Tender specialist

[PeteB]

22 hours ago, benedmonds said:

I have not used anyone for tendering but I have looked into it a few times.

I can't get my head around spending thousands on a gamble, when you can just get underpriced and I don't see how these experts are going to help on that score..

 

My latest unsuccessful bid came back today, after days of my time wasted. Winning bid £23,500. Mine £46,595..

 

 

I hear about a lot of tenders priced in that manner and wonder why there is such a big difference in the prices - if I was opening the bids, I would be quite sceptical of those bids at either end of the spectrum too! Canopy is a decent company, not top heavy in management, work to current best practice, there to make a reasonable living and yet beaten by a quote which seems a tad low! How is the winner going to do the work to the same standards etc and make a few sheckles?

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Part of the problem often stems from lazy staff cut & pasting previous ITT setting documents and blindly following tick sheets whilst having little or no real world experience of the actual task being scoped.

 

This results in a tender scope which perpetuates previous poorly considered or inappropriate parameters, draws upon rules, regs, criteria which are from another industry sector (I've seen lots of construction industry specs in arb / landscaping ITT docs), outdated references, missing essential elements etc.

 

Oftenwise, this may play to the advantage of the bidding contractor where the baseline price can be low and additions / deletions can be used to make up the margin but overall, the net result is a poor VfM output to the ultimate customer who is usually the tax payer.

 

It has to be an exceptional opportunity to warrant the input effort AFAIC.  Often more trouble than it's worth...  Meh 

[scottythepinetree]

On 29/01/2020 at 09:20, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Part of the problem often stems from lazy staff cut & pasting previous ITT setting documents and blindly following tick sheets whilst having little or no real world experience of the actual task being scoped.

 

This results in a tender scope which perpetuates previous poorly considered or inappropriate parameters, draws upon rules, regs, criteria which are from another industry sector (I've seen lots of construction industry specs in arb / landscaping ITT docs), outdated references, missing essential elements etc.

 

Oftenwise, this may play to the advantage of the bidding contractor where the baseline price can be low and additions / deletions can be used to make up the margin but overall, the net result is a poor VfM output to the ultimate customer who is usually the tax payer.

 

It has to be an exceptional opportunity to warrant the input effort AFAIC.  Often more trouble than it's worth...  Meh 

Poorly drafted ITTs are the bane of my existence. Some of them can be overly burdensome and don't really provide the client with anything useful. There is a trend happening here (Ireland) at the moment where client procurement are realising that they're basically being rude asking for some of the stuff that they look for at tender stage and a lot of our tenders now consist of just a pricing documents and a set of declarations that you will provide the necessary information if your bid is successful. There are still a few (normally govt bodies) who award on a weighted scoring system (Usually 80% price and 20% safety, but I wonder how accurate this is really).

 

I do all of the safety section of the tenders for my employer. If you are really struggling with them, it would be a good idea to get someone in to help you with one. Spend the time with them while they do it, and you will see what they do. Having well organised records of previous experience, training records, machinery certs, sample method statement/Traffic Management Plans, and of course the usual Safety Statements and Risk Assessments up to date (all in electronic format) can really speed up the process, as then it's just a case of putting the right file in the right place. If you don't have your stuff organised or know how to do it, a tender specialist will do it for you when completing the tender. Then it's just a case of making sure you know where it all is on your system and keeping it all up to date.

 

You will still get the occasional tender that goes completely OTT asking for ridiculous stuff, but you will be some of the way towards dealing with them too. 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

4 hours ago, scottythepinetree said:

Poorly drafted ITTs are the bane of my existence. Some of them can be overly burdensome and don't really provide the client with anything useful. There is a trend happening here (Ireland) at the moment where client procurement are realising that they're basically being rude asking for some of the stuff that they look for at tender stage and a lot of our tenders now consist of just a pricing documents and a set of declarations that you will provide the necessary information if your bid is successful. There are still a few (normally govt bodies) who award on a weighted scoring system (Usually 80% price and 20% safety, but I wonder how accurate this is really).

Spot on!!! ??????

[Jcarbor]

Being ARB approved is expensive and very stressful on assessment day and it doesn't garantee you win tenders..
 
