Procurement Tips on e-Tendering
The e-Tender Secret Seven
The time leading up to the deadline for an electronic tender submission (e-Tender) can be stressful.
Here are some tips to bear in mind in advance that may help to avoid the pitfalls waiting for the unwary:
1. Draft responses offline
It is easiest to prepare your responses in a Word document and, when you are happy with them, proof read, spell check and then copy and paste into the live online response form.
2. Watch the word count
Keep within the maximum number of words or characters that are allowed, usually stated beneath each text response box.
3. Convert to pdf
Convert appendices to pdf files wherever possible to avoid overloading in terms of size and to protect the documents from being accidentally edited. Do always carefully check them through and if in doubt, leave in the original format.
4. Name documents intuitively
Give some documents names that will make it clear what they are. You don't want to annoy your customer by making the location of each appendix akin to solving a crossword clue!
5. Observe the appropriate upload sections
Be careful to load attachment into the correct sections, for example, financial info into the Commercial section and case studies into the Technical section
6. Check mandatory questions
Make sure you have answered all the mandatory questions, even though some may not seem relevant to you. They are usually marked with a red asterisk or similar. Not providing a reply, even if it is simply, "N/A" could disaqualify your entire submission.
7. LEAVE PLENTY OF TIME
Set a cut-off point that is at least a day ahead of your tender deadline. Uploading always takes longer than you think it will. At all costs, avoid last minute uploading because your competitors have also left it late and you are all on the site at the same time, it might not work fast enough or could even stop working all together - resulting in you missing the deadline.
All Procurement Tips come from Chris Beety, Procurement Guru and Chief Executive of Community Ventures Ltd.
