Tendersys professional bidding assistant

One of the problems we face in our daily work is preparing the perfect offer for our customers. The better it is, the better our chances of winning a sales opportunity. However, before we sit down with the whole team to create the perfect commercial offer, we need to familiarize ourselves with the customer's requirements included in the request for proposal, and in particular in the Terms of Reference (ToR). How to efficiently deal with the indigestible document of the ToR and present a tailor-made proposal to the potential customer?

Interesting ToR in your CRM

We can find information about tender competitions relatively quickly on various tender portals, which offer us the ability to monitor the database and send alerts about new inquiries. Thanks to them, we get notifications to our email inbox about tenders in which we may be interested. We can read the report we receive and, opening further tabs in a web browser, browse through the ToRs to select the ones that interest us, save the copied data in a file and proceed to prepare a bid. Alternatively, we can use Tendersys, our bidding assistant.

Tendersys will allow us to quickly take basic report information from any bidding system (such as Bizzone) and import it into an Excel file. As a result, instead of browsing through multiple sub-pages, we can view a single sheet and quickly compare information. Once we find the ones we're interested in in the thicket of queries, we can download the detailed data to Microsoft Dynamics 365. As a result, our CRM system will contain information about a potential tender announced by the Military University of Technology for "supply of ICT equipment, computer equipment, office equipment, a drone and VR 3600 cameras with equipment."

The specification of expectations for a tender offer must comply with Article 36 of the Public Procurement Law, and thus have the relevant elements. It is on this basis that Tendersys can efficiently retrieve data from an external database and map it in Dynamics 365, and we do not have to laboriously copy information cell by cell.

Tender and Potential Tender File

All information about tenders of interest is stored in the CRM system, which allows us to quickly find the tender of a selected client, analyze all historical tenders or compare our effectiveness in bidding processes over time. The system supports the collection of information about potential tenders and tenders. As a result, we can quickly verify the situation on the market, the open competitions in which we may be interested and the open tenders in which we are participating. The Potential Tender Directory collects information included in reports sent by tender portals and allows us to gather information about the results of competitions even if we do not participate in them.

The Tender File consists of data mapped from a potential tender, information contained in the ToR, such as the subject of the contract, the bid bond or the place and date for submitting bids, and information on what stage of the bidding process we are at. As a result, any authorized user will be able to quickly verify what needs to be done to complete a bid and participate in a tender.

By collecting data on tenders in one system, we gain the ability to analyze the market we are interested in. After the end of each competition, we can mark in the system what the result of the whole procedure was: who participated, who won it and what the competitors offered. In this way, we regularly build a database of tenders, which we can use when creating subsequent bids. Knowing what services and prices our competitors are offering, we will be able to create a bid that is attractive due to its scope and cost. Being aware of our company's external environment will allow us to maximize our competitiveness.

An essential document repository - MS SharePoint

During the bidding process, we receive, generate and attach a lot of documents (questions and answers, system documentation, customer requirements, the original ToR, quotation, price form and our company materials). The CRM system is not designed to store a large volume of attachments. For this reason, the tender file is integrated with SharePoint.

Tendersys relies on custom integration with MS SharePoint. This automatically creates a master folder and sub folders for each tender in the CRM system in our repository so that each document has a specific place. This allows us to store multiple documents in a structured way and efficiently find the files we need for our work.

Collaboration with MS SharePoint also plays a big role in building a database of publicly available documents that we regularly include in our bids, such as: catalog of ICT equipment, description of products and services, references and certificates.

Preparing a quote - teamwork

A key step in preparing our response to the ToR is developing a quote. Tendersys gives us the opportunity to divide the valuation process into stages depending on our role on the team. The vendor is responsible for the initial valuation of ICT equipment, computer equipment, office equipment, drone and VR 3600 cameras. Thanks to the pricing module, he can efficiently find products and services in the system, adding them to the subsequent items listed in the request for quotation. The system automatically enters the price of the service based on the data in the CRM system, but leaves the possibility to change the price based on the individual purchase price or the decision to give a discount. The system will also tell it how this type of equipment has been priced before - it will have knowledge of our bids, and in particular knowledge of previous bids directed to the same customer.

The vendor's valuation is not final - the sales manager responsible for implementing the tender has the final word. He is the one who can decide to make the bid more competitive, but at the same time reduce its profitability - he can reduce the valuation by modifying the margin on the products or negotiating better purchase prices for the products from the manufacturers. Tendersys will help him update the cost evaluation, remember the vendor's estimates and recalculate the prices for the customer based on the given margin.

Preparation of the offer document

Once the quotation is complete, we can prepare the final version of the quotation, i.e. combine all the developed documents into one coherent quotation file. We can do this manually or use another Tendersys module. Thanks to the intuitive document editor integrated with SharePoint, we can quickly select those files that we should include in our offer. The response to the ToR consists of information about the company and references issued by satisfied customers available from the general MS SharePoint folder and documents prepared specifically for the WAT tender. We can conveniently change the order of the documents in the bid with drag&drop, and we can watermark and stamp each confidential document (such as the Certificate of Non-Payment of Social Security Contributions).

Based on the order of the documents, Tendersys will prepare for us a table of contents page, a list of attachments and number all the pages of the offer. All we have to do is generate the offer file and save it in a dedicated SharePoint folder.

Bidding

Tendersys guides us through the entire bidding process like a real assistant, and that means it will also help us after the bid is prepared. It will remind us of the upcoming question period, the next stage of the bidding process or the bid submission date. We will eliminate the likelihood of missing the bid submission deadline and weeks of our work will not be in vain.

Because Dynamics 365 collects information about everything we do, we can analyze the time and cost involved in handling tenders. We will see which employees are the most efficient, which bids are winning tenders, and the likelihood of success in future competitions.

Personal Tender Assistant

Tendersys is a tool that works with Microsoft solutions. It allows us to work efficiently in one ecosystem - it uses data found in MS Dynamics 365, MS Excel and MS SharePoint. Thanks to it, we can quickly retrieve tender data, analyze it and efficiently prepare a bid. The system will remind us of upcoming deadlines, so that even in the heat of the work we won't forget to ask questions to the tenderer or the deadline for ordering components, so as to meet the deadline described in the ToR. Knowing the detailed requirements, analyzing the historical prices of the competition and matching the offer to our client, we increase our chances in the bidding competition. At the same time, we reduce the time required to handle a single tender and organize our work, which allows us to take part in more proceedings. Such results are pure profit.

‍