wales contracting authorities must accept the ESPD from bidders as evidence, instead of certificates issued by public bodies or third parties (e.g. banks) to confirm that the bidder:

• Is not in breach of one of the mandatory or discretionary exclusion criteria.
• Meets the selection criteria set out at Regulation 58 (suitability to perform the contract, economic and financial standing and technical and professional ability).
• Where applicable, meets the criteria that the contracting authority is intending to apply to reduce the numbers who are invited to bid (e.g. for the Restricted procedure).

The Implementing Regulation states that procurement documents must reference what information the ESPD requires and that the ESPDs must be submitted with the tender in an Open procedures and with the Request to Participate in others.  If you receive an Invitation to Tender for a Public Sector contract which is worded in such a way as to prevent the appropriate information being submitted as an ESPD, please call us on 01227 860375 and we should be able to advise you on what you need to do to get the requirements altered.

If you think that the procedure chosen by your client will not affect your win chance, think again! It is vital you understand the possible impact.

The Competitive Dialogue has been around for some time and we have seen many instances of its use (and misuse) to date.  We are now getting some practical understanding of the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation and this note outlines how this experience is giving us more insight and warns of the impact this could have on your win chance.

The Background

Firstly, both the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation and Competitive Dialogue have many similar characteristics.  The grounds for their use by a contracting authority are the same.  The contract to be let must be innovative, it must not be capable of sufficiently precise specification at the time of going to the market or it must have risks attached that cannot be priced at the outset.  Each procedure then follows a phased negotiation and dialogue route and is designed to provide competitive pressure on the contenders throughout.

The Differences

The substantive differences between the procedures lie in the fact that the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation is a hybrid procedure, unlike the Competitive Dialogue, and the level of negotiation allowed at final tender stages for the procedures.

Hybrid Procedure

The hybrid nature of the Competitive Procedure with Negotiation can be seen in that a contracting authority can elect to accept a Competitive Procedure with Negotiation bid on the basis of the initial tenders, in the same way it would had done if it had followed a restricted procedure.  It is not forced to go to a negotiation stage.  Of course, this gives the canny supplier the opportunity to provide a complete and convincing response at the initial tender stage, with a reasoned argument for the contracting authority to avoid further spend on pointless continued competition.

Negotiations

However, at the final tender stages, there are also differences in the permitted levels of negotiation:

– Competitive Procedure with Negotiation

– Contracting authorities can negotiate with tenderers the initial and all revised tenders submitted by them in the competition, except for the final tender.

– The minimum requirements and the award criteria cannot be the subject to any negotiation.

Like it or not, the new Public Contracts Regulations 2015 are going to make a big difference to how you bid for Public Sector contracts.  Sixfold is all about how to finesse the Public Sector procurement to create a competitive edge. We have often focused on how the fundamental principles – equal treatment, proportionality and transparency – can be used as a tool to your advantage.

These principles, if anything, are strengthened by the new regulations.  This is particularly true of transparency which the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has detailed in one of its Procurement Policy Notes. It creates new opportunities and risks that will be of interest to all bid professionals.

Central Government departments have been told that after 1^st September 2015 they must implement additional transparency measures.  Other Government departments have been recommended to follow suit.

Firstly, the procurement team is required to discuss and agree the information that will be made public when the contract is awarded, targeting information that has previously been withheld.  This will extend to (and beyond):

– Your contract price and any incentives.

– The contract performance metrics and how you will manage them.

– The plans for the management of any underperformance and what will be its financial impact.

– The governance arrangements, including governance through your supply chains.

– Your resource plans

– Your service improvement plans

Of course, you might be adamant that you will not agree to the release of this information.  However, ultimately it is the contracting authority who will make the final decision, irrespective of any supplier’s wishes or protestations.

Then, all this information will be uploaded to a publically available section of the department’s website and as the contract progresses, updated so it remains current.

For suppliers who are new to a contract area, this will give them a highly valuable swathe of information from which they can prepare their competitive responses.  For incumbents, this represents another challenge to their ability to retain their contract at the renewal point.  For the Government, this will, undoubtedly have the long term effect of lowering market prices and so don’t expect this requirement to lessen as time goes on!

If you want to know more about how all this may affect your next Public Sector bid and how you can take advantage of these changes, we would be delighted to discuss it with you.  Please give us a call on 01227 860375 and we will be very happy to help.

