Our team of tender, bid and proposal writers love helping companies like yours across New Zealand win bids and tenders. Here are five tips you may incorporate when developing your next tender or bid:

It sounds simple, however, it’s important to use the tender templates provided. Often tender documents are released in Microsoft Excel format. This may seem annoying from your perspective, but more often than not the client has designed this format so it’s easier for them to compare. Also, the format can be an indicator of the type of response the client is looking for. For example, attaching generic marketing material is often discouraged, with precise tenders being preferred.

This is another one that is simple and easy but also important. Whether it’s word limits, upload instructions or naming conventions, it is important to comply with all the requirements of the tender and to attach the correct supporting documentation as required.

It is important to write in clear simple English that is easy to understand. Although you may have strong technical knowledge of your product or service, you need to assume that the reader knows nothing. Your response also needs to be compelling. You need to clearly articulate the reasons that you should be selected and put forward your key points of difference in a clear concise manner. It’s important to add visuals where possible and break up your text with subheadings and bullet points.

You need to address the selection criteria and continuously refer back to it throughout your response. It’s important to ensure your response is tailored to the opportunity. For example, even though questions may seem generic, it’s important to tailor your response. Let’s say you are a construction company specialising in roofing solutions and you are looking to win a tender to provide roof and landscape maintenance services. If you have content from a previous tender which was purely a roofing tender, it’s not enough to simply cut and paste that content in. You need to take the time to tailor it to ensure your general capability covers the landscape component as well.

References are critical to winning any tender and sometimes the most obvious references aren’t always the best. Think about the contract, what is involved, and where you have previous experience delivering similar services for another client. Think about the likely challenges you will encounter and where you have encountered them in the past. Finally, it’s critical that your referee has great things to say about you so ensure that is the case.

For professional help with your next bid or tender in New Zealand, give us a call here at The Tender Team.

Here at The Tender Team New Zealand, we help businesses across New Zealand write winning bids and tenders. Whether you are in the construction industry, education, medical, finance or Oil and Gas, here are three tips that will help you improve your next tender or bid.

1. Write a compelling executive summary.

Sometimes the executive summary is the only item that the procurer reads in detail. They often gloss over the rest of your proposal, so it’s important to make your executive summary compelling. So what goes into a compelling executive summary?

• You need to clearly articulate your key points of difference. Do you use any specialised equipment? Have you got experience servicing another similar contact? Whatever sets you apart from your competitors and is a win theme for the tender needs to be conveyed.
• Your executive summary also needs to introduce your team and make the potential client comfortable with dealing with you. The need to know that you have the capacity, resources and expertise to deliver. No doubt this will be included in your tender response, but in order to create a winning tender or bid, it’s important that you highlight these key points in the executive summary.

2. Write a comprehensive response to each question.

It’s important to read between the lines of each question and to ensure you have answered the question comprehensively. For example, the RFP, RFQ or RFI may ask you to detail your experience providing similar services. This is your chance to show off your experience and provide a comprehensive, winning response. Don’t just list the previous projects which you have worked on, instead go into detail about what team members were involved in each project, what were the key challenges and issues in the project and how you overcame them, how your expertise assisted in completing the project, and the duration of the project. It’s also handy to provide references and information on total project value.

Where you have talked about key personnel involved in the project, it’s also beneficial to confirm if those key personnel will be involved in the project or contract you are tendering for. This gives the client confidence that you have the expertise and resources to deliver.

3. If you haven’t got a chance, don’t bother bidding. If you do bid, make sure you do a good job.

It seems counterintuitive, however, there is no point in going for every single tender opportunity that comes up. You need to qualify each opportunity, and ensure that you have the appropriate skills and expertise to have a decent shot at winning. The reasons for this are two-fold:

Firstly, if you don’t have the necessary experience or expertise, there is limited chance of winning the bid. If you don’t have any government experience and are looking to secure a government contract, it’s generally fine. You have to be in it to win it after all. However, if you don’t have the private sector experience that the government tender is requesting, your prospects of winning will be limited.

Secondly, it’s important to give each tender a good shot and submit a compelling bid. Bidding for contracts has an opportunity cost for your business, and will draw on your resources, so it’s important that you allocate your resources to contracts where you have a solid chance, and take the time to submit a quality submission.

About us

We love helping businesses across New Zealand write quality bids and tenders so call or email us if you need assistance. We assist with Government and private sector tenders and bids, and our tender writing services extend across all industries from building, transport and medical to defence.

