As with all elements of your business, improving your tender results should form a key tenet of your continuous improvement processes. Fortunately, given the requirements under the Procurement Act 2023, structured feedback facilitates easy identification of your bid’s potential shortcomings – allowing you to be proactive in addressing these for future submissions.
In this blog, we share our tips on how to improve your tender results, ensuring the tender process is a key function in acquiring new clients and expanding your portfolio of contracts.
Review each section of the tender results in detail
Following receipt of the evaluation scores from the contracting authority, make sure to review the following sections for specific feedback and tender results:
Compliance
The first stage of the submission – comprising the Selection Questionnaire (SQ) or newly-minted Procurement Specific Questionnaire (PSQ) – will have a series of pass/fail requirements. The first step is to check that the compliance-driven element of the submission has been completed and all minimum thresholds – for instance, minimum turnover thresholds – have been met, and your tender has not been disqualified on these grounds.
Equally, confirm that mandatory tender documents which need to be returned have all been completed fully and compliantly. Pay careful attention to ‘sign and return’ documents such as the form of tender – this can occasionally require company logo, letterhead or a physical rather than digital signature.
Quality
The responses or method statements forming the qualitative element of the submission are normally marked out of 5 or out of 10. The buyer will provide your scores received against each question, alongside qualitative feedback around how you responded to the question, with particular areas of strengths or weaknesses.
Reviewing your tender results in detail will allow you to identify patterns in your strengths and weaknesses. For instance, you may regularly receive strong scores for health and safety or mobilisation, but lack in areas such as sustainability or environmental management. Tracking your tender results on individual themes and topics will allow you to proactively track areas for potential improvement, and dedicate additional time to this in the next submission.
Pricing
Normally, the tenderer submitting the lowest-priced bid will be awarded full marks for pricing, with the remaining bids scoring relative to this lowest price. You can review your scores in pricing to give an idea of the rates your competitors are submitting, and whether your own scores are enough for a competitive bid.
Don’t forget your social value scores as part of tender results
Social value is a critical part of most public sector bids, comprising up to 20% of the total evaluation in some instances. All central government tenders mandate that social value comprises 10% of the evaluation criteria, and subcentral authorities – such as councils and housing associations – regularly assign an even higher weighting.
Consequently, social value is an easy target area when analysing how to improve tender results. When reviewing the feedback, consider how this has been applied and assigned in the following areas:
- Quantitative commitments and scores assigned to this element – according to the Social Value Portal, the proxy values for commitments should normally comprise 15–20% of the overall contract value
- Qualitative commitments and evidence provided, including whether this was targeted to the local area’s needs and profile
- Practical social value processes and procedures, including plans for delivery, nomination of a responsible individual or internal team, and methods for measuring, monitoring and reporting progress against commitments.
Remember, like any other aspect of a tender submission, social value can vary from bid to bid. Saving previous responses which did score highly as part of your bid library can be beneficial in responding to future submissions, given they require similar commitments.
Request additional feedback on tender results if required
The length and breadth of tender feedback can vary, depending on the requirements of the tender, contracting authority in question, and whether or not your submission is successful or unsuccessful.
In the best of circumstances, you will get detailed feedback on all aspects and bullet points within the question set. However, in other instances, you may only get a single sentence summarising your approach, score and areas for potential improvement.
As such, you can consider requesting further information from the authority by submitting a tender clarification around the following:
- Particular strengths which stood out in the winning submission, for example locally-based resource or evidence of previous experience in contracts of a similar size and scope
- Specific weaknesses which were areas of concern for the evaluation panel, and how this can be improved upon for future submissions
- Potential areas in which you can improve approaches – for instance, lack of clarity around communication processes and procedures.
Although you may still feel the feedback is not necessarily substantial, it will never work against you to request this, and will also show to the authority you are serious about making improvements to your existing processes.
Support with reviewing tender results
One of the wider bid services we provide includes a 360° post-submission review of a recent bid you have submitted – whether successful or unsuccessful, the critique and review can help drive up tender results. As part of the process, our Training Service Manager Stephen Murray will:
- Read the tender documents, specification and feedback provided prior to commencing a bid review of narrative responses
- Review all quality responses or method statements forming the submission, checking these against the wording of the question and requirements of the specification
- Provide comments suggesting enhancements and improvements for future tender submissions, with cognisance of the authority’s feedback and scores received
- Lead a post-submission ‘workshop’ discussing key points of the submission and considerations for future improvement.
To get in touch regarding a post-submission bid review or any of the other services we provide, contact our sales and marketing team today at info@executivecompass.co.uk or via telephone 0800 612 5563.