Sixfold has been called in to help a large company resolve a strange issue with the evaluation of its multi-million pound tender.  The company had been told that it had come second and, in accordance with the procurement requirements, it was sent the scores both it and the winning bidder had been allocated.

However, on examination it was uncovered that the Public Sector evaluation team had added an additional step into the calculation of the quality score.  It had normalised the scores in the same manner that the financial score was normalised.  The problem was that this quality normalisation process was not included in the Instructions to Tenderers.  The financial normalisation process was there, but the quality normalisation was not!  Moreover, the normalisation process altered the ranking of Sixfold’s client from first place to second.  Once the “normalisation” was removed, our client had won!

Sixfold advised the client on the strategy for the debriefing meeting which it had applied for as part of the Alcatel process and then attended the debrief with the client’s team.  The Public Sector team was stunned when its misappropriation of the process was highlighted, but refused to accept that its process was faulty.  Sixfold drafted the formal challenge to the decision processes and the final decision.  We await with interest the outcome, which we will post here once we know it.

The Public Sector bidding processes appear to force you to bid exactly the same proposal as everyone else. This process is set up to allow the evaluators to be able to compare one bid against another as easily as they can. The processes seem to stifle any ability to differentiate your offering and slaps down any attempt at innovation! However, we all know that we must stand out from the other bidders if we are to win the bid.

So what can you offer to beat your competition? It appears that you only have two choices: Offer the same thing as your competitors and hope luck is on your side, or take the risk of offering something different and which might not be evaluated.

If you do offer the same thing as the other competitors, your only option is to underprice them. This is the presumption behind the Public Sector approach to procurement which seeks to minimise cost to the public purse. Moreover, if you are required to bid the exact same as the specification demands, you cannot bring your expertise and innovation which differentiates you in the marketplace to give the client a better result than it can appreciate is available outside of its own thinking.

Change the Specification

So the first rule is to get the specification changed! How do you do this? The best way is to talk to the client before the procurement specification is finished. Educate them about the possible and encourage them to specify it.

The next way is to challenge the specification. If you are clever, you can do this through the formal questions process. However, a better way may be to arrange a meeting with the client under the conditions of an NDA. If you get such a meeting you will need to demonstrate significant advantages, sufficient to get the client to cancel its procurement and restart it with a new specification.

Alternatively, you can submit a variant bid. Often the rules state you can only do this is you also submit a compliant bid as well. Nevertheless, if the reasons behind the variant bid are compelling, this will usually be sufficient to get the attention of the client’s senior staff.

Do It Differently

If the route to change the specification cannot be made to work, then you need to get your thinking cap on and approach the response in a different way. Consider offering the client the same as the specification dictates, but propose:

1. A proposal which meets their procurement process requirements better than anyone else (and, thus, scores more)
2. A solution which is developed or delivered in a different way
3. An approach which delivers better results
4. A solution with more reliability
5. A proposal with more future options
6. A solution with more growth potential
7. A solution with more flexibility
8. A solution delivered faster than specified
9. A solution which is better integrated into the client’s environment
10. A proposal with better after sales support
11. A contract with a better warranty or guarantee
12. A management organisation with more accountability or transparency
13. A proposal with better risk mitigation and risk transfer to the client
14. A delivery with more sizes or better quantities
15. Penalties for under performance
16. Cash flow which better meets the Public Sector funding cycle

Resonate With the Assessors

Finally, for each element of the proposal response think about who will be marking it and make sure the descriptions and examples you provide have the maximum impact upon them. To do this you must consider:

Who (individually and collectively) participates in and benefits from the project (including the citizens and voters!)

1. What you do or deliver best
2. Where you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
3. When you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
4. How you work, produce, deliver, or support your offering
5. Why you approach it the way you do and what the benefits will be for the customer

Use your market intelligence and address each of these points as if you were the client. See what a
difference it makes.

If you cannot change it, then identify it, make it clearer or just describe the results more
comprehensively for the customer and how they will benefit from it. That alone can set you apart
and make you a more attractive contractor.

Conclusion

When you offer exactly the same thing as everyone else, you only compete on price. When you offer something different, you compete on value. When you offer the same thing, only you do it in a different way, you gain the ability to offer them something better, without increasing your price.

If the specification is so specific that you cannot have a better offering, then you can still be a better supplier. The customer is always looking for differences, so make them clear. Give the client a clear choice, even if it is for the same deliverable.

