Tendering contract sites

[Safety-PAT]

Hi guys,

Does anybody use the website Tenders Direct or supply to gov.co.uk? If so how do you rate them for ROI? I'm looking at tendering for contracts, can anyone recommend any other websites or ideas a little more cost effective or is £750 about right for an anual subscription to tendering contract sites like this? All advice is very much appreciated. Many thanks.

 

[MorrisChesterfield]

hi,

have your tried sourcederbyshire.co.uk? there is a notts and a staffordshire one aswell.

ben

 

[Safety-PAT]

Thanks, they look pretty good sites, I'll keep an eye on them, much appreciated, cheers!

 

[PERCY67]

Hi,

Waste of time both of them.

Tenders direct just sent me lists of crap,

I used to belong to a network of franchised businesses, all registered for supply to gov. That was 125 businesess across the UK. Not one job.

Don't waste your hard earned, its a well worn path.

 

[blsewell]

Hi

I wrote a piece on this subject - but it seems to have vaporised.

You need to very carefully think before you pay -

Because the piece has been lost - you can give me a call to discuss your concerns - there is no charge for this advise.

In summary - don't pay anyone anything - until you have spoken to me
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]
We have produced a number presentations relating to SME's who wish to obtain business [/FONT] [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]from the public sector - these are free - we also produce a monthly SME Procurement [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]Information Newsletter and articles regarding barriers to SME success in public procurement.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]We were involved jointly with the (OGC) Office for Government Commerce in making a [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]presentation on public procurement at the recent National Recruitment Conference in [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]November-2009.

[/FONT]
You may also send me a username and password that allow you to view or download free the following procurement presentations.[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]

We produce on our website concise information relating to public procurement[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif](1) Understanding Public Procurement[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif](2) Understanding Pre-Qualification Questionnaires[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif](3) Our most recent newsletter[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif](4) Articles published by the European Council on Small Business & Entrepreneurship[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]Interested persons should send me a (username) and (password)- to gain access to the [/FONT][FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]presentations - they are free.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]You are free to distribute all as you see fit and I would be grateful if you would pass our [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]information to any interested persons or groups.[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,times new roman,sans-serif]Best regards and I look forward to your response, [/FONT]




Lloyd Sewell
Tendering for Contracts Training
Tel: 0845 438 1663

 

[GBS Associates]

Hi

Had a request before regarding this from another forum member and here’s what I said! That particular member is doing well now by all accounts!

FYI Think she did go with QSL.

I’ve evaluated several tenders info suppliers recently. In brief, here are my top 3.1)Glenigans, these guys aren’t cheap but give the most comprehensive coverage. In addition to public sector tenders they give widespread info on private sector construction projects. 2) QSL-tenders, very reasonably priced subscription fee considering they also give private sector info though nowhere near as comprehensive as Glenigans. Best thing about the QSL service is the 4 week free trial because it gives the opportunity to see if the service delivers what you’re looking for. Be aware,the trial gives you an opt-out and if you don’t cancel within your opt-out period you’re liable for the full subscription fee. That seems fair enough to me and is made pretty clear on their website. 3) BIP, public sector only and more expensive than QSL but particularly good if you’re after MOD work.


Just need to add an addition to my statement which is that supply2gov is privately owned by BIS Solutions, which I did not know before! Funny how they don’t publish this information!!??

 

[blsewell]

Many thanks for your info - (please do not get upset after reading the following statements)

(1) I have been in this business before (BIP and OGC and all the others) you have mentioned

(2) supply2gov is owned by BIP (I have known the MD of BIP since (97) at that time they only produced EU / UK / MOD large value contract information

(3) All the other companies you have mentioned are already known to me

(4) I have an association with (yet) another company dotgovsuppliesandservices - again I know the (MD) - he is honest and trustworthy

There are still others like (TED and B2B Quote and tendersd etc, etc)

Again, (and here I repeat myself) - you need to be very specific about a host of critical areas before you decide to pay your money - All these companies provide information - some more extensive than others - but it is only information - which with some effort on your part you could have found for yourself (if you had the time and resources and you knew where to look. This information provides no certainty of anything - beyond the facts on the page.

To fully take advantage of the information provided - you must have previously prepared yourself and your company / associates.

enough said - I think I will move on

Regards

 

[blsewell]

For all those new to public procurement here are some information links you may find of interest.

Background Information
We are registered consultants on the UK Business Consultants -
Supplier Brokerage Service Register.

We provide both face to face business advice, business training and online training for firms who wish to learn how to tender for contracts.

We have produced a number presentations relating to SME's who wish to obtain business from the public sector - we also produce a monthly SME Procurement Information Newsletter and articles regarding barriers to SME success in public procurement.

We were involved jointly with the (OGC) - UK Office for Government Commerce in making a presentation on public procurement at the recent National Recruitment
Conference in November-2009.