Does your company need to win more tenders in New Zealand?

Our team of tender and bid writers are ready to assist. We’re passionate about helping our clients win bids and tenders across New Zealand. Regardless of if you are based in New Zealand, Australia, or internationally, our team is well placed to help you win business.

We’ve helped businesses win tenders across New Zealand from the South Island to the North. Our team of writers have helped businesses in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch and beyond win tenders and contracts by writing compelling proposals. This extends across the defence, construction, government, medical, trades and services industries.

With our head office in Australia and a small team of writers in New Zealand, we know how to write tenders that deliver results and differentiate your business from your competitors.

Our team know what it takes to write winning national and local government as well as private tenders. With a well refined tender methodology, and a strategic and commercial approach, we’ve got the ability to assist businesses to write winning bids and proposals in New Zealand across all industries.

There is a common misconception amongst companies looking to secure contracts in New Zealand that all that is required is to simply have strong relationships in place, and to fill in the necessary information. Unfortunately, it takes a lot more effort than that. You need to differentiate your bids from your competitors, through compelling language, tactful use of images and info-graphics, and innovative ways of providing evidence such as case studies and tables.

Focusing on being local

Another key point is that if you are bidding on behalf of an overseas company, it’s important to present a local front. You need to show a commitment to New Zealand including the economy and often the environment. For government contracts especially, a sound policy for employing locals and investing in communities is critical. Many questions in New Zealand tenders will enquire if the tenderer’s resources such as manpower and ‘content’ was sourced locally or from overseas. In these cases, it is not just enough for the tenderer to be a local but to operate their business in a manner that supports their fellow businesses (large or small) through procurement locally. In addition, many tenders (New Zealand government, especially) will ask for how the tenderer contributes not only their required services as expected by the contract but in other more voluntary ways for the community.

We always encourage our clients to spearhead or commit themselves to charitable causes and other initiatives that demonstrate a local connection greater than just a source of business. These activities are looked upon favourably and are specifically asked as a means to distinguish our client from the competition in a compelling manner. Our clients need to communicate their track record and provide personal insights into their personnel. Talk about how you can be trusted, understand the way things work, and are comfortable in adhering to local rules and regulations.

Prepare for your next tender

The tendering process starts well-before the tender or RFP is released. Some techniques we recommend and are able to guide you through in order to ensure you prepare for your next tender include:

• Establishing pre-tender relationships and contacts

If at all possible, tenderers should establish communication with relevant parties that may have prior experience in tendering for the government department’s services previously. Any advantage or additional knowledge should be obtained if at all possible.

• Creating a consistent and aesthetically pleasing design

For documents, the tender evaluation panel will be grateful to review any tender response that is easy on the eye. While we encourage our clients to not go overboard on the visual themes and colour, a tasteful execution in terms of design will not go astray.

• Use graphics and images to convey solutions to complex problems

Appropriate visual aids will make interpreting facts and figures much easier for the evaluator. All graphics and images, however, should be checked closely for mistakes or misleading information.

• Draft engaging copy that inspires and persuades

Copy should consist of relatively short sentences that constantly convey a win theme or important and relevant fact. Engaging copy is free of incorrect grammar, punctuation and misuse (or lack of use) of paragraphs and sentence structure.

• Create ‘win themes’ to demonstrate your key points of difference

Win themes are offers or benefits that our clients can convey to the evaluation panel that other competitors may not be able to provide. The ability to consistently carry a win theme throughout the response will only make it that much more memorable for the evaluator when they compare later on.

• Present confidently in a manner that demonstrates your expertise and experience.

This tip can be applied to both written and in-person presentations concerning a response. Preparation and a calmness to the proceedings is ultimately key for conveying to a tender evaluation panel why our clients are more fitting as service and product providers over anyone else.

Submitting bids and proposals in New Zealand that adhere to the above factors will assure your client that your organisation has the capability, attitude and professionalism to complete the project. While the content of the response is forever important, it is the culmination of all the other parts of a tender such as images, design, copy and themes that makes it memorable and leaving the tender evaluation panel wanting for more.

We have helped hundreds of international organisations win contracts in New Zealand, as well as many local New Zealand companies win tenders in New Zealand and retain existing long term clients who have put their contract out to tender.

Contact The Tender Team through our website to speak with our expert tender writers on our NZ tender writing services. We provide a round-the-clock service, at great rates.