Ultimately, you can and will always be different. You have to make that difference clear to the customer and, most importantly, show the benefits of these differences in the proposal in their terms.

How important is winning your next Public Sector Contract to you?  Pretty important?  You bet your life it is!  So how would it help you to have copies of the recent bids your competitors have produced, on your desk, whilst you get stuck into the latest proposal?

It’s got to greatly assist you.  It almost feels like cheating – but it’s perfectly legitimate!  So why is it that so many organisations don’t get hold of their competitors’ recent documents when there is a really easy way to do it.

You get this information just by asking for it, from the department or organisation who received the information in the first place.  They have to send it to you (subject to a few restrictions) within 21 days.

This is all enshrined in the Freedom of Information act which presupposes that any information received by a Public body is, by its nature in the Public domain and any citizen is entitled to have it.  It further presumes that once the citizen (or commercial organisation) gets the information, they will exploit it for commercial purposes.

Of course, there are a few exceptions.  Personal information, information which if disclosed would adversely affect the ability of the country to defend itself or for the parties involved to negotiate in an on-going contractual or legal situation, may be withheld.  But the limitations are very few and the presumption is that the information may and will be released unless it can be shown that the act specifically disallows it.  Hardly any information normally contained within a tender submission is exempt.

So the route is that you ask for the information specifically, e.g. “all of the competing tender responses in the competition for the XYZ contract” and wait for the documents to arrive in the post (or by email).  If they don’t come, after 21 days you can go to the Information Commissioner’s Office Website, fill in a simple form and shortly after that they will make it happen for you.

The corollary for this is, of course, that you competitors have access to your tender responses too.  Indeed, they are probably reading them as you read this!  If you want to know how to stop them, watch out for our next post on this site or start a thread.

Of course, Sixfold has some experience of this.  Andy Haigh’s new book, “Winning Public Sector Contracts” published by The Guardian Professional, covers many of the approaches.  Why not give him a call on 01227 860375 if you want to have a private chat.

As a Bid Director I have been interested for a long time in what it is that motivates bid team members to work extended hours (sometimes 24 hours and longer without a break). Despite being under high pressure they perform willingly, enthusiastically and, usually, for no financial reward above their normal salary. This does not occur in every case. However, as any Bid Manager knows, it happens surprisingly often. It can be accompanied by a grumbling about the poor performance of others who have created the “situation” – but it is usually not as a result of poor performance on their part. However, it seems that the individual feels that they have a personal responsibility to put the situation right and get the bid completed, no matter what level of effort is needed from them.

Representatives of partner and sub-contractor companies, seconded in to the bid team, show this characteristic as well. They will “go the extra mile” to make sure their element of the bid response is as good as they can get it. Their contribution will often contrast with the minimalist response of some staff of the bidding company who are required to provide bid text (because of their specialist role, e.g. HR, Legal or Quality Management) but who are not part of the core bid team.

Take these extraordinary people away from the bid and they can revert to type. They will frequently give an adequate performance but not shine. So what is it in this environment that motivates them to give exceptional levels of contribution? And what can we learn from this which might be harnessed to increase productivity across other environments?

I don’t have all the answers. Nevertheless, I have uncovered some pointers which seem to underlie the boost in engagement levels a bid situation creates:

Finite Problem

A bid has a very clear deliverable, both in content and in quality. One without the other will cause the bid to be lost and the entire team effort wasted. So, members of the bid team usually have a clear understanding of the top level objectives they must respond to from the outset.

This clarity of contribution required and the knowledge that the individual’s bid content really matters seems to generate a high level of individual engagement. If we can provide such clear direction and precision in the value of their contribution in the bid, it ought to create the same motivation if used elsewhere?

Defined Timescales

A bid has a real (and usually short timescale) deadline. Miss the deadline and you have thrown away all the bid work that has been done. Everyone understands that there is little chance of an extension of the response time so makes plans accordingly.

Of course, we are all used to working to deadlines and we know that setting deadlines can improve productivity. However, all too often we also know if the timescales are not met, we will get away with it. We can use an excuse that something else was more important and we know that it will be accepted by our peers and superiors. Knowing that missing the deadline will be a disaster for everyone can provide the impetus we need, particularly as the bid deadline approaches.

I believe that deadlines should only be set if they are truly deadlines. If we set deadlines arbitrarily of without giving the justification for them, the motivation deadlines can create is diminished. So perhaps more contribution will be achieved by stating and explaining deadlines, and then not allowing them to be missed?

