The Hindu Business Line : Add strength to tenders

"Sealed tenders are invited from Chartered Accountants with three years of auditing experience in autonomous institutions and who are empanelled with the Comptroller & Auditor General of India, for conducting internal audit of the accounts of MANAGE, including all its subsidiary activities, initially for a period of one year which may be extended to another year and up to two years from the financial year 2006-07."

Thus reads a posting dated May 15 on www.manage.gov.in, the site of the National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management, a.k.a. MANAGE, an apex national institute set up in 1987 as an autonomous society under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.

Such invitations for tenders and bids have become common in the field of professional services. To succeed in these races, here is help from Harold Lewis' Bids, Tenders & Proposals, from Kogan Page (www.vivagroupindia.com).

The book begins with five key guidelines to set you on course. First, focus on the client's needs. "Following the client's instructions and supplying the information the client needs to reach this decision are matters of common sense; yet it is surprising how many bids fail in this respect," notes the author.

Second, match the bid to the opportunity. "The bid has to show that the person or people who wrote it thought hard about the client's requirements, interpreted them accurately, developed the bid specifically for that opportunity and exercised care in its preparation, and that it was not just patched together using copy-and-paste commands." Lewis advises that your aim has to be to establish `an invincible case for the superiority of the bid', by `working hard to get its content right and communicating its strengths as convincingly as possible.'

Third tip is to be honest and realistic about what you can achieve. "Don't oversell or inflate the bid with unrealisable promises," instructs the author. "If your bid is to have credibility, clients will want to see hard and convincing evidence that you mean to do what you say."

Fourth, ensure readability. While "no amount of slick phrasing can disguise a lack of technical substance," you can make it interesting and easy to read by writing in such a way `that conveys energy and enthusiasm'. And fifth, keep calm and be in control. "You need to get down to work!"

Turn the pages of his book, therefore, to know the difference between bidding for private and public sectors, learn how to write and present, pick up tips on pricing and evaluation. The penultimate chapter is on `tender auditing', where the author urges you to understand the reasons for success or failure. "Learn both from the bids that take you through to negotiation and from those that do not, and use the information to reinforce your tendering skills." Lewis provides a sample matrix with almost a dozen parameters to perform tender auditing. These include matching the bid specification, projection of value and benefit, client insight and so on.

The book closes with `ten true stories'. One of these is about a bid that reached the client's office, a public sector authority, five minutes after the deadline. "It was sent back unopened. The courier who brought it had been delayed in traffic and found difficulty in locating the client's address. The authority considered it had no option but to apply the rules of the competition strictly."

Inputs that you can't afford to delay paying heed to.

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