The main reason we do it is that it ensures we are working to best practice although there are quite a few tenders that do require you being arb approved.

Ben I was Arb approved, it is good to do, you learn an awful lot about running your business in a professional manner, yet as I have found out it gets you no more work than any other company out there that’s not AAac. I was allowed to do a PQQ for the Forestry commission twice but got nowt from it so I didn’t bother wasting several hours of my precious time filling it in yet again!
We get loads of works for highways authorities, city councils, and large corporate companies,none of which ask if we are AAacs, they are more interested in my lads CSCS cards and my RAMS. It’s good to save yourself some brass once you’ve done it give it up and have a go on your own, you maybe surprised how much work and contracts you’ll still get. It’s still a good thing to experience and Paul is a truly good guy.

[Jcarbor]

Being ARB approved is expensive and very stressful on assessment day and it doesn't garantee you win tenders..
 
The main reason we do it is that it ensures we are working to best practice although there are quite a few tenders that do require you being arb approved.

I’d say very few in my experience.

[benedmonds]

1 hour ago, Jcarbor said:

Ben I was Arb approved, it is good to do, you learn an awful lot about running your business in a professional manner, yet as I have found out it gets you no more work than any other company out there that’s not AAac.

I have filled in a number of tenders that require you to be ARB approved (even won at least one..) and I do get people mentioning it. 

I would never put down other local companies to a potential client but when clients say they are getting multiple quotes I always recommend they use an ARB approved company as I know they are going to be jumping through the same hoops as me so their day rate is more likely to be comparable... 

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

4 hours ago, Jcarbor said:

Ben I was Arb approved, it is good to do, you learn an awful lot about running your business in a professional manner, yet as I have found out it gets you no more work than any other company out there that’s not AAac. I was allowed to do a PQQ for the Forestry commission twice but got nowt from it so I didn’t bother wasting several hours of my precious time filling it in yet again!
We get loads of works for highways authorities, city councils, and large corporate companies,none of which ask if we are AAacs, they are more interested in my lads CSCS cards and my RAMS. It’s good to save yourself some brass once you’ve done it give it up and have a go on your own, you maybe surprised how much work and contracts you’ll still get. It’s still a good thing to experience and Paul is a truly good guy.

Hi Jim, the FC Contract is a bone of contention for several AAACs who are on the framework but have had no work at all in 3-4 years  

The is significant regional variation on use of / reference to AAAC by the commercial sector and this is often influenced by the nos. locally / regionally so whenever you;re ready to step back into the scheme, and bring a few of the other good eggs along, we'll do what we can to educate the clients of the benefits

 

Thanks for your kind words and "ditto".

 

ATB

Paul 

[MattyF]

If you want an FC contract join FISA and get 9001.

Are these the AAAC who where coming from Yorkshire to keilder Paul to do the dangerous tree contracts who under cut all the locals .. i know they go for the cheapest but logistically I think even they worked that one out....also if you think best practices are sending in under paid and inexperienced staff to do “dangerous” trees just because you have ticked some boxes the AA needs to seriously reconsider how it operates for best practices.

 

[AA Teccie (Paul)]

23 minutes ago, MattyF said:

If you want an FC contract join FISA and get 9001.

Are these the AAAC who where coming from Yorkshire to keilder Paul to do the dangerous tree contracts who under cut all the locals .. i know they go for the cheapest but logistically I think even they worked that one out....also if you think best practices are sending in under paid and inexperienced staff to do “dangerous” trees just because you have ticked some boxes the AA needs to seriously reconsider how it operates for best practices.

 

Morning Matty,

Sorry I'm not sure...if Mr Graham's around he's the person to ask about all goings on up north.

 

Your point is correct in that the client, and usually the FC are pretty hot on it, still needs to supervise work activities at the point of service delivery, including checking operator competences and experience, and if they have concerns to flag them up (firstly to the company to reply / address and if continues then to us.)

I too have concerns about the sustainability / environmental impact of contractors travelling many miles to work when perhaps there's an opportunity to set up a supply chain thereby avoiding such, ideally AAAC to AAAC  

Cheers,
Paul