Measurement

Only one bid from the competing companies will result in a contract. Every element of each bid will be contrasted against the other bids and the best overall submission will be selected. The bid team are not being measured internally within the business; they are being measured against the best “out there”.

For some people, being the best is important and winning the bid proves they are the best. I believe that if we can give people the opportunity and the support to prove that they “are the best” elsewhere, we will improve their motivation and commitment. I think that for some people, this ability to prove themselves is what drives them to become involved in more bids so that they can repeat the demonstration. If we can tap into this motivation, enhanced contribution must surely follow?

Part of the Team

In the final hours before a bid is handed over to the courier or is uploaded on to some secure web site the pace can become frantic and everyone “mucks in” to do whatever is needed to get the submission completed. When it is all over, there is a real sense of “team” and tired elation. This bonding can continue as enhanced relationships long after the work is finished.

Teams formed at short notice to tackle difficult problems can bring out the best in some (but not all) people. I think if we want more from our employees we should weigh the advantages of task orientated teams over function orientation more carefully.

Of course many people cannot be placed in the environment a bid team creates and nor would they want to be. However, I have seen exceptional performance from otherwise average individuals so many times when they have been place in a bid team there has got to be something special going on. I wonder if anyone else has similar experiences?

You are the incumbent supplier in a Public Sector contract and it has come around for a rebid.  You and your team have been doing a fantastic job for years.  You know you have the client’s staff on your side because they tell you that your team is doing a good job and you have rescued the client’s business from several, indeed many, disasters of their making in recent months.  Relationships are good across both sides of the contract and when issues do arise they are sorted out quickly, with a great deal of mutual support and understanding, no matter where the issues originated from.  Altogether, with such a good track record, winning the rebid will be a cinch.

Or will it?

A very high proportion of incumbent suppliers will lose in this situation, even when the Public Sector client wants the incumbent to win.  Having analysed a few of these situations, I believe the reasons for such high failure rates are based in a few repeated areas of weakness.

Firstly, a good technically competent bid from the incumbent cannot win on its own!

This is because the competition is in it to win it.  The competitors will have predicted the main strengths of the incumbent (that of a proven track record and no new supplier transition costs) and they will have clear strategies to deal with and overcome these claimed advantages – otherwise they would not be bidding!  So the competitors must already have a good technical solution which they will claim has such overwhelming advantages for the client that the transition problems of it moving to a new supplier will be completely vanquished.

Next, the incumbent will be hesitant to propose a truly innovative solution or slash costs.

Why?  To do so would telegraph to the client that you had been “ripping them off” and that you had not shown ability to be as innovative as you would like the client to believe, in the past.  Otherwise it would not have taken a rebid to show these things up, would it?  So it is likely that the incumbent’s solution will just be tinkering with what it has now and real innovation (with all its associated risks) will not be permitted by its account management.
The competitors will not be hampered in this way and they will all be working from the perspective that unless innovation is fully demonstrated, they cannot win.  Radical thinking from within their bid teams will be positively encouraged.
Finally, the incumbent is frequently blind to its own arrogance and its management a bit complacent.  They think, “With such a tremendous track record to date with this client, what more do we have to prove?  The client knows how good we are!” They forget that anything not actually detailed in the response cannot be taken into account.  Even less so if they haven’t specifically identified it to be scored.  Plus, the entire team is blissfully unaware of the competitive intelligence advantage the competitors already have.

The competitors will have been analysing your track record with this client in great detail, through the information freely available through the Freedom of Information Act.  You have put this in the public domain through the minutes of your routine progress meetings with the client.  Every issue and failure has been highlighted.  For your competitors this information is gold nuggets.  Then they will show, on paper in the proposal, how these things would either have been completely avoided if it had been operating the contract, or how it would have resolved the issues with a much better outcome.  They can make all these claims on paper using hindsight, but the incumbent cannot change history, good or bad.
Sometimes I have even seen the incumbent get to the point that it does not bother with any competitive intelligence at all, relying upon the client’s all pervasive appreciation of its qualities to win.  It gambles upon its unique relationship to overcome all.
However, strengths and “uniques” are comparative.  This means you can only play these in your bid if you know what the competitors can offer against each one AND what the value to the client of each is.  It is no good in relying upon some secret insider knowledge either.  Once the evaluators see the difference between what they have asked and “reality” they will reissue the requirement in these areas or accommodate it in their analysis.  This will remove the advantage to the incumbent.  If you are the incumbent with insider knowledge, expect this to happen.

