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Tag: tender training

ADVERTISE AND MANAGE PRIVATE SECTOR CREATIVE TENDERS

Posted on by John Hudson

ADVERTISE AND MANAGE PRIVATE SECTOR CREATIVE TENDERS

Private Sector Tenders are considered as such when a self-funded company advertises for a contractor to complete works for them by way of a contractual agreement.

Did you know that you can advertise a private opportunity such as this via our Creative Tenders portal? Whats more, you can manage, respond and receive submissions 100% free of charge regardless of whether you are an existing customer of one of our portals.

Too busy to manage the Creative project?

Let us take over! We will advertise and manage the tender opportunity on your behalf. This service includes uploading the opportunity, answering clarification questions and managing the submissions, all you need to do is choose a supplier!

Sound good? Here’s the best part. You can advertise your private sector tenders on any of our ten sector specific portals under Hudson Procurement Group!

For example, if you are a Marketing agency and you require a new piece of hardware, we would advise you to advertise this opportunity via our Technology Tenders portal. We already have Hardware-sector customers who are actively searching for opportunities on our site, put your opportunity in front of them and instantly access engaged suppliers.

One of our main goals across all of our group’s ten platforms is to encourage inter-trading to simplify the tender process from beginning to end.

This is where our Tender Connect platform comes in for phase two of our overarching business plan. This platform is built with the sole purpose of inter-trading and creating a go-to environment where both buyers and suppliers will benefit.

If you’re unsure about the stages of tendering mentioned in this blog, worry not! Our newest project, Tender VLE is here to help you understand the process. See our Clarification Questions and Breaking Down the Question videos.

We’re here to help you discover, succeed, procure and invest!

TENDER VLE IS NOW LIVE! – ONLINE BID WRITING COURSE

Posted on by John Hudson

TENDER VLE IS NOW LIVE! – ONLINE BID WRITING COURSE

B2B tendering has just been made simple as Tender VLE goes LIVE! The Tender VLE team are very excited to announce that our brand-new platform is now up and running. As we embark on this new tendering venture we would like to remind you of a few reasons behind the creation of Tender VLE.

During the team’s 40-years combined experience we have recognised the ongoing support required for both SME’s and blue-chip companies in relation to the tender process across the UK. We have noticed that many companies do not understand how to tender correctly or lack knowledge in similar areas.

Our goal is to simplify the B2B tendering process by ensuring that buyers and suppliers are on the same level of understanding – thus the birth of Tender VLE!

Company Growth Director, Jill Hudson says ‘We want to make procurement and tendering accessible to all size businesses, so we’ve launched Tender VLE to offer FREE high-quality video master classes at a level that suits you. Don’t be afraid of tendering, embrace the endless growth potential it brings to your business’.

As it stands, Tender VLE has launched containing 16 detailed videos, led by Senior Tender Consultant, Daniel Hall.

Here are the topics that Daniel has covered so far;

Breaking Down the Question – Find out how to tackle a question head-on and break it down into manageable sections. Daniel advises that you start your b2b tendering journey here!

 

PQQ Basics – Covering what a PQQ is, used for, how to complete it and why knowledge of the process is important.

 

Case Studies – How to structure your case studies and why the buyer asks to see this evidence.

 

TUPE – What it is and how it can affect suppliers.

 

Proposals and Instructions – The different approaches to tender documentation and how to comply with the requirements.

 

Clarification Questions – What does a clarification deadline mean, how you should ask these questions and a few things to bear in mind before submitting your question.

 

Time Management – Tips from our experts as to how you can effectively manage your time whilst writing a proposal.

 

Insurance when Tendering – What suppliers should be aware of when it comes to their insurance and which types of insurance you may be required to have before being invited to tender.

 

Terminology – A breakdown of the most commonly used procurement terminology and their definitions.

 

Economic and Financial Standing – How your financial suitability is established and how your turnover should affect your b2b tendering decisions.

 

Common Mistakes Made – As it says on the tin, this video looks into the most common mistakes that we have seen potential suppliers make during the tendering process and how to avoid them.

 

Framework Agreements – What a framework agreement looks like, who should enter into a framework agreement and what you can expect.

 

ITT Basics – What an ITT stands for, what does the ITT stage consist of and what to expect from this document.

 

Self-Cleaning – Defining self-cleaning, potential grounds for exclusion and how to get back in the running following non-collusion.

