Getting organised
If you have registered for government tender alerts, you will start receiving email notifications alerting you to currently available tendering opportunities (see sourcing tenders and prequalification schemes for registering for tender alerts). At this stage, you should have either started or completed an application to become pre-qualified on a government scheme suitable to your business.
Step 1 – Conditions of tendering
Make sure you understand the applicable conditions to participate in the tender process.
- Once you have downloaded the tender documentation you will need to identify the conditions of tendering for the particular tender – these are usually contained in the main tender document.
- Once you have identified the conditions, it is recommended you review the list very carefully and that you can answer yes to all the conditions listed in the documentation.
If you cannot answer yes to each and every condition, it is recommended you do not participate in this particular tender. When the Government puts out tenders, they are looking for businesses that can meet their requirements.
If you are not in a position to meet the conditions set out, it will probably be a waste of your valuable time and effort to prepare a bid as your proposal will be unlikely to make it through the first round of the tender review process and will not be considered with the rest of the competitive field.
Step 2 – Review the evaluation criteria
- In the main tender document, identify the evaluation criteria. This is a list of criteria (usually weighted), which will score your tender response against your competition.
- If the weighting of the criteria is available, do a critical assessment of how competitive you will realistically be in the process.
Step 3 – Go or No-Go decision making
Now that you have reviewed the conditions of tendering and have critically analysed the evaluation criteria, you are in the best position possible to decide whether to participate or to withdraw from the process.
It is important to make the decision! If the decision is to withdraw from the process, leave it at that and give it no more thought. There will be other opportunities in the future.
If the decision is to go for it, now is the time to undertake a thorough review of all the tender documentation and plan out the rest of the bid process.