Remember that it is the client’s procurement team’s job to make sure that the invitation to tender documentation meets the fundamental principles of transparency and equality.  You might have helped them to put together the specification.  However, it is their job to sanitise the requirement so it does not suit any one supplier, particularly the incumbent.  Then they have to make sure that the evaluation rules are applied correctly and any bias (for or against you) is removed.  If they don’t, then the award decision may be subject to challenge and the procurement stopped, at least for the time it takes to resolve the issue.  Only a losing supplier wants this to happen; no one else does and the procurement team will do everything in their power to stop any potential for challenge before the competition is begun.

So, if you are the incumbent, what can you do?  Well, unless you have a truly competitive proposal, nothing!

If you want to retain the client, you must approach the tendering competition expecting every other competitor to claim and then seek to prove that it can do the job better than you have done and be cheaper.  So begin work on this basis.
Brainstorm all the proof points you have of your relevant capabilities in two sessions.  One for evidence of how well you have served the client and how well you know them and their needs.  A separate session for proof points of corporate capability relevant to the new requirements.  Ensure that these are populated in your response against questions in which these proof points can affect the scoring.

Look for real innovation and don’t be afraid to use it.  Slash your costs as far as you can (but always balance this against the impact on your quality score).  Use your knowledge of the client and what it really wants and come up with a game changer that the competitors will not foresee and which will truly impress the client.  Treat the competition as if your most feared competitor had been the incumbent and had performed well.  Then show the client that you really are the better choice.

I have been around and about proposal writing for many years. I have seen fabulous successes and devastating failures all attributed to the quality of the written word. And in that time I have learned a few lessons. They seem so obvious to me.  However, whenever I meet up with a new bid team (and sometimes even experienced bid teams who aren’t doing so well), I see the same problems.

It’s a delicate decision to challenge a lost bid decision and possibly alienate yourself as a “troublemaker”. Should you acquiesce or fight for what’s right for everyone?

I don’t think that there is an easy answer to this. However, I think that often, bid teams get their answer wrong, back off a justifiable challenge and potentially lose business that should have been theirs.

Commercial Competitions

The decision whether or not to challenge a bid competition result will normally rely upon a fairly forensic examination of the circumstances. My expertise lies, most recently, in Public Sector procurement. But if I look at my past experience across both commercial and Public Sector bidding I perceive a large difference: in a commercial bid, if you are not selected by the client, that’s tough and there is usually not much you can do about it. Unless, of course, you can play heavyweight politics, in which case, anything is possible!

Can the client’s staff then hold a grudge in such a situation? Of course they can and this is part of the balance you must consider when you decide to push back on their decision. If the decision is altered in your favour, then someone in the client’s staff will be hurt by it. Part of your strategy will be to work out who, and how much influence they will have now and in the future. Then you can do a pain/gain calculation and plan accordingly.

Public Sector

In the Public Sector, things are very markedly different. The first point is that the adherence to the process is more important than the outcome. If you don’t believe me, try lodging your bid ten minutes after the cut off! The next point is that if something has truly gone awry with the process, and the wrong result has been declared, you will get very little opposition when you highlight this from the majority of the Public Sector staff. Excepting, that is, those who either sought to manipulate the process to meet their own agenda or, just “screwed it up” without any intention to favour any bid. The general perception will be one of “it is good that this process fault has been identified so we can prevent any reoccurrence”. It may be difficult and complex to recover the situation, but the supplier who identified the issue will normally, by the wider Public Sector audience, not be seen as a troublemaker.

Nevertheless, an unsubstantiated accusation that an error has occurred will be treated differently. Unless the process aberration is obvious, then the complainant’s challenge might well be seen as “sour grapes”. This will always be the case if the complaint is based upon, “this is not the best outcome for the taxpayer”, or “the decision is wrong because we have the better product and our price was lower”! You cannot challenge on the basis of common sense or fairness; only that the process has been misapplied.

Discovering the Details

Of course, if you have been told you have not won the bid, you will have asked for a debrief. After all, if you have lost the bid, the lessons learned are the ONLY return you will get on your investment. You owe it to your business to recover at least something from the investment it has made in the bid process. Also, if you have your suspicions that something has gone wrong with the process, this is the point where you might be able to confirm these suspicions.