 

ESPD – An overview of ESPD, how it affects you and the impact of BREXIT.

 

The Tender Journey – What to expect during the tender process, the various stages and how to tackle each of them.

 

If there are any specific topics that you would like to see our Tender Consultants cover, please let us know via our LinkedIn forum HERE

Visit our brand-new Tender VLE platform by CLICKING HERE

 Or contact our bid writing consultants at Hudson Succeed for any further assistance. 

 We are here to help you UNDERSTAND!

TENDER VLE – OUR DEDICATED LINKEDIN FORUM – Bid Writing training

Posted on by John Hudson

Bid Writing training for free? – No Really!

We have exciting news! There are only four more days to wait until the launch of Tender VLE. As mentioned in our most recent NEWS, Tender VLE will be the UK’s FIRST FREE bid writing training platform. The site will consist of video-led masterclasses, delivered by our expert, in-house, bid management team.

Additionally to the main site, we will also offer a LinkedIn forum service.

What will the forum be used for?

  • Asking questions – After watching any of our videos on Tender VLE, should you still be left with unanswered questions about any of the topics – this is the place to go! Simply join the forum and ask away. One of our tendering experts will respond as soon as possible.
  • Request a topic – Is there a particular aspect of the tendering process that you would like us to cover? Let us know! If we haven’t already addressed it, we will ensure that all requested topics are covered!
  • Interact with others – The beauty of a LinkedIn forum is that you can see the questions that others have asked, along with the answers given by our bid writing, training, experts.

This forum can be used to ask us anything, our experts will do their best to respond to every question in as much detail as possible.

Senior Tender Consultant, Daniel Hall said ‘Our dedicated LinkedIn forum will be a great way for us to stay connected with our Tender VLE users. It will also help us to produce in-depth content as we move forward with the platform as we can understand the exact needs of our visitors.’

Daniel Hall will be the first instructor to appear on the site when Tender VLE launches next week. He will be taking you through the START levels of tendering, perfect for those who are either new to tendering or in need of a refresher course.

CLICK HERE to access our dedicated LinkedIn forum or simply search ‘Tender VLE Forum’ within LinkedIn!

HAVE YOUR SAY! TENDER VLE – TENDER TRAINING – FOR FREE!

Posted on by John Hudson

HAVE YOUR SAY – TENDER VLE – How can our specialist tender training benefit YOU?

CLICK HERE TO TAKE PART!

With the impending launch of Tender VLE, our FREE virtual learning environment, fast approaching, we would like to hear from you regarding the beneficiaries of the platform.

Our vision has remained the same since DAY 1:

We want to help businesses effectively discover contract opportunities that are out there. Help them to succeed with their tendering efforts, support like-minded organisations to procure through guided support and innovative inter-trading, and help deliver crucial economic results that helps conglomerates invest in what’s best.

We understand that video content is at its height, and there is a surprisingly low amount of knowledge-based tendering information available online. For these reasons, we will be using highly engaging video material in all learning sessions, accompanied by a written ‘fact sheet’ guides, blogs, podcasts and a community-based platform, in order to cater to the masses.

We’ve invested in the development of this product because we know our customers need it. We act quickly on customer requests and believe the easiest way to share knowledge far and wide is via a holistic environment dedicated to tender learning.

We’ve also decided to provide this content for FREE! – No fees or hidden catches here!

We won’t charge to grow and develop the UK economy and within the next couple of years, we are aiming to develop accredited versions of our training to widen opportunity routes into writing for businesses, allowing a structured landscape for tender education.

This questionnaire features 5 short questions, which takes around 2 minutes to complete.

This is your chance to be heard and tell us how we can craft Tender VLE to maximise your understanding.

If there are any specific aspects of the process that you would like to see – tell us!

This is a purely user-focused platform, so make sure you have your say!

CLICK HERE TO LET US KNOW WHAT YOU WANT OUT OF TENDER TRAINING!

WE SOURCE CREATIVE CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES FOR SECTORS INCLUDING;

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow. 

The Rules and Regulations when Tendering!

Posted on by John Hudson

The Rules and Regulations when Tendering

Procurement: – The aspect of a business that many organisations wish was easier.

Buyers in the public sector, such as housing associations, councils, and other relevant government departments are dealing with public money. Our taxes! So, therefore, all that is procured must be done so in the fairest and most transparent ways possible.

