It was an interesting talk and a broad selection of businesses attended which I think is healthy for networking. The funny thing is I always seem to be sitting next to another graphic design company.
Getting an overview of procurement was good, John Tunnicliff was very open and honest. On one level it almost seems pointless for an SME like ourselves trying to tender for public work, even if you know you could deliver the contract.
The criteria that the procurement dept use to cut their list is so narrow e.g. businesses turning over £2 - £3 millions, in design there are only a handful, and if they have weighted this at 60% then any other criteria within the PQQ has a tough time to catch up to bring your score level with competitors that do match completely.
So what did I learn?
- Check out whether your product or service is required. (some services are tied up at a national level)
- Who buys your service/product within the organisation (their name)
Secondly...
This is by no means a de-facto list but his talk made it clear why we don't get past the PQQ stage and we are probably wasting our time going for the main bids, we should spend more time identifying the needs for our services further down the procurement chain.
- Big organisations always seem to win
- Find out who has won the big contracts
- Contact the winning contractor or even the sub-contractor
- Find out how to get on their sub-contractor list
This is by no means a de-facto list but his talk made it clear why we don't get past the PQQ stage and we are probably wasting our time going for the main bids, we should spend more time identifying the needs for our services further down the procurement chain.
0 comments:
Post a Comment