If your suspicions are confirmed in the debrief, and you could not be sure of this beforehand, then a formal challenge to the procurement team will halt the contract award whilst the problems are resolved under the “Standstill” or “Alcatel” arrangements. In my experience, this is the point that most easily and most often resolves the bidder’s problems satisfactorily.

Timing

On the other hand, you may already know exactly what the problem is and who is responsible. Now your activity begins with one of determining the timing. If you knew, or should have known, about the process error 30 days or more beforehand, you can forget a challenge. They have got away with it (except in some very specific circumstances). The 30 day time limit rule is well established and there is case law to back this up. However, if the discovery is before the 30 day point, then you have the time remaining up to 30 days to lodge a legal challenge in the courts.

In other words, you cannot “bank” an issue you knew about early in the bid cycle and then initiate a challenge to the decision only after you find you have not won. You have got to act within the 30 days.

Catching Them Out

But let us presume that you have caught some Public Sector official blatantly misapplying the rules. In a recent case, at the debrief it became evident that the procurement team had weighted the evaluation scores in a different way to that which they had set out in the bid documents. This altered the total scores to the point that the positions of the top two bidders were reversed. This case is well known to me and what happened here was that the challenge was immediately lodged when this became apparent.

If you mount a challenge, you have to ensure you have the corporate resolve to see the challenge through. Moreover, you and your corporate management must be very clear about the outcome you are prepared to accept. In the case above, the Public Sector procurement team acknowledged they had made a mistake. However, they offered to rerun the competition again and the aggrieved second place competitor accepted this offer, even though its bid had clearly won under the published rules. So all the three original competitors settled down to produce another full proposal. The final result, the third place competitor from the first round did much better in the second competition and won. Neither of the two organisations whose bids led in the first evaluation got the prize.

Of course, having proved it had clearly won under the rules of the competition if they were fairly applied, the disputing bidder in the first competition could and should have stood its ground, and demanded the contract be awarded in accordance with the corrected evaluation result.

Lack of Resolve

So why did this bidding team’s management back away from exercising its right to get the contract? Probably because someone in a senior position was worried about what the impact of making such waves might be. The organisation had other Public Sector contracts and it is likely the management was worried about its reputation if it challenged too hard. So the safest way forward may have appeared to be, to accept that the evaluators had recognised their errors and then give them the let-out of allowing a recompetition. At least this would give their bidding team the opportunity to have their bid re-evaluated. Then they would win as they had before, wouldn’t they?

The outcome was that this bidding team paid for not one, but two, entire bids and then got nothing in return.

Reputation Damage

Let us suppose that the bidding team had stood its ground, insisted on the first competition being re-evaluated properly and then been awarded the contract. And let us suppose that the Public Sector team were mightily embarrassed that their incompetence had been exposed, to the point that they wanted to get revenge on the bidding organisation. What could they do?

If they interfered with the evaluation of the next bid, their chances of being exposed would be high and unlikely to be successful. Their peers would have known they had been caught because the process had been misused once before and would be looking out for any similar future embarrassment. The bid team, also, would be reviewing the details of the process very carefully and ready to complain if anything went wrong. The risks would be far too great to get revenge and it is more likely that this next competition would be run more fairly and with greater regard to the process than ever before.

If the client had other contracts with the same Public Sector body which were being performed satisfactorily, why would the Public Sector staff involved with them allow others in their department (who had been caught interfering with their own procurement processes) have any involvement with these other projects? After all, they were caught before and there would be a high likelihood of them being caught again if they did something untoward.

Of course, senior and influential Public Sector staff can, individually sway things for or against any supplier. But what they can do outside what is “reasonable” is very limited on their own. Ultimately, the risk to the bid team of a robust but fair challenge to a faulty decision would be very unlikely to have any substantial impact on any other contract, now or in the future because the processes don’t permit it.

Summary

So, in summary, I believe that if you have a legitimate grievance in a Public Sector competition you should evaluate the tactical advantages of a challenge and if it is decided to proceed, pursue the challenge as robustly as possible until you get the outcome you want. Of course you have to recognise the 30 day rule and make a decision to meet that timescale. Also, you should never try to challenge for any other reason than the process has been misused. But once you have taken the decision to proceed, don’t wimp out once things start to go your way.

It is a big step to decide to challenge the decision when you have bid for a Public Sector contract and you have not won. The immediate thoughts will cover, on what grounds can I challenge, how do I make the challenge and how will making the challenge affect my current and future business with the Public Sector body concerned.

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