Does anyone know, How to bid for contracts ? ? ?

[afrika]

Hello
We just setup a Cloud software company and built and still building custom software.

We also want to bid for contracts and been searching and came across the gov.uk website, which we are currently exploring. however some other websites came up in the search criteria, (Which I dont want to mention here)

But has anyone got any prior knowledge/experience about these and how to go about them successfully ?

As we are all novices to bidding, but have tonnes of years of sotware experience

many thanks
Ehi

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

Register to the many procurement platforms and be prepared to create a lot of paperwork/forms for proposals!!

 

[afrika]

Sorry, but a few of the sites, ask us to pay a subcription as high as £30 a month for a year, £360 total to have access to these IT Software contracts ?

Any ideas, if we should try these or stick to the gov website ?

 

[fisicx]

Bid for what exactly?

If you can’t afford £30/month you can’t afford to bid for government contracts as the process will cost you a lot more

 

[Mark T Jones]

Sorry, but a few of the sites, ask us to pay a subcription as high as £30 a month for a year, £360 total to have access to these IT Software contracts ?

Any ideas, if we should try these or stick to the gov website ?

They generally charge you for 'tender alerts' rather than to bid.

It's an algorithm that filters out tenders that may applicable to you.

Are you ready for tenders and the bureaucracy that comes with them?

 

[Newchodge]

Bid for what exactly?

If you can’t afford £30/month you can’t afford to bid for government contracts as the process will cost you a lot more

There is a huge diffeence between paying th costs of tendering for a real contract and paying some conman a monthly fee for nothing.

 

[fisicx]

There is a huge diffeence between paying th costs of tendering for a real contract and paying some conman a monthly fee for nothing.

True. But there are some excellent agents who have access to far more potential contracts that you would find just by googling.

 

[afrika]

There is a huge diffeence between paying th costs of tendering for a real contract and paying some conman a monthly fee for nothing.

Super that answers my questions.

Our company focus is software, which does not incur huge supply or procurement costs. And personally as the lead. I have almost 27ish years

So do I search only on the gov.uk website ?

 

[fisicx]

Our company focus is software, which does not incur huge supply or procurement costs. And personally as the lead. I have almost 27ish years

You misunderstand the point being made. To actually bid for contract could cost you a lot of money.

I recall being part of the process to provide aircraft maintenance software. The cost for each of the three bidders exceeded £50k and took around 18 months.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Forget all that website stuff they are just lists
Get a strategy together to approach your target organisations directly

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

There are several procurement sites that do not require subscription and are used by local government.

 

[fisicx]

There are several procurement sites that do not require subscription and are used by local government.

Indeed. But does local government often contract out software projects? It’s mostly products and services.

 

[Paul Kelly ICHYB]

They do pop up, however, whilst the description are quite general, when you dig down, the requested tend to be directed for know/proven software rather than clean developments.

 

[WaveJumper]

In short target the companies you would be interested to be working with. If they then have an interest in you and what you offer and indeed they have a procurement process, then you can ask to be added to the list ready for when their current contracts come up for renewal.

Many large organisations have "rules" in place where they have to go out to tender when existing contracts end. You maybe on a list for 2 to 3 years before anything comes of it.

In my experience of running procurement I would be looking to see what a contractors current experience ie contracts they have and what their financial position is. As mentioned above it's not an easy route to go down and certainly not a quick one, be prepared for lots of paper work. Best of luck

 

[fisicx]

They do pop up, however, whilst the description are quite general, when you dig down, the requested tend to be directed for know/proven software rather than clean developments.

That was my experience as well. What they often want is support rather than anything bespoke. For example, our local council outsources all their IT support including license procurement. They don't directly commission any bespoke software. Which for @afrika would mean offering their services to the IT company not the local government.

The other issue of course is the size of the company. Local and National will want often want to contract will larger established brands and there is less chance of them going bust.

 

[DoolallyTap]

Tendering for government contracts can be a very complicated game. You need to have significant experience of how to be acceptable and how to complete the tender documents with an y chance of success.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Even local government contracts need a history going back three or more years, and use the company history, to confirm you have the assets and capability to near guarantee you can fulfill the contract length

They must get 3 bidders to be able to select the winning bid which is not always the lowest, but who meet other confidence area's, like a competitor may have a 10+ years of history of supplying a similar company with a service / goods

 

[HFE Signs]

The tendering method of winning contracts can work well on sizable projects, not so well on smaller ones, the reason I say this is because they often involve a lot of paperwork and correspondence, you'll ideally need a dedicated person to be communicating with them. Also when submitting your bid, the temptation is to go in very cheap, if you couple this with the extra admin time you can be working for very little. If you do explore this route, be sure to get your margins right.

 

[helen0722]

I bid for contracts with the councils all the times and never had to pay a Penny bear in mind my business is a different sector.

 

[fisicx]

I bid for contracts with the councils all the times and never had to pay a Penny bear in mind my business is a different sector.

What is your business sector?

 

[helen0722]

What is your business sector?

I’m into health and social care but the councils does tenders for different sectors.

 

[fisicx]

I’m into health and social care but the councils does tenders for different sectors.

That's a bit different to tendering for software contracts. But if your council has a free tendering service that's good news.

 

[MeAndMyAi]

Register to the many procurement platforms and be prepared to create a lot of paperwork/forms for proposals!!

Not really my Saas/Web App can take a scrawled builders note and turn that into a 2 page pro pdf in less than 2 mins. It would annihilate a Tender proposal, drop it in, add notes, out comes a proposal, formatted, written, enhanced etc in seconds. Could sit churning quotes out for 30 minutes and get 10 done easy.

 

[helen0722]

That's a bit different to tendering for software contracts. But if your council has a free tendering service that's good news.

The councils do software contracts for IT, Finance, We’d design. Health and Social care management software

 

[fisicx]

Feel free to remove my account.

Contact @Ozzy and your account will be removed

 

[Mark T Jones]

The link was taken out of my previous post, something that can MASSIVELY help small UK businesses. That tells me everything I need to know about this hub. Gutted for newbies starting out. And it's free lol. Wow. Feel free to remove my account. Can't stand those against growing small business.

Says everyone who came to self-promote and failed

 

[MeAndMyAi]

Says everyone who came to self-promote and failed

Promote? Something I'm giving for free? Mate my pockets are full so now I'm giving back.