Procurement Information Links
1) We produce on our website concise information relating to public procurement
http://www.tfc-training.com/uk_sme_public_procurement.htm

2) Our most recent newsletter) The current newsletter
http://www.tfc-training.com/emc_2010/emnl.htm

3) A flash presentation on: ) Understanding Pre-Qualification Questionnaires
http://www.tfc-training.com/flh/upqq/index.html

4) A flash presentation on: ) Understanding Public Procurement
http://www.tfc-training.com/flh/upp/index.html

Interested persons should send me a (User name) and (Password) to gain access to the presentations.

You are free to distribute all as you see fit and I would be grateful if you would pass our information to any interested persons or groups.

Interested individuals can request our brochure and testimonials
from:

Lloyd Sewell - Director
Tendering for Contracts Training Ltd
23 Elmbridge Road
Cranleigh
Surrey GU6 8NH
Tel: 0845 438 1663
Mob: 07866 607197

 

[ethical PR]

Hello

We have used an organisation, funded by the LDA, which offers a FREE service to anyone in the private sector looking to win public sector contracts. This includes training courses on writing bids, pitching etc and advice on tendering, policy requirements etc. This also run networking events.

In London this is run by PERA and funded through the London Development Agency. I understand there are similar set ups in other parts of the country.

In terms of tendering sites we use Supply2Gov - this is a free service if you are looking for lower level contracts in your area and then a fee if you are looking for high level contracts or information on national opportunities.

We have also registered on local authority, NHS, government and other public sector sites/procurement portals - these send you alerts about relevant opportunities and are free.

Good luck.

 

[Millstream]

Hello Everyone,

My name is Tim Williams and I'm the Managing Director of Millstream Associates Ltd., the providers of the Tenders Direct service.

The main reason I'm posting here is because I was horrified to read the post by Percy67 saying that 'Tenders direct just sent me lists of crap.' I can assure everyone that we don't just send out lists of anything and as we spend a great deal of time setting up a profile specific to your business, any information that we do send to you will be relevant!



There are two main differences between the Tenders Direct service and our competitors:

1. We work with thousands of public sector organisations in the UK, Ireland and Norway to publicise their contracts, which gives us direct access to many contracts that our competitors simply don't know about. We also have a research team that do nothing else all day apart from identifying contracts that aren't publicised elsewhere and adding them to our database. Many of these are the smaller contracts that aren't published in the Official Journal (OJEU), or any other central resource for that matter.
2. The second difference is the care we take in classifying the information, so that's its easy for you to find relevant tenders. Most of our competitors rely on the CPV codes that are used to code the notices in the OJEU. This is better than it used to be, but as CPV is not a hierarchical system and has almost 10,000 codes, it is largely a matter of luck if you search using the same CPV code that the purchaser selected when publishing the notice. Our coding system has far fewer categories, but they are all relevant to the type of contracts being advertised, so we get a very good match.

Much of the information provided by the other sites suggested in the other posts are perfectly good, e.g. sourcederbyshire.co.uk. The only problem is that these sorts of sites only contain information from a relatively small number of organisations. That's fine if they are the only organisations you are interested in working for, but that's not the case for most businesses. Similarly Glenigans is also a perfectly good service if you're in the construction industry. I understand they source most of their information from planning applications, but if you're interested in IT contracts, or consultancy services, etc., then Glenigans isn't the most appropriate service.

Our objective is to ensure that if a public contract is being advertised we'll have the information available on Tenders Direct and make sure that you are alerted via email. As one of the other posts mentioned, if you've got the time, you can probably find the information that we publish available somewhere for free. The question is, do you know where to look and have you got the time to search dozens of public sector websites every few days to see if there's anything relevant?

We don't provide a free trial as these are time-consuming to administer and some of our competitors have earned a bad reputation by insisting on payment of a full years subscription if the 'free trial' is not cancelled on time. Also a free trial that lasts 2-3 weeks will only show you a small snapshot of what might be available, while if you look back over the past year, it's fairly reliable indicator of the type and volume that you're likely to get over the next 12 months.


Instead we allow visitors to search our whole database and in the results present you with a short list of the most current tenders that match your search, as well as the last 12 months of all the recent but now expired tenders. Our reasoning is that you would like to know what type of information you might receive, the quality of the information and also some idea of how many contracts we are likely to find each week.


We won't rip you off and we will deliver the information you need. We've been in business for almost 21 years and I can assure you that we haven't survived that long by giving bad customer service.

If you've got any questions I haven't answered please give our customer care team a call on 0800 681 6618 (free of charge). They're not at all 'salesy' and will do their best to help you decide if Tenders Direct is right for you. We don't want dissatisfied customers, we'd rather spend the time they would absorb helping people that do want our service.

If you find anything I've said above isn't true, please come back onto this forum and let everyone know.

Regards

Tim

 

[Thermostat]

Hello Everyone
I signed up with M&M Tenders 21/2 months ago. They sent me on the day I signed up a load of irrelavent garbage. I have not heard a word or e-mail since. Has anyone heard of M & M Tenders. I believe they are in Brighton.