Drafting the Tender

Drafting the Tender: How To Go About the First Tender Team Meeting

Once you have armed yourself with the knowledge of the requirements of the public body, you can then begin drafting your tender. You have to get your team ready so that they support you in achieving a winning bid. How to begin the process with the first tender team meeting is explained below.

The way you resource and prepare you tender response will play a crucial role in presenting the winning tender. You have to get everything organised and start a timescale diary once you get the ITT document. You then have to draft a timetable for the stages of your response and appoint somebody as Tender Manager.

The role of the Tender Manager is to assimilate the expert assistance from different teams and branches within your company. You have to make the Tender Manager understand his crucial roles, which are as follows:

* Make a decisive call about whether your company will tender or not. In case the decision is not to tender, then you must inform the client (public body) immediately.

* He has to build the Tender Team. He must choose and decide on the team of experts required to take on the task. He has to gather information from all suitable channels of your business, including input from your legal, production, commercial and sales teams. A smart decision is to include a person in the team who has dealt with the public body admin/client before and who has knowledge of the client. This knowledge can allow them to make an accurate assumption of any requirements the client feels are important. This information will give you an edge over other bids.

* For smooth and uninterrupted functioning, the Tender Manager has to check every Tender Team member’s holiday or leave dates. This is necessary to ensure that everyone is available to complete the tasks in the timescale required.

* Ensure that every member of the Tender Team has a copy of the tender document. They must have electronic copies as well as hard copies.

* The Tender Manager must work on the tender timescale diary.

* He must read and re-read the tender document. In case he feels the need for any references, then he must send off for these. You must keep logs of all such requirements and also make sure that he gets it in time.

First Tender Team meeting

Once the team is set, you then need to hold an initial agenda meeting. Through the meeting, you have to:

* Read the tender documents with your team.

* Think about the decision to tender. Go ahead or not?

* In the case of going ahead with the tender, you must distribute the different aspects of the tender to the most suitable members of your team.

* Make a note of everything in the tender log and then, according to the tender timescale diary, set up a second meeting date where the work done will be reviewed.

This first team meeting is important to help the members know and understand each other. Also, for further clarifications required after the first meeting, then either address them yourself or ask the client/public body for the answers.

Follow these practices to build as well as support your team through the entire drafting process. Prepare information presentations and share it with your team. Joint and well-planned efforts are needed to ensure that you enter the winning bid for public contracts and TED tenders.