In the end it depends on what you want as tender writing is a highly specialised field. Do you want a cheap job or do you want to give yourself the best chance of winning the project? You can probably hire a good technical writer for around $100 per hour but they are unlikely to really understand the government tendering system or have the experience inside the tender evaluation room that can make the winning difference.

A little over a month ago I was working with some clients on a particularly large and complex tender. The RFT was some 370 pages and generated an astounding 761 clarification questions! It was a beast of a thing requiring volumes of information, drafting numerous new documents and then fitting it all within very strict word limits. People were working 16 hour days and some suppliers had reportedly thrown their hands in the air and walked away.

Grumble Grumble

As the lodgement date drew near some of our clients were started to mumble things like “I am sick of this thing, I can’t wait to get it over with.” Others said, “We have been at this for weeks; I am starting to not care and just want to get rid of this thing”. All perfectly natural but unfortunately short-sighted. I worked on encouraging them to continue by saying “a few days after the tender closes you will be refreshed and feeling your old self again, but remember this – your tender will be exactly the same as when you submitted it. It will not freshen up, no matter how many sleep-ins it has.”
This really brought home the need to stay focused and work hard, right to the wire. Why? Because the Tender Evaluation Panel will have no idea how exhausted you and your team were when they open your tender to the harsh light of the evaluation room and the reality of your competitors. What’s more they won’t even care.

Surviving the Photo Finish

This beast of a tender was due on 7 November, a few days after the Melbourne Cup. As I watched the final two horses emerge from the pack and battle it out over the final 150 metres it struck me how similar it was to winning tenders. What if Viewed, the eventual winner, felt like my tendering colleagues and started thinking 50 metres from the finish line that, “Gee I’m tired. Three months ago I was in the paddock chewing sweet green grass. I’ve been building to this for weeks, worked hard all race, opened up a good lead and now here comes that pest Bauer. I’ve busted a gut for 3150 metres and I can’t wait until this is over. Wonder what’s happening in the home paddock now?” No, neither Viewed nor Bauer (or their jockeys) had any thoughts other than straining every sinew in one of the classic, nose by nose, battles to reach that finish line first.

Recovery is Quick, Results Last Much Longer

So the morale is very clear. If you want to win the big prizes you need to stay focused and push through to the very end. Take the focus off you and put it on your tender and keep in mind the heartlessness of the Evaluation Panel as they wade through the mountains of tender documents. There is time enough to rest when your tender has been lodged in the
very best shape it could be. Do you think Viewed or his jockey remembered how tired or stressed they were a few days after the big race?

We have all seen those movies where the action hero races blindly through an overgrown jungle, only to come to a skidding halt and teeter on the edge of an abyss, arms flailing wildly to maintain his balance. The bad guys are in hot pursuit and only a flimsy rope bridge of indeterminable age spanning the gorge before them offers hope of escape. He peers down into the dizzying depths and thinks “What do I do; turn back and look for another route or step forward?”    Of course the hero always pushes on and prevails in the end but this does not always happen in the land of tender and that bottomless pit called uncapped liability.

Roll the dice

Uncapped liability means there is no limit to the damages that government can sue you for if something goes wrong. For example, if the equipment you installed develops a fault, catches fire and burns down a $40 million building, the government can sue you for the replacement cost, never mind your original project was only valued at $130,000. In the face of such a “take it or leave it” stance by government in the past, companies faced a dilemma; roll the dice and take on the contract with fingers crossed their fingers, or walk away.

An emerging ground shift

In recent times there has been something of a ground shift with federal government departments starting to consider capping liabilities after pressure from industry. But how does this happen and what does it mean for you as suppliers?
In the lead up to a Request for Tender being released there is a raft of approval documents that need to be prepared and approved. Among these is a risk assessment plan specifically designed to identify risks and estimate the potential cost to the department if things go wrong. Such risks are not your typical project risks of financial viability or key personnel resign in favour of another job. Rather, the risks are issues such as damage the supplier might do during installation, databases becoming corrupted or a server catching fire and causing damage to a server room.
While the risks are assessed in terms of the usual “likelihood to occur” and “impact” they are also assessed on the cost of fixing the problem. For example, if a server catches fire and damages the server room it might include the cost of equipment and refurbishing the room. Alternatively, should your databases be corrupted it might incur six months salary cost for two staff to recreate the database. The cost for each is then tallied to arrive at a total cost for all risks after which the Department is able to decide whether the standard business liability insurance of $10 million will cover the costs. If so, the department may include a clause in the RFT that it will consider capping the liability.

Death is not certain

Coming back to the adventure metaphor and our teetering hero; with the liability now capped the seemingly bottomless pit below the ancient rope bridge now has a drop of only 5 metres. Sure it will hurt if he falls but the damage is unlikely to be fatal and he will be able to scramble out the other side. With such an assurance our hero will step forth onto the bridge and continue his escape with the treasure. While this would undoubtedly make reduce the movie as a spectacle, it would surely make you feel a lot more comfortable about bidding for a government tender.

So the next time you come across unlimited liability in an RFT consider that there could be the opportunity to cap your exposure to an acceptable level and continue your quest for the booty. After all, isn’t there just a little bit of Indiana Jones in all of us?

No doubt many of you have heard about the recent AusNet tender debacle where the government ultimately awarded the contract to the ABC, in spite of two separate Tender Evaluation Panels recommending Sky as the winning tenderer. The media commentary focused on the political stoush between the government and the coalition but in doing so has missed the real story in this sorry tale.

All businesses interested in the government market would have been keenly watching the story unfold, many with dismay. Virtually all procurement guidelines across all levels of government in Australia trumpet this one truth – that the best value for money tender shall prevail. This one truth is meant to give businesses the confidence to invest time and money in developing their best possible bid but in one foul swoop the government’s AusNet decision has blown this concept out of the water.

In my years helping clients bid for government tenders the vast majority are willing to accept missing out if they are confident that the winning tender was better than theirs. All they want is a fair chance in a fair contest.    If they lose, most will dust themselves off and think – “how can we improve our tendering processes to win the next one?” What are they to think now?

Most likely, many will become more cynical about government procurement, and this is the real tragedy of the AusNet debacle. The media should focus on the tragedy of companies turning away in dismay from government tenders as a way of growing their businesses because they have lost faith in the best tender winning the business. And who could blame them.

This is where the real story lies because the damage done lasts much longer than a short term stoush between political parties. In making this decision the government has thrown out their own rule book, the very rule book they want companies to abide by.    Shame, government shame! You have let the business community and ultimately all Australians down – badly.

We should have the first draft to you by about day 16. You review the draft and return it us by day 18, noting any changes to be made. We then develop the 2nd draft and send it to you by Day 21. By this stage there should be minimal changes so the tender will be ready to lodge by day 24. We try to stay away from the absolute closing time as we have heard horror stories of companies missing out because they missed the deadline.

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