The size of the UK public sector tendering market is huge – £434 billion in 2024/25. This enormous market isn’t just available for Large Enterprises to take advantage of. In fact, the government would like to see 30% of this budget go to SMEs. Therefore, public sector tendering can provide numerous valuable opportunities for SMEs.

However, what owners of SMEs need to recognise is that bidding is very difficult if your business only starts preparing once a tender is live. To have success in the world of public sector bidding, you need to make yourself ‘bid ready’. Being ‘bid ready’ means having the documents, people, processes, and decision-making in place before the actual bid process starts. Otherwise, you are likely to have a weak, rushed, or even non-compliant submission. So, how can you make yourself bid ready?

Put Essential Policies and Procedures in Place

Public sector buyers need confidence that your business is safe, compliant, and professionally managed. After all, this is what the buyer deserves. What sorts of things do you need to consider to ensure that your business meets these high expectations?

• Health and safety – What policies does your business have in place?
• Equality, diversity and inclusion – How do you ensure that your business meets expected standards?
• Data protection – Have you considered this easily-overlooked area of your business?
• Environmental or sustainable approach – How are you carrying out your services with the environment and sustainability in mind?
• Modern Slavery– Have you ensured that your supply chain does not involve slavery at any point?
• Safeguarding / Wellbeing– What safeguarding procedures and policies have you put in place to look after your employees?
• Quality management – How do you ensure that your work always meets an acceptable standard?
• Business continuity – What policies have you put in place to ensure that the work continues despite illness, financial disruption, supplier problems, or other unexpected events?

Prepare a Bid Library

Bidding involves a lot of writing. This can seem arduous, but there’s a silver lining. A lot of the information that you need to provide is not unique to the specific tender that you’re bidding for. Much of it will be information that you will use time and time again. So, to make bid writing easier, you should prepare an internal library of documents and information that you can easily refer to during the process. Relevant information about your own company should include:

• Company details – This is basic information that will be used in all your bids
• Financial information – Make sure this is kept up to date
• Insurance certificates – The public sector always wants to reduce risk, so these will always be relevant
• Certifications – Providing certifications such as ISO 9001 Quality Management System will significantly ease the bidding process
• Key contacts – Who will the buyer contact if they want to reach out, and how can they do so?

A key part of creating a winning bid is about demonstrating that you are competent. You also need to convince the buyer that your solution is the one that best solves their problem. But obviously, you cannot expect the buyer to just take your word for it. Rather than starting from scratch and trying to think of relevant pieces of support every time you start writing a bid, add to your bid library these important types of evidence:

• Case studies
• Contract examples
• Testimonials
• Performance data
• Delivery outcomes
• Customer satisfaction results
• Examples of solving problems
• Lessons learned

Create a Simple Bid/No-bid Process

Being bid ready doesn’t mean bidding on every opportunity that comes along. In reality, it actually involves being able to make a good decision about when to bid and when not to bid. Rather than constantly bidding on tenders that you just don’t have the resources to win (or conversely, letting winnable opportunities slip through your fingers), create a simple but disciplined bid/no-bid process. Within this process, incorporate such questions as:

• Do we meet the mandatory capability requirements?
• Can we deliver the contract?
• Do we have relevant evidence?
• Is the deadline realistic?
• Can we price it sustainably?
• Would this contract support our business goals?
• Do we have any intelligence about the client/opportunity?

Set Up Internal Roles

Bidding is a process that requires plenty of organisation. Your business will not be bid ready if no one knows what they’re supposed to be doing. Therefore, you need to establish clear roles within the business. Before the bidding starts, you need to decide on the following roles:

• Who monitors opportunities? This ensures that you aren’t caught on the back foot when a good opportunity goes out to tender
• Who makes bid/no-bid decisions? Knowing in advance who needs to be involved simplifies actually going through the bid/no-bid process
• Who will have the lead writing role(s)? Responsibility needs to be allocated for the bid writing of the responses
• Who provides technical input? Do you have subject matter experts ready to contact?
• Who handles pricing? Whoever handles this needs to have access to all the relevant information
• Who reviews and submits the response? Beyond just reviewing it at the end, the bid also needs to be reviewed at regular stages to ensure it’s staying on the right track

Watch the Bid Pipeline

Being bid ready involves knowing what opportunities are coming up in the future. This enables you to make sure that you’ve got any relevant qualifications or certificates, subject matter experts ready to contact, and market research already underway. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at a disadvantage.

Government legislation requires the issuing of a ‘pipeline notice’ in certain circumstances. Don’t waste this provision. The UK government notes that it ‘is of particular benefit to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)… as it provides them with time to plan for future work.’

Crucially, do you know where to find announcements of upcoming tenders? Also, if you get in contact with the buyer before they have issued the tender documents, you may have an opportunity to input into the shaping of the specification before it comes to market.

Organise a Bid Kick-Off Meeting

Being bid ready involves having an efficient and effective start to the bid process. You can do this by organising a Bid Kick-Off Meeting. What sorts of things do you need to consider in this part of the bidding process?

• Opportunity overview – Everyone involved in the bid needs to have a good overview of what exactly the opportunity is
• Win themes – These need to be clearly identified so that the bid writers can emphasise them effectively
• Unique selling points – A Bid Kick-Off Meeting provides an opportunity for everyone to share their ideas about what makes you stand out from your competitors
• Ensuring everyone is on the same page – You don’t want different departments or writers working with conflicting win themes or unique selling points in mind. Importantly though, these need to be reframed around what the client’s needs are
• List of Clarification Questions – Are there any ambiguities in the tender documents? Can you help ensure that bids are evaluated on a level playing field e.g. can you try to get some of the contract information that an incumbent would have?
• Agreed milestones and deadlines – Having these will help the process run smoothly and not fall behind schedule

Bid Readiness Is an Ongoing Habit

To get your business ‘bid ready’ for public sector tenders, prepare all the documents and evidence that you will inevitably use time and time again. Establish the processes, procedures, and internal responsibilities that will be needed during the bid process. This is not a one-off exercise – even the bid library, which might seem to be so, needs to be regularly maintained and updated.

However, don’t get overwhelmed. Start small, get your SME organised, view every bid as a learning opportunity, and see how you can improve over time. External bid assistance from Aspire Bidding can help you in any part of the process that you are struggling with.