Our security client has recently been informed that their ITT was successful for the provision of security solutions to a local council in Oxfordshire. We developed the ITT for the client and they have now been invited to meet with and present to members of the council. We wish them the very best of luck!

Positive news for one of our charity clients who have been shortlisted to receive grant funding through Children in Need. The client provides sport and recreational activities to young people, usually with challenging behaviour. As a charity organisation, they rely on donations and grant funding. We worked closely with the client at the beginning of 2013 to produce a solid application and they have just been informed that they have been shortlisted.

If you’re looking for support, advice or guidance with your funding applications, do get in touch.

We’ve just been reading an article online about how a procurement project has been recognised as the best cycling initiative in London. In summary, the project is proposing to make Transport for London’s contractors’ lorries safer with regards to cyclists.

There’s 2 clear benefits here. Firstly, it shows how far left-field procurement projects can be started from, thus providing more public sector tender opportunities . Secondly, and from a personal perspective, it’s great to see how far the awareness of road safety and cycling is being considered.

Recently, cycling and road safety has been highly publicised in the media. It is easy to not even consider how road safety can have a positive impact on supply chains and business growth opportunities.

For the full article  click here

A recent article published online announced that the government had managed to save nearly £4 billion through more efficient procurement.

The article referred to Francis Maude’s announcement that: ”£1.6 billion had been saved by reducing the use of consulting and contractors, £800 million through better supplier relations, £1 billion through centralising procurement across the whole public sector – of which £600 million came from central government – and £380 million on advertising and marketing.”

It’s reassuring to see that focusing on improving and centralising the government’s procurement is clearly working.

For the full article, click here.

Brilliant news for our childcare provider client who has just informed us of a successful tender with a huge international retail chain. We started working with the client a few weeks ago and provided support with developing a strong response to the tender. The tender had defined word limits, but we worked well with the client and the result speaks for itself. We wish our client the very best with the new contract!

Another simple tip for your PQQs/ITTs etc is to think about evidence. If you are making a statement about your business, can you support it with evidence. This really links back to our earlier tip about providing full detailed answers, but to add even more weight to your answer, consider how you can support your statement. Examples may include factual figures, statistics or brief case studies, or even a testimonial. Easy stuff! You will have the information, so use it.

In a previous tip, we suggested that you provide as much information as possible. What you will need to consider is how your response will look to the reader. Again – a simple tip here. Add some structure to your response by using headings and sub-headings to break up your text. This will make your response more readable, as well as making it easier for you to answer. So, for example, if a question asks about how you manage sub-contractors, have a heading covering sub-contractors, followed by another heading to cover how they are managed. This really is a simple method that will help you tremendously.

Brilliant news for our security client who have been successful at the ITT stage with a large property management company. They have been invited to meet the authority and to deliver a presentation.  We supported the client  with the development of  the ITT. We wish our client the best of luck with the presentation!

Last week we provided 2 simple tips to help when completing a PQQ or ITT etc. The third tip we can offer is that you answer each question as fully as you can. Even if you already work, or have worked, with the buying organisation – make no assumptions. Give as much information as possible – backed up with any relevant facts and figures.

Fantastic news for our asbestos client who have successfully navigated the tender process with a huge leading engineering company. We supported the client in the development of their tender, so it is brilliant to hear that they were successful.

We normally work with the client on public sector tenders, so it shows that they can be as equally successful to private sector work