More information about tender business

Ladies and Gentlemen

You have without a doubt, already heard of tenders or participated in one. Maybe you have even won some already. We think it is important that the procedure for tenders is well thought through. If they are not correctly taken care of, they can cost you a lot of time, money and energy. The EUROPOWER team is ready to assist you with this procedure.

What exactly is a tender?

A tender is a procedure in which a bidder (for example public authorities or other large companies) announces that he wants to have an order done. He asks companies to submit a detailed offer before a previously determined date. After the deadline subscriptions are closed and the bidder or tender committee will select the company that can execute the order.

You have a better chance of winning a tender if you already know the decision makers in the committee. That is why it is important that your sales team keeps on developing a network of customers, prospects and partners. After all, these are the companies which offer the tenders. It can even be useful to have your sales team attend a training on how to handle tenders.

For participating in tenders, you can work out a standard procedure. In this standard procedure you can include the following documents: company presentation, reference list, ISO 9001 certificate, social security compliance certificates (if requested), product documentation, manuals, warranty conditions, information about your and/or our service network and pictures. If you do not dispose of an ISO 9001 certificate, you can obviously use ours. You can download it here. 

When you already have the necessary documents beforehand, you only need to complete the specific information when bidding for a tender. This gives you the opportunity to also bid for tenders where your chances of winning are smaller, at minimal costs. Be realistic, do not bid for tenders that you can not execute or where your chances of winning are insignificant. You better make sure that you can prove that you or your supplier complies with the necessary standards with regard to the market segment, for example the ISO 9001 standard.

Where can I find tenders?

Your company can find suitable tenders in many ways through media like newspapers, magazines and the internet. Several websites centralize the tender supply. One of the most important websites is http://ted.europa.eu/. This website is an online version of the Supplement to the Official Journal of the European Union, meant for European public invitations to tenders. When you register here, you will have free access to potential assignments. Information about every procurement document is published in the 23 official EU languages. All notices from the European Union's institutions are completely published in full in these languages.

When bidding for a tender, you have to make sure that you give all information demanded. Make sure that you clearly answer all questions in the tender. Your offer has to be submitted on time (before the deadline), otherwise it probably will not be accepted anymore. Send it as a registered item or have it delivered by a courier, that way you can make sure that your offer will be delivered on time.

Mind your presentation and design when tendering, this is an important aspect. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short and businesslike. Use titles, subtitles and summaries to divide the text. Check for writing and typing errors and have a colleague read over your text again. Tenders with errors often end up at the bottom of the pile automatically. Provide a table of contents so the information can be found easily.

You can always count on the EUROPOWER team for help when tendering. Please contact us when you have any questions.

Kind regards

The EUROPOWER team

06/09/2011

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