Smes Are Bidding For Tenders & Winning

With the recent changes and updates of Recently, the government rules and norms around the involvement of SMEs and Startups have been going through a major change. Therefore, it’s evident that the Indian government is putting all its efforts into helping SMEs to grow swiftly and smoothly 

As an SME, do you feel you are too small to bid for tenders?

If you are an SME, you need to understand that as the government is taking efforts to uplift your worth in the market you also need to buckle up your efforts in the right direction to be able to win a government tender. Thinking you are too small an entity to bag a big government tender contract means you will miss out in the race.

Myth busted:
I am too small a company to win a government tender!

This is one big misconception that is not only changing in India but also globally. Did you know the UK government is working towards doubling up the proportions of funds it directly spends on SMEs by 2022? Traditionally, only 6.5% of total government expenditure got channelled to SMEs in 2009. If we calculate the increased trend it boils up to almost a 13% increase by 2022. 
Concentrating on India, The central government has also mandated the PSU’s, under the public procurement policy, to procure at least 20% of their purchases from the SMEs.

You do not want to miss this bus, we are sure.

So, what are the winning SMEs doing differently to be able to win those government tenders?

Bidding for a tender is not just about submitting your bid proposal, it’s a lot more than that. Let us run you through the process so that you can successfully bag a government tender with all your might.

• Register with tender aggregation platforms:

To begin with, all SME’s must register with their industry tender aggregation platforms be it online or print. In India there are 7000+ government authorities – which publish tenders; for instance Indian railways, NHAI, PWD, MES and many more. While most of the new government tenders get published on a few of the government websites, but they may not contain the tender from the industry/sector that you might be looking for. You can’t be going through each of these websites to find the government tenders relevant to you.

This problem is solved if you subscribe to one of these tender aggregation platforms which give you tenders from all these various platforms at the click of a button. TendersOnTime is one of the most comprehensive aggregators which curates tender opportunities from all government authorities all around the world making the discovery of new tenders easy.

TendersOnTime not only lets you discover tenders across all regions but also helps you narrow down your search with respect to country, state, city, sectors, industries, etc. With its robust crawler systems in place, it makes the right tender available for you at the right time, not allowing you to miss out on lucrative tender opportunities. 

• Keep updating your tender library: 

To start with, What is a tender library? A tender library typically consists of all important documents/certificates pertaining to your company and business. This may include industry certifications, client testimonials, references, Team CVs/professional biodata, purchases orders etc. keeping these documents up to date from time to time can prove beneficial when you have less time to prepare for bid submission. We recommend you maintain these documents digitally or online for ease of access. 

A tender library is one of the most crucial things to have, as it saves on time and money both in long run for the SMEs. Since their paperwork is sorted and updated to a great extent, it helps them write their bid proposal with more detail, focus and efficiency.

• Take feedback, in case they don’t win the tender:

Though not followed by many, this is a very critical piece of the entire process. Asking for feedback means, you are checking for the missing pieces. You need to know what exactly went wrong in your application so that the next bid you apply for doesn’t have the same missing pieces.

This information is like gold for SMEs, as they can now work on those shortfalls which didn’t let them win this time. So, once they work on those shortfalls, it will heavily increase their chance of winning the next time they bidding for government tender in their domain.
With tendering opportunities being open to SME’s, they must also embrace “E-tendering methodologies” which is the most recent talk of the town in the tendering world. Being vigilant about the Stepwise manual for e-submission of bids online for Government tenders will help open more doors towards tendering.