Stepwise Manual For E-submission Of Bids Online For Government Tenders

As an SME at a nascent stage, you are always working strongly towards growing your business; but when it comes to bagging huge contracts like government tenders or private tenders; you feel that maybe you are not big enough to apply for government tenders. This thought process proves as a hindrance to the stepping growth of a budding SME in the tendering business.

So in the end you land up being on the same step as you were with no extra information to encourage your growth. That is why through this blog we aim to simplify this entire process by crafting a very simple overview and a stepwise manual for you to keep handy with yourself while you bid for Government tenders online.

Making the process simple for you, in just 3 simple steps:

• Discover the right opportunity for your company

• Leverage E-tendering opportunities

• Mark the tender award date & track it for the result

1. Discover the right opportunity for your company:

This is the first and the most vital step of e-tendering processes. This is because there are ample tenders floating in the market on a daily basis. You must know that you can’t be competing for all the government tenders that you source online offline. It’s just not a waste of time and but also resources like money, man-hours, etc. Applying for all the government tenders that come your way, just because they are related to your company’s business, clearly will not add a feather to your cap. This method of bagging contracts will only add to the chaos and increase your tender numbers with no substantial quality projects to boast about. We recommend you have understood and learn how to shortlist the right tender from this pool (with experience or with competitor analysis) of opportunities, it will save you a lot of time as you choose the aptest projects for your business growth.

Additionally, In India, there are 7000+ government authorities – which publish government tenders on a daily basis. Example: Indian railways, NHAI, PWD, MES and many such more. It is a challenge for one business to track these tenders and hence subscribing to online portals that aggregate tenders from different sources are a great time-saving move. TenderOnTime not only aggregates tenders from different legal online portals but also gives you access to 4000+ new tenders per day on subscription. Additionally, to help you choose the right tender for your business growth, we have an advanced search filter that helps you narrow down lucrative tender opportunities from various sectors, regions and institutes. 

Therefore, Subscribing to an online tender aggregator platform ensures easy discovery of fresh and business-related government tenders.

Tips to pick the right tender:

1. You can now shortlist the government tenders you want to bid for; on basis of the heat map between your company and tender requirements: If they have a certain set of clear guidelines like having past audited books of 3 or 5 years mandatory, please be sure that you fall under that and get the documentation ready for the same. 
2. Map the tender size with your business turnover. We advise, if the tender size is 25% or more than your company’s annual turnover, then search for another tender. This is because the buyer will anyway not choose you in this case, as they don’t want you to compromise on the service quality due to the size of their contract.
3. Try to bag those government tenders where the tender requirement matches the area of your business’s core competencies. Do not pick tenders that are not those elements that may be a very small portion of your business, as this will majorly reduce your chances of winning. It’s always good to have client references also shown along with.

2 Hygiene factors to bag a huge government tender successfully:

1. Collaboration: A healthy way to compete. This option comes into play when you feel that for certain aspects of the tender requirement, you may want to involve another SME’s expertise while bidding. This will increase your chances of scoring higher in the buyers testing parameters.
2. Meeting the tender submission deadline is of course the most vital activity you cannot default from. This is where building your tender library becomes very critical. Keep important documentation pertaining to your company and business handly to avoid tender submission delays. You must also keep on updating the same time to time with the latest projects bagged and laters competencies onboarded to increase your chances of bagging the tender you desire.

2. Leverage E-tendering opportunities:

As a bidder in the 21st century, online enrollment is unavoidable. As most governments and private tenderers are moving online for their tendering procedures you as a bidder need to be there, in order to not miss the bus. 

To apply for government tenders, you may go online to the state government websites or specific websites like E-procure. Let’s take the example of E-procure here.

How to enrol:

1. Once you are on the homepage of the e-procurement portal https://eprocure.gov.in/eprocure/app. Look for the Online Bidder Enrollment button below the login button on the right-hand side.
2. Once you have enrolled, then you will need the e-token to do the digital signature. To get the e-token, you need to reach out to one of the certified authorizing authorities like eMudhraCA or GNFC or IDRBT or MTNL Trustline or SafeScrpt or TCS.
3. After you get the e-token, then Login to the portal and do the digital signature with the e-token that you received. During this process, you will have to provide your user ID and password, and that will be used henceforth for logging on to the portal.

Please note: 

The e-token that is registered for you as a bidder, must be kept confidential as it could be misused by others.

Digital signature certificate or DSC once mapped to an account, can’t be mapped to another account; It will only get inactivated. So be clear and careful when you are about to do the digital signature for yourself as a bidder.

Important checklist to avoid rejection:

1. Always have your documents in one of the following formats only – PDF/XLS/RAR/DWF
2. Ensure that you have collected all the important documents that need to be attached to the bid proposal. Missing out on even one document that has been asked in the tender document, will draw you towards rejection.
3. For clear and legible scanned documents, always follow – 75-100 DPI during the scanning process of documents.
4. Ensure that you click on the “Freeze Bid” Button to have the bid submission process completed. If you have not completed this step, your bid shall be considered incomplete/invalid.
5. Once you have downloaded the tender document, Follow the BOQ template as is, don’t try to modify/edit it, else you may face rejection. Just enter the relevant values and bidder name.
6. In case you are making offline payment of EMD, ensure that you have the scan copy of the same submitted during the bid submission, otherwise, your bid will get rejected.
7. Always submit your bid well before the submission end date and time (as per the server system clock), any delay in submission will not be addressed later on.

3. Mark the tender award date & track it for the result

Post the bid submission, the procurement/tenderer authority evaluates the bids by scoring them against each criterion. In the case of a simple assessment methodology, the score of each criterion is multiplied with its weightage and then the final average is arrived at, by adding them all. Most tenderers today utilize the MEAT method of tender evaluation. In more complex methodologies of bid assessment, there are other criteria’s which are taken into account. 

The disclosure of the awarded tender is done on the tender award date, to all the participating authorities by notifying them about it. This is when you know if you passed the basic criteria they require. Note: you haven’t won the tender yet, you have just passed a critical technical round of matching their requirement. 

Post identifying the bidders with the best score, the negotiations begin. This negotiation is not done by 1 or 2 people but by multiple other authorities at different levels. When both the parties reach an agreement stage, the final draft is what becomes the contract document for final closure.
We recommend, that if you do not bag the contract you must always ask for feedback on why you got rejected. This will give you a stepping stone leap for future bids you apply for.
ALL THE BEST!