If any conflicts of interest and/or other bias proceedings occur when tendering, there can be serious consequences to this. Especially with buyers paying massive fines and/or representatives facing prison time. The way in which procurement departments procure all works in the fairest way possible is called ‘sourcing the most economically advantageous tender’ (MEAT). This is usually established via an open process:

Open Process

 Open to all organisations to submit a tender. On large projects, this may involve a pre-qualification process (PQQ) that results in a list of suitable suppliers who will be invited to tender (ITT). This open approach usually results in a large number of responses of varying suitability (i.e. both large companies AND SMEs).

It has been noted that more needs to be done to ensure ALL organisations are familiar with the ‘open process’ of tendering and the rules and regulations behind it. Hudson Procurement Group are here to do just that! Our aim is to improve the nation’s understanding of the broad term that is Procurement and eliminate the worries and qualms of managing tender processes by providing lucrative guidance and advice to ALL.

Our focus here is purely based on how the rules of public sector tendering via an open process can affect you and what can be done to ensure you’re at the top of your game:

Each UK public sector buyer is obliged by EU law to:

  • publish the contract opportunity in the public domain – our industry-specific portals (incl. Creative Tenders, and Technology Tenders to name a few) are the first of its kind to have manual daily bulletins processed/disseminated by an efficient team of people, rather than [mostly] flawed algorithms via automated systems used by ALL our competitors;
  • inform all suppliers of how tenders are to be evaluated – 95% of the time this is split between a quality and a commercial ratio (sometimes including a presentation stage too) – outline your tender strategy/focuses here – is 80% of the mark purely based on cost – are your rates competitive?
  • ask for whatever they feel is relevant to the opportunity – this could be method statements, evidence of past work, policies and written procedures – are you up to date with all background content – you don’t want to spend another 2 whole days creating a new policy from scratch- this minimises time from your actual tender response;
  • not discriminate against businesses registered in another EU country– so currently you may be up against your French competitors or other EU companies that are trying to make their mark in the UK – know your market – how do YOU stand out?
  • clearly, state all deadlines – this includes deadline to ask clarification questions & deadline for submission etc. Organise your time wisely based on this!
  • provide at least a 10-day standstill period – this is the period between contract award notification and actual contract award, allowing other suppliers the opportunity to contest/dispute the decision[s] made;

What will change in the coming years?

As we all know, some sort of changes may likely occur over time due to the whole Brexit saga and we will be the first to update you on how this affects you! For now, there has been no immediate impact on the legislative position in the UK and all the provisions listed above continue to apply!

These are just a few regulations in a very large pond filled with procurement jargon. Our upcoming Tender VLE service will ensure this jargon is broken down and shared via understanding methods and practice. The days of wishing procurement were easier are now over! Watch this space!

In Development – Tender VLE

Posted on by John Hudson

In Development – Tender VLE

Wouldn’t it be fantastic to have a one-stop shop for all your tender needs?

How about a shop that doesn’t charge and provides access to ongoing training, advice and guidance weekly?

3 words: LOOK NO FURTHER.

Here at Hudson Procurement Group we are proud to announce the launch of Tender VLE. 

A fantastic and engaging virtual learning environment which provides ongoing support, both with bid writing and procurement, TO EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE, FOR FREE!

With hundreds of subscribers already established on our innovative sector-specific platforms, one thing has become well known to us. This is that the majority of our customers require additional tender support from time to time. Our platforms currently allow customers to view opportunities that are not only specific to their sector, but specific to their exact service. We do this through daily bulletins manually created by internal staff, meaning opportunities are scoured across the country daily to ensure exact matches are ALWAYS listed.

This is proving extremely successful and highly desired by all clients. But, now it’s time to start acting on these opportunities and dealing with what most would describe as the ‘pain of procurement’ – writing a tender!

Screen Shot 2018-01-16 at 17.02.35

ENTER Tender VLE

Tender VLE is a video-based e-learning platform that allows YOU to get up to speed with how tendering works. It also runs you through how YOU can maximise these opportunities by developing knowledge further in this field. It’s important now, more than ever to develop your skillset and embrace tendering rather than shy away from it.

We understand that video content is at its height, and there is a surprisingly low amount of knowledge-based tendering information available online. For these reasons, we will be using highly engaging video material in all learning sessions. This will be accompanied by a written ‘how-to’ guides so that we cater for the masses.

We’ve invested in the development of this product because our customers need it. We act quickly on customer requests and believe the easiest way to share knowledge far and wide is via online video master-classes. We’ve also decided to provide this content for free!

We won’t charge to grow and develop the UK economy. We hope that within the next couple of years we are able to develop an accredited version of our training to widen opportunity routes into writing for businesses, allowing a structured landscape for tender education.

Our launch date is May 2018 – be prepared to grow, develop and stand out with the best tender training available!

Do you think you miss tendering opportunities because you didn’t see them in time?

Posted on by John Hudson

Do you think you miss tendering opportunities because you didn’t see them in time?  Or the deadline had just passed?

My biggest bugbear over the last 16 years in the industry is finding the perfect tender at 9am only to find out the deadline is 12noon – THE SAME DAY. Very annoying, but it used to happen all the time.

Do you ever find this in your agency?

This was one of the main reasons for launching this system, and developing it specifically for creative businesses. In the early days of the business we were asked by an investor why we are minimising our potential client base by only populating it with creative opportunities? That’s simple, creating something as fantastic as Creative Tenders, takes sector commitment, sector knowledge and more importantly a desire to grow the sector.

We know we are fantastic at generating creative sector opportunities so we created a system that allows us to take that online. That doesn’t mean to say we won’t create a Professional Tenders, or an Engineering Tenders, we might, but it will still be sector specific to those industries so they get the same value you do from Creative Tenders.

Our core goal is to make sure you don’t experience the same bugbears we have over the years and ensure you are made aware of opportunities the same day they are published. If we see you haven’t logged into the system, your dedicated account manager will give you a personal call to ensure you’ve not missed it. We are not a technical product with zero face. We build relationships, the better we know your agency the better we can support you and help you to grow.

Don’t be that Company who see’s their life changing tender 2 hours before submission, give yourself the best possible chances of success by giving yourself time to produce a winning bid submission.

 

 

Creative Tenders on tour | Tender Support | Events Management Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

Creative Tenders on tour | Event Management Tenders

We are very excited to be launching our product in May. The time has flown since we first came up with the idea of Creative Tenders. The development team has steam coming off their fingertips and the sales team has been in, intensive training ready for its launch.

We are simply dying to showcase the product, so we thought what better way to do it, than to attend a couple of national conferences and exhibitions. The shortlist was hard, but our Marketing Director Jill and Development Director Andrew will be heading to London next week to attend 5 exhibitions, the B2B Marketing Expo at the Excel Centre in London, the Sales Innovation Expo, The Business Show, Business Start Up, Accountex, and Legal Ex on 11th and 12th May.

Upcoming Events

http://b2bmarketingexpo.co.uk

http://www.salesinnovationexpo.co.uk

http://www.accountex.co.uk

http://www.bstartup.com

http://www.legalex.co.uk

If that doesn’t make us busy enough spreading the word to both those interested in being a part of Creative Tenders and Creative Finder. Our MD John, is attending Thinking Digital in Newcastle to find out more about what new stuff we should be doing to make our system even more fantastic than it already is (http://www.tdcncl.com).

So that’s us covering two major cities, so we believe all good things come in threes, so we are heading to Leeds to the Buy Yorkshire Conference (http://buyyorkshire.com) on the 17th and 18th May. We’re ready for a lie down just thinking about it.

So, if you’re based on London, Newcastle or Leeds this is your chance to find out more about what we’re up too and even have a demo of our fantastic new product.

Look forward to chatting to you all more over the next couple of weeks.

WE SOURCE CREATIVE CONTRACT OPPORTUNITIES FOR SECTORS INCLUDING;

Book a free live demo with Creative Tenders to see how we can help your business grow. 

Have you had a demo of the Creative Tender business development portal yet? Creative Tenders Reviews

Posted on by John Hudson

Have you had a demo of the Creative Tender business development portal yet?  What do you think? Creative Tenders reviews

We are so keen to hear people’s thoughts on the Creative Tenders portal. Have you had your demo yet? We are so pleased at how well the take up has been since we launched the product. It’s very exciting that people also see the value in our product from what has been a year’s worth of planning and development.

Our promise to our clients is that we will constantly develop this system to be the best tendering product on the market for creative businesses, but in order to do that we need your feedback.

Creative Tenders reviews

Feedback we have had so far has all been positive and includes the following reviews

“Amazing product, a good mix of public and private tendering opportunities”

—

“We have the confidence that you are finding 100% of the public tenders we want to bid for, something we have not had from other systems we have used in the past”

—

“Totally worth £12 per week, it helps our sales team dramatically and save’s so much time searching for opportunities”

—

“So good we want to go for more tenders ”

 —

So basically we want to know the good, the bad and the ugly. If you have seen a demo but don’t think it’s for you, we definitely want to hear from you so we can create a product you want to use. If you’re a current client and think the product is fantastic, let us know why, we don’t want to change any features that work for you.

Please send any product feedback and to enquire more about tender writing support to John at john@creativetenders.co.uk.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following opportunities:

Event Tenders

Website Tenders

Printing Tenders

Video Production Tenders & many more.

 

 

Are you looking for a new creative agency to work with? Creative Agency Tenders

Posted on by John Hudson

Are you looking for a new creative agency to work with?  Look no further 

Businesses work with creative agencies for different reasons, and you don’t have to be a multi million pound business to benefit from an agency relationship. Branding in a business is so important and people follow brands sometimes without realising due to their creative marketing campaigns and strong communications.

This should be the same for all businesses, no matter of size, sector or service offering. Everything consistent, from the use of colour, how you use your logo on printed and digital materials, the type of imagery you use, even the messages you put down on paper.

What’s the best way to do this? Find someone to look after your brand.

A proactive agency will present new ideas and concepts to you to support with the growth of your business. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune but you should consider putting a dedicated budget in place, no matter how small for the consistent management of your brand.

We have a pool of hundreds of UK based agencies

We have a pool of hundreds of UK based agencies and freelancers on our books. These agencies and freelancers work with businesses to help them grow, support with creative ideas and engage new customers.

Creative Finder works with marketing managers, business owners and senior business professionals with the responsibility of marketing. These businesses work with us to ensure they find the right agency relationship for their business, the wrong relationship can be costly and brand damaging.

The businesses post opportunities on our system and agencies will showcase their experience, their ideas, and any sector specific case studies they may have suitable to your bespoke requirements. Everything is managed on our system from uploading the ITT to organising shortlisted presentations. Meaning you won’t be bombarded with emails from the agencies that use our system.

The support doesn’t end there. Our experienced marketing team works with businesses to help specify their needs or help them identify what type of agency would be best to support their specific needs.

If you are interested in finding out more about Creative Finder, and how we have helped other businesses to find suitable suppliers, contact Jill on jill@creativetenders.co.uk.

What percentage of your work comes from tendering?

Posted on by John Hudson

What percentage of your work comes from tendering?  Do you think you maximise this sales channel?

After me moaning last week about what people find difficult about tendering for the creative sector, I thought I best discuss something a little more lighthearted. Success rates!

As I have worked in all size agencies in my career, tendering success rates have been different. Mainly because there was no standard format in place, they were usually rushed due to studio time not being available and sometimes winging it a little with the hope that we might be in with a chance.

If I look at the most recent agency I supported, we can see that around 50% of the overall business we won came from public tendering, which for an agency of only 5 people is quite high.

Design is a very personal thing

Obviously it helped that I know how to write bids and more importantly how to write a winning tender so our success rate stood at about 80% for those projects we did bid for, but we never included creative artwork. This is a bugbear of mine. How can we actually develop creative material when we haven’t even met the client, haven’t discussed the brief properly, don’t really understand their client base or even their core objectives. Design is a very personal thing and we don’t believe that a tender should be put to one side based on a tiny fraction of the information provided.

Many people probably don’t maximise tendering as a channel to winning new business because of the studio time needed to produce the tender. I am pleased to say though that fewer tenders these days actually ask for artwork to be created, something we will also advise for those clients we work with on Creative Finder.

We’ve all sorts of standard templates to help our clients be more successful with tendering, one being a tender checklist, if you don’t tick all the boxes, don’t waste the time submitting the tender. Be ruthless.

If you want to access the standard documents we have in place, or even want me to take a look at one of your tenders, send it over, we are happy to help.

Sign up for a free demo of Creative Tenders and review the following opportunities:

Event Tenders

Website Tenders

Printing Tenders

Video Production